Trump picks Linda McMahon for education, and says he won’t reconsider Matt Gaetz nomination – as it happened | Donald Trump

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The Los Angeles city council on Tuesday unanimously passed a “sanctuary city” ordinance to protect immigrants living in the city, a policy that would prohibit the use of city resources and personnel to carry out federal immigration enforcement, Reuters reports.

The move by the Southern California city, the second most populated city in the US after New York City, follows President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to carry out mass deportations of immigrants.

The ordinance codifies the protection of migrants in municipal law. Council member Paul Krekorian said the measure addresses “the need to ensure that our immigrant community here in Los Angeles understands that we understand their fear.”

Linda McMahon has been a constant presence in Donald Trump’s tumultuous orbit, serving in his first administration and supporting his presidential campaigns. Now he’s chosen her to serve as Education secretary.

McMahon chaired America First Action, a super PAC that backed Trump’s reelection campaign in 2020. He lost to Democrat Joe Biden, and McMahon helped start the America First Policy Institute to continue advocating for Trump’s agenda and prepare for a potential return to the White House.

McMahon is married to Vince McMahon, whose father was a prominent professional wrestling promoter. They followed him into the business, founding their own company that’s now known as World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE. It became a juggernaut in the industry and American culture.

When Trump was the star of the reality show “The Apprentice,” he made an appearance at Wrestlemania in 2007. The billionaire entertainment mogul participated in an elaborately scripted feud that ended with Trump shaving off Vince McMahon’s hair in the middle of the ring.

Linda McMahon stepped down from her position as WWE’s chief executive to enter politics. She ran twice for a US Senate seat in Connecticut, but lost in 2010 to Richard Blumenthal and in 2012 to Chris Murphy.

McMahon provided $6m to help Trump’s candidacy after he secured the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. McMahon served on the Connecticut Board of Education for a year starting in 2009. She told lawmakers at the time that she had a lifelong interest in education and once planned to become a teacher, a goal that fell aside after her marriage.

She also spent years on the board of trustees for Sacred Heart University in Connecticut.

McMahon is seen as a relative unknown in education circles, though she has expressed support for charter schools and school choice.

In October, McMahon was named in a new lawsuit involving the WWE. The suit alleges that she and other leaders of the company allowed the sexual abuse of young boys at the hands of a ringside announcer, former WWE ring crew chief Melvin Phillips Jr. The complaint specifically alleges that the McMahons knew about the abuse and failed to stop it.

Bloomberg reports that Trump plans to interview former federal reserve governor Kevin Warsh and billionaire Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan for the role of treasury secretary on Wednesday.

CNN reported earlier that Trump could name his pick for secretary on Wednesday.

Since 2021, McMahon has served as Washington DC-based thinktank America First Policy Institute’s board chairperson and chair of its Center for the American Worker.

A former Senate candidate in Connecticut, McMahon is also the chair and chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald and a former executive of the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), which she co-founded with her husband, Vince McMahon.

In October, McMahon was named in a new lawsuit involving the WWE. The suit alleges that she and other leaders of the company allowed the sexual abuse of young boys at the hands of a ringside announcer, former WWE ring crew chief Melvin Phillips Jr. The complaint specifically alleges that the McMahons knew about the abuse and failed to stop it.

An attorney for the McMahons told USA TODAY Sports that the allegations are “false claims” stemming from reporting that the couple deems “absurd, defamatory and utterly meritless”.

Trump has just confirmed that his nomination for education secretary is Linda McMahon.

McMahon, who had been in the running for commerce secretary, headed up the Small Business Administration in Trump’s first administration and was a major donor and early supporter of the Republican president-elect when he first ran for the White House almost a decade ago.

The co-founder and former CEO of the WWE professional wrestling franchise, she resigned from the SBA in 2019 to lead the pro-Trump spending group America First Action. She also chairs the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-friendly think tank.

