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Trump taps former WWE exec McMahon for small business

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  • ASSOCIATED PRESS

    Linda McMahon talked with reporters after a Nov. 30 meeting with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York.

WASHINGTON » President-elect Donald Trump is adding former wrestling executive Linda McMahon to his Cabinet as leader of the Small Business Administration.

McMahon and her husband, Vince, founded and built World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., now a publicly traded sports entertainment company. She stepped down as the company’s chief executive officer in 2009 and in recent years began a start-up to encourage more women business owners.

She also poured $100 million of her fortune into two unsuccessful bids for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut and has become an influential Republican donor.

“Linda is going to be a phenomenal leader and champion for small businesses and unleash America’s entrepreneurial spirit all across the country,” Trump said in a statement today.

Trump said she shares his vision of decreasing “burdensome regulations that are hurting our middle-class workers and small businesses.”

“As an entrepreneur myself, I have shared the experiences of our nation’s small business owners and will do my best to advocate on their behalf,” McMahon said in a statement. “My husband and I built our business from scratch, building it to a publicly traded global enterprise with more than 800 employees.”

McMahon has known Trump for three decades and contributed $5 million to his family charity, almost all of it in 2007. Trump has participated in WWE events, including a 2007 “Battle of the Billionaires,” during which he shaved Vince McMahon’s head.

Trump wasn’t McMahon’s first choice for president. She first backed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. But McMahon told The Associated Press in September that she was confident Trump would be a good president and said the two were on good terms.

“Once you’re his friend, he is loyal to the end,” she said. “He’s an incredibly loyal, loyal friend.”

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  • Just as Trump did, he’s putting people in his cabinet who had to meet a payroll and wrote checks on the front. Business and military people know how to get things done. This will not a politically correct Administration. Thankfully!!!!!

  • “She stepped down as the company’s chief executive officer in 2009 and in recent years began a start-up to encourage more women business owners.”

    Hopefully more small businesses will be started by women.

    So far… Trumps’ choices are people who had real jobs in private industries rather than Hussein’s career politicians. Being a “neighborhood organizer” limits his real-world thinking.

  • Where are the people from the coal, steel and auto industries that got him elected? Those who believed him when he said he was going to bring those jobs back. Also he’s threatening companies that leave the U.S with tariffs and the republican majority of congress is saying no. Linda McMahon is a perfect example of the type of people that the gullible Chumpsters are drawn to. The typical Chumpster who believes that the WWF is for real and will fight to their death defending that belief. Spooky!

    • Keaukaka, nobody gives a hoot what you have to say. Your candidate lost. Get over it. You are just trying to be an asinine. You don’t need to try. You are a natural. You and Jill Stein both.

    • keaukaha…you skimmed over this thread so fast you didn’t see my post above on the steel mfg.
      Slow down…get your info from anyplace but the MSM FAKE NEWS otherwise you gonna sound like how you sound now.

      What PE Trump has done in the last week is MORE than what O had done in his whole life & that’s no bulldung.

      January 20, 2017 #MAGA

      • Just watching the Chump build his circus of a cabinet and filling it with clowns. Don’t see the the three stooges newt, Huckabee and Rudy. They sold their as-es for the idio- and he turns around and looks to the Mitt as his choice for SOS. The guy who called him a fake and fraud and meant what he said. Watch out all you foo-s if he can do it to the stooges all you other suckers don’t mean shi- to him. Don’t see no loyalty by the Chump who only had the stooges in his corner when the whole world thought that he was going to lose.

        • The sooner you get over the MOST LOPSIDED LAND SLIDING SHOCKING LOSS of the CENTURY the more decent lib you’ll be…I hope.
          One of the most amazing things the libs don’t realize is that PE Trump IS NOT even in the office yet for crying out loud & they whining like the sky is gonna fall geesh!

          January 20, 2017 #MAGA

        • Dumm- winning the popular vote by more than two and half million votes makes me feel very confident that I am a part of the majority and the Chumpsters are the ones who will be eating crow if the Chump doesn’t get his shi- together soon. Only a matter of time.

        • You can’t even wean the dumm- off his twitter. Hope the fuc–ng idio- doesn’t mistake it for the nuclear code or it will really be kaboom.

  • strange.

    obama and clinton seem to have been sucked into the black hole of irrelevancy along with the main stream news media as trump continues to communicate directly with americans via either twitter or town meetings.

    trump remains the lead stories for many of the main stream media despite his disdain for awarding them platforms in press conferences where main stream media can spread their political ideology as false news masquerading as data driven reporting.

    news media do not know how to respond to someone who ignores them, has no use for them and has the means to communicate effectively and directly with americans.

    • The news media is responsible to keep the public informed period. The Chump has from the very start blackballed all attempts to release his tax returns. He is literally closing all transparent avenues to hold him accountable as the POTUS and the Chumpsters are allowing him to do it. The guy is a major scam artist and there is no doubt in my mind that all of you have been scammed big time.

      • What is strange is how he has literally hypnotized the weak minded to make an excuse for all of his broken promises. Thought he was going to drain the swamp. Reminds me of the guy who caught his wife in bed with his best friend and convinced himself that he was giving her a massage for a bad back.

      • Give it up already. You lost so stop whining. President Trump is doing a great job. Maybe you can get one now. Enjoy the evening as America is in good hands with a strong leader for a change.

  • Vince McMahon and Linda McMahon did not exactly build the WWE corporation from scratch. It was already a big business owned by his father. It was called WWWF and it was doing a sell out business. So Vince and Linda did not exactly build it from scratch.

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