Pay to Play or Pay to Work? Trump Nominates Major Donor to Become Small Business Administration Head

McMahon Has Given Trump Super PAC and Foundation About $11 Million

Donald Trump has named former WWE CEO Linda McMahon to become his Small Business Administration chief. McMahon gave a Trump Super PAC $6 million during the final months of the campaign, despite having denounced his comments about women as “deplorable.”

McMahon, who ran for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut but failed, twice, is the top outside donor (along with her husband) to the Trump Foundation, giving the controversial family charity $5 million between 2007 and 2009 – more than Trump himself gave.

“The latest donations make Linda McMahon one of the GOP presidential nominee’s biggest outside benefactors,” the Washington Post reported in October.

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

What kind of an SBA chief will McMahon be?

“It is hard to think of any person whose life work has been more inimical to workers, and indeed to small businesses, than McMahon,” Deadspin observes. “WWE has made untold profits from using labor loopholes to classify its employees as “independent contractors,” denying them overtime despite grueling travel schedules and health care despite the physical toll taken by the job. WWE has made aggressive use of industry tax credits designed to create jobs even as it laid off workers, and smothered even the slightest unionization efforts. Her company has obtained a de facto monopoly in the pro wrestling business through a ruthless campaign of crushing, suing, and pricing out competitors, many of them actual small businesses. This is no less insulting than if Trump had picked someone from the Wal-Mart board.”

 

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