In his statement, Trump said:

It is my great honor to announce that Linda McMahon, former Administrator of the Small Business Administration, will be the United States Secretary of Education.

For the past four years, as the Chair of the Board at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), Linda has been a fierce advocate for Parents’ Rights, working hard at both AFPI and America First Works (AFW) to achieve Universal School Choice in 12 States, giving children the opportunity to receive an excellent Education, regardless of zip code or income. As Secretary of Education, Linda will fight tirelessly to expand “Choice” to every State in America, and empower parents to make the best Education decisions for their families.

Mexico’s top economy officials on Tuesday downplayed concerns about trade talks with Donald Trump’s administration, saying the potential impact on American companies could give the incoming US president second thoughts about levying massive tariffs.

Trump campaigned on a pledge to roll out a slew of tariffs, including for firms that had moved operations to Mexico, in a bid to restore jobs in the US Economists have warned that such tariffs would amount to a serious blow to Mexico’s export-dependent economy and have warned of a lesser hit to the US economy.

“Mexico’s negotiation power is relevant,” Mexico’s economy minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said at a press conference on Tuesday, pointing to the number of multinational firms that have set up shop in his country.

“Any action that you take to put at risk (the US-Mexico trade relationship) means thousands of companies” will be impacted, Ebrard said.

“There’s hardly an important US company that doesn’t have money here.”

Trump is expected to name Linda McMahon as education secretary, CNN reports, citing four sources familiar with the matter, putting the former pro-wrestling mogul at the helm of a department Trump has proposed abolishing.

McMahon, who had been in the running for commerce secretary, headed up the Small Business Administration in Trump’s first administration and was a major donor and early supporter of the Republican president-elect when he first ran for the White House almost a decade ago.

The co-founder and former CEO of the WWE professional wrestling franchise, she resigned from the SBA in 2019 to lead the pro-Trump spending group America First Action. She also chairs the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-friendly think tank.

Trump tapped her to co-lead a transition team formed to help vet personnel and draft policy ahead of the 5 November election.

McMahon had been in the mix to head the Commerce Department, but Trump on Tuesday instead chose her transition team co-leader – Cantor Fitzgerald Chief Executive Howard Lutnick – for that post. Now she will lead an agency Trump said on the campaign trail that he would abolish, although he likely lacks authority to do it without congressional approval.

Businesses are bracing for the economic impact of a second Trump presidency, which, if his campaign promises are to be believed, will mean tariffs across nearly all imports to the US, especially those from China.

But amid the gloom over the spectre of a renewed global trade war, some manufacturers may be looking to those who already have a playbook on dealing with aggressive US levies, such as China’s solar companies.

China all but owns the global solar market. Its share in every stage of the solar panel manufacturing chain exceeds 80%, according to the International Energy Agency. Last year it exported a record high of 227 gigawatts (GW) of solar panels – more than the entire installed solar capacity of the United States.

The Guardian’s Amy Hawkins and Helen Davidson report:

California voters have rejected a ballot measure that would have raised state’s minimum wage to a national high of US$18 per hour, the Associated Press reports.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed lost her re-election race to Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie.

The Associated Press called the race Tuesday.

In conceding the race to Lurie, Breed, 50, pledged a smooth transition for the incoming mayor.

“Being Mayor of San Francisco has been the greatest honor of my lifetime. I’m beyond grateful to our residents for the opportunity to serve the City that raised me,” she said in a statement last week.

Breed’s victory six years ago as the city’s first Black female mayor — who grew up poor and in public housing — showed that no dream was impossible in the progressive, compassionate and equitable city.

She won election as mayor in June 2018 to serve out the remainder of Ed Lee’s term, who died suddenly while in office.

The authorization would be a reversal of an Obama-era policy revived by Biden in 2022 that banned the transfer and use of US antipersonnel landmines outside the Korean Peninsula, the Washington Post reports.

An official, cited in the story, said Ukraine had committed to not using the mines in densely populated areas.