Donald Trump's close collaborator and former administrator of the US Small Business Administration, Linda McMahon, was chosen by the president-elect to lead the Department of Education.
The president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, announced on Tuesday night the selection of Linda McMahon as his candidate to lead the Department of Education.
McMahon served as head of the Small Business Administration during Trump's previous term and is well known for her decades-long role helping run World Wrestling Entertainment, a US wrestling promotion company.
“Linda will use her decades of leadership experience and deep knowledge of both education and business to empower the next generation of American students and workers and make the United States number one in education in the world,” Trump said. in a statement.
“We will bring education back to America and Linda will lead that effort,” he added.
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump nominated Wall Street financier Howard Lutnick as Commerce Secretary in his new administration.
The 63-year-old billionaire is co-chair of Trump's transition team and helps consider and vet numerous people to take on high-level government jobs after Trump takes office on Jan. 20. Lutnick has been a vocal Trump supporter in recent months.
Lutnick, CEO and chairman of global financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, was reported to be in the running to become Treasury secretary, another top job that Trump has yet to fill.
But Trump associates say Lutnick fell out of favor in his bid for office amid conflicts with another prominent candidate, investor Scott Bessent.
If confirmed by the Senate, Lutnick could play an important role in implementing the president's economic and trade policies.
Trump has proposed widespread increases in tariffs on imported goods, an effort to boost American manufacturing of the same products but which in the short term threatens to raise prices for American consumers and disrupt the global economy.
The Commerce Department oversees a range of federal trade policies, including semiconductors, cybersecurity and patents, and helps promote new business and growth in the United States, considered the world's largest economy.
Lutnick has donated to Democrats and Republicans in the past. Lutnick also appeared on the NBC reality show “The Apprentice,” the show Trump appeared on before he was first elected president in 2016.
The Cantor Fitzgerald firm that Lutnick runs lost more employees (658 out of 960) than any other company in the September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda terrorist attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Another 46 contractors and visitors who were at the Cantor Fitzgerald offices that day died when the towers collapsed.
Lutnick's brother, Gary, was among the dead when the hijackers crashed commercial airliners into the skyscrapers, hitting the North Tower just below where Cantor Fitzgerald occupied floors 101 through 105. Howard Lutnick would have also been there, but he was carrying his son Kyle to his first day of kindergarten.
Back at the scene, Lutnick survived the collapse of the South Tower by taking cover under a nearby car. He later created the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund to help families of victims of attacks and natural disasters.
On Tuesday, Trump also named Dr. Mehmet Oz, a veteran talk show host, as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Servicesthe agency that oversees the government's two key health insurance programs for older Americans and the impoverished.
Trump endorsed Oz's failed bid to win a Pennsylvania Senate seat in 2022.