Trump picks Linda McMahon and Mehmet Oz to serve in top roles
Donald Trump has selected World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) co-founder and transition co-chair Linda McMahon as his nominee for education secretary.
A longtime Trump ally, McMahon led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term as president and donated millions of dollars to his presidential campaign.
In announcing his selection of Truth Society, Trump said McMahon would “leverage her decades of leadership experience and deep understanding of education and business to empower the next generation of American students and workers.”
Trump has criticized the Department of Education and promised to close it — a task McMahon would likely take on.
Her nomination came shortly after Trump selected celebrity doctor and former television host Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Two choices for Tuesday and Trump selects Howard Lutnick as commerce secretaryfollows a pattern of president-elect nominating loyal supporters to top cabinet positions.
McMahon has a long history with WWE and Trump, having made occasional appearances at wrestling events. She co-founded the wrestling league with her husband in 1980 and resigned as CEO in 2009 after losing her bid for Senate.
She has little background in education but served on the Connecticut State Board of Education from 2009 to 2010.
She is chair of the board of directors of the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank, which means she is likely to be confirmed in the Republican-majority Senate.
“For the past four years, Linda has been a fierce advocate for parents’ rights as chair of the board of directors of the America First Policy Institute,” Trump said in a statement.
He said McMahon would “lead the effort” to “send education back to the states,” referring to his pledge to close the department.
McMahon was named in a lawsuit filed last month involving WWE.
She, her husband and other company leaders allegedly knowingly allowed young boys to be abused by a ringside announcer who died in 2012.
The McMahons deny wrongdoing. An attorney for both men told USA TODAY Sports that the charges are “false accusations” stemming from “ridiculous, defamatory and baseless” media reports.
Trump earlier selected Muhammad Oz to run the powerful agency that oversees health care for millions of Americans.
Oz, who was selected to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, trained as a surgeon before becoming famous on Oprah in the early 2000s and later hosting his own television show.
Oz has been criticized by experts for promoting what they called bad health advice about weight loss pills and “miracle” cures, and for recommending the use of malaria drugs to treat Covid-19 early in the pandemic.
“There may be no doctor more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to make America healthy again,” Trump said in a statement.
The Trump transition team said in a statement that Oz “will work closely with (health secretary nominee) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to confront the disease industrial complex and all the horrific chronic diseases that come with it.” .
Olds will need Senate confirmation next year to officially take charge of the agency.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services oversees the largest health care plan in the United States, providing coverage to more than 150 million Americans. The agency regulates health insurance and sets policies that guide prices for medical services by doctors, hospitals and drug companies.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. government will spend more than $1.4 trillion combined on Medicaid and Medicare in 2023.
Trump said in a statement that Oz would “reduce waste and fraud within our nation’s most expensive government agencies,” and the Republican platform promised to increase transparency, choice and competition and expand access to health care and prescription drugs.
Oz, 64, trained as a cardiothoracic surgeon, specializing in heart and lung surgery, and worked at Presbyterian Hospital in New York City and Columbia University.
After appearing on dozens of Oprah’s shows, he founded “The Dr. Oz Show” to offer health advice to viewers.
But the line between propaganda and science on the show wasn’t always clear, with Oz recommending homeopathy, alternative medicine and other treatments that critics called “pseudoscience.”
During a 2014 Senate hearing, he was criticized for supporting unproven drugs that he said could “literally flush fat out of your system” and “flush fat out of your belly.”
During the hearing, Oz said he never sold any specific dietary supplements on the show. But he has publicly endorsed products on air and disclosed his financial ties to health care companies in a profile he filled out during his 2022 campaign for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Oz promoted the anti-malarial drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, which experts say are ineffective against the virus.
