Trump nominates former wrestling CEO Linda McMahon and TV personality Dr Oz for cabinet roles

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated three big names to join his upcoming administration: former Worst Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) CEO Linda McMahon to serve as secretary of education, television personality and surgeon Dr Mehmet Oz to run Medicare and Medicaid, and Wall Street executive Howard Lutnick to be secretary of commerce.

Here's what you should know about the three new additions to the Trump roster.

Linda McMahon

McMahon stepped down as WWE CEO to enter politics in 2009. She then ran for a US Senate seat in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012, but lost twice. In 2016, she donated $6 million (€5.67 million) to Trump's presidential campaign after he secured the Republican nomination.

Once elected, Trump chose McMahon to lead the Small Business Administration. She left the administration in April 2019 but continued to support Trump as chair of America First Action, a Super PAC that backed his reelection campaign in 2020.

After Trump lost to current US President Joe Biden, McMahon helped found the America First Policy Institute, a right-wing operation that continued to push Trump's agenda during the Biden administration while preparing a policy platform for a potential second Trump presidency.

Should her nomination be approved, McMahon will be in charge of bringing schools and universities in the US in line with Trump and his allies' radical vision for the future of education.

Trump has been vocal about his goal to get rid of "left-wing indoctrination", vowing to cut federal funding for “any school pushing Critical Race Theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children”.

The former and future president also wants to forbid lessons on gender identity and structural racism, abolish diversity and inclusion offices, and has said he wants transgender athletes excluded from women's sports.

But McMahon’s biggest task may be to oversee the elimination of the agency she has been nominated to oversee.

Trump has promised to close the Education Department and entirely remove schools and universities from direct federal oversight — a longtime goal for the radical right of the Republican Party.

In a statement announcing McMahon's nomination on his bespoke social media platform, Truth Social, Trump wrote that "Linda will fight tirelessly to expand 'choice' to every State in America, and empower parents to make the best Education decisions for their families."

"We will send education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort."

Dr Mehmet Oz

Trump's choice to lead the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid is surgeon-turned-celebrity-doctor Mehmet Oz, who rose to fame via his appearances on Oprah Winfrey's show as a health expert.

His popularity only grew after he launched his own talk show, which aired for 13 seasons starting in 2009. Oz became a household name and won a reputation as a trusted and capable health expert.

But his show often blurred the line between medical advice and advertising, and in recent years, he has been accused of making misleading claims on his show. At a Senate hearing in 2014, Oz was directly accused by senators of knowingly peddling pseudoscience, such as the unsubstantiated claim that green coffee extract could be a "magic weight loss-cure for every body type".

If approved by the Senate, Oz would be responsible for Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act — federal healthcare programs on which more than half of the country rely on.

However, Oz has never held a policy job of any kind. His political experience mostly extends to a failed US Senate campaign in Pennsylvania in the 2022 midterm elections. He was endorsed by Trump in the Republican primary, but performed badly during the campaign and lost the race to Democrat John Fetterman.

In a statement on Truth Social, Trump said "America is facing a Healthcare Crisis, and there may be no physician more qualified and capable than Dr Oz to Make America Healthy Again".

But like many of Trump's choices so far, Oz has been greeted with condemnation from Senate Democrats.

In a post on social media platform X, the Senate's president pro tempore, Patty Murray, wrote that Oz "has zero qualifications, pushes alarming pseudoscience, & holds extreme anti-abortion views". She added that the CMS is "a critical agency" and insisted "we need serious leaders to protect Americans' health care and bring down costs — not TV hosts whose main qualification is their loyalty to Trump".

During his Senate campaign, Oz promised to expand Medicare Advantage, the government’s private version of the Medicare program, which has developed a growing problem with fraud via overbilling.

Howard Lutnick

Howard Lutnick, head of brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald and cryptocurrency enthusiast, is Trump's nominee for secretary of commerce.

Along with McMahon, he has also helped lead Trump's transition team, where he oversees personnel for a potential second Trump term.

An ardent backer of Israel in its campaign against Hamas and Hezbollah, Lutnick has said his decision to become more active in Trump's campaign was made after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October.

Lutnick was previously considered to head the US Treasury, but was deployed to the Department of Commerce instead amid fears that an overly disruptive Treasury nominee could have immediate negative consequences on the stock market.

If confirmed, Lutnick will oversee a cabinet department that is in charge of funding new computer chip factories, imposing trade restrictions, releasing economic data and monitoring the weather.

The commerce job would also put the billionaire and staunch cryptocurrency advocate in charge of Trump's plans to raise and enforce tariffs, the keystone of the former president's economic platform.

On the campaign trail, Trump proposed a 60% tariff on goods from China and a tariff of up to 20% on everything else the US imports. He portrayed the taxes as both a negotiating tool to hammer out better trade terms and as a way to generate revenue to fund tax cuts elsewhere, but his plans have been widely criticised as potentially catastrophic for the US economy, and in particular for consumers already struggling with high prices.

Lutnick is an advocate for imposing wide-ranging tariffs, and gave full-throated support for Trump's plans in a CNBC interview in September.

“Tariffs are an amazing tool for the president to use," he said. "We need to protect the American worker."