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Donald Trump’s win in November means not only that the former president will once again be living in the White House, but that dozens upon dozens of the most consequential positions in the federal government affecting every walk of life in America will be staffed by cronies of his choosing.

Trump has been on nomination tear since defeating Kamala Harris, tapping what seems like just about everyone in his orbit to join his administration — whether it be vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the nation’s health services,...

Donald Trump is rewarding many of his donors with important roles in his upcoming administration. Almost three dozen people tapped to serve in his White House donated to his campaign or to groups that supported his election, according to a CNN analysis of federal campaign records.

A dozen of Biden’s cabinet picks gave to his campaign or pro-Biden super PACs, but donations by Trump’s cabinet picks dwarf their total contributions. In total, Biden’s cabinet nominees gave less than $100,000 while Trump’s picks and their spouses gave a...

Even though he’s now the President-Elect, when it comes to Donald Trump, there are just so many things about his life that don’t make sense to both fans and critics on both sides of the aisle. And of course, a lot of people want to know why.

Things About Donald Trump That Doesn’t Make Sense

Everything from his personal life to his professional life has raised eyebrows these last several months. Sure, he managed to win the presidency, but there are still a lot of things that are going on behind the scenes that are raising eyebrows among his supporters.

According to the latest reports, Donald Trump taps former WWE executive Linda McMahon to serve as education secretary.

McMahon strongly opposes Dei programs, calling them “irrelevant to training skilled workers” adding that the policies “add costs and administrative burdens to all apprenticeship programs.”

Trump also went off on Adam Schiff,...

When it comes to Donald Trump, you just never know what’s on his mind at any given time. That’s only of course he’s not speaking his mind, right?

Bizarre And Mysterious Things About Donald Trump

And while a lot of people can agree that half the country loves him and half the country hates him, there are still some things about Donald Trump that just doesn’t make sense, no matter how transparent he tries to be.

In fact, many people would even argue that there are things about the President-Elect that often come across as quite bizarre and even mysterious.

Donald Trump is not even in the White House yet and he’s already making moves that has many of his fans and critics on both sides of the aisle raising their eyebrows.

It’s being said that Donald Trump is expected to kick transgender troops...

Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Health and Human Services Department is an alarming choice, given Kennedy’s fringe medical views and history of making misleading and often incorrect statements about health matters. Making things worse, the president-elect has opted to surround Rfk Jr. with a series of conspiracy theorists and equally unqualified individuals.

Yet, one bit of news about Kennedy’s plans as Hhs secretary is giving liberal wonks a glimmer of hope. Reports indicate Kennedy is considering an effort to overhaul Medicare’s payment formula.

Is Linda McMahon divorced from her controversial husband, Vince McMahon?

It’s a topic that’s been the source of widespread speculation in the days since Donald Trump nominated Linda as his administration’s secretary of education.

Linda is a controversial pick for numerous reasons, not the least of which are the recent scandals involving her husband.

World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. CEO Linda McMahon and her husband, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon, appear in the ring during Vince McMahon’s 64th birthday celebration. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) Vince’s History of Scandal

In 2022, Vince abruptly resigned as head of the WWE amid numerous sexual harassment allegations.

“As I approach 77 years old, I feel it’s time for me to retire as Chairman and CEO of WWE,” Vince said in a statement released at the time.

“Throughout the years, it’s been a privilege to help WWE bring you joy,...

True to character, Donald Trump is already flouting ethics laws and norms even before he takes office as president in 2025. The president-elect is accepting secret donations to fund his transition while refusing to sign ethics pledges or deliver an ethics plan mandated by the Presidential Transitions Act. The transition also has not signed an agreement with the Federal Bureau of Investigation that would allow the agency to do background checks on Trump nominees.

The transition has missed deadlines in September and October despite transition team leaders Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon...

Exclusive: Director Matt Tyrnauer is doing a rapid update of his new documentary Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid to reflect Donald Trump’s win in the presidential election. Deadline has learned the filmmaker quickly assembled a crew to shoot a new interview with the famed Democratic political consultant to include as a coda to the film.

“The election wasn’t decided when we finished the film just a few weeks ago,” Tyrnauer explains. “We now know the outcome and I felt that I wanted to put a period at the end of the sentence.”

The recut version is now streaming on Max. “There was a reshuffling of a few elements that are almost invisible,” Tyrnauer says. “Then we give the outcome the election, and then James gives what is almost like his homily — or, battle cry is maybe a better term — which is we’re an opposition party… And that...

Whoopi Goldberg and her co-hosts on The View do not seem to close their discussions on Joe Rogan anytime soon. However, there might be one voice in the show who could see things a little more neutral and doesn’t hate Rogan. Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former Assistant to the President during Donald Trump’s earlier presidency, joined as a permanent co-host on the show from 2022.

Whoopi Goldberg in a still from The View | Credits: ABC

Griffin was one of the former Trump administration officials who endorsed Kamala Harris during this election. However, Griffin refused to jump onto the hate wagon against Rogan and other X influencers. Griffin wanted the left and right to have conversations and not go into their own echo chambers.

One Co-Host On The View Sees Rationale Amidst Whoopi Goldberg And Others’ Blinding Hate Alyssa Farah Griffin in The View | Credits: ABC

Whoopi Goldberg and The View...

Jon Stewart weighed in on Donald Trump’s cabinet picks, arguing that the president-elect doesn’t see some of his more confounding selections a drawback, but rather a plus, given his previously-stated goals of overhauling and eliminating several of the country’s key agencies.

“I think we’re missing the mark on the idea that these picks will not be sufficient stewards of these agencies and administrations as a downside,” Stewart said on his Weekly Show podcast‘s Thursday episode, while also calling loyalty to Trump a “big factor” in the picks.

It’s only been one hot minute since he’s been the President-Elect and it looks like he’s been making so many waves, some critics are surprised that he hasn’t created a tsunami yet.

And it looks like he’s done it again with his latest pick for his new cabinet. Keep reading below for everything you need to know.

Donald Trump Makes Another Very Controversial Move

According to the latest reports, Donald Trump taps former WWE executive Linda McMahon to serve as education secretary.

As many fans are probably aware of, McMahon is a co-chair of Trump’s presidential transition team and headed the Small Business Administration during his first presidency.

It’s also been noted that McMahon strongly opposes Dei programs, calling them “irrelevant to training skilled workers” adding that the policies “add costs and administrative burdens to all apprenticeship programs.”

“As Secretary of Education, Linda...

President-elect Donald Trump continues to announce comically terrible cabinet picks seemingly plucked out of half-remembered TV listings from 2013. Now he’s added Dr. Mehmet Oz to a lineup that already includes Fox News hosts Sean Duffy (formerly of The Real World) and Pete Hegseth, as well as WWE co-founder Linda McMahon.

Dr. Oz has been tapped to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a decision that’s led a lot of folks online to make jokes comparing Trump’s pick to another famous TV quack: Dr. Nick Riviera.

But that’s not exactly a fair comparison — to Dr. Nick, that is.

Sure, Dr. Nick’s not perfect. He lost his watch during an operation, dispenses opioids from a Pez dispenser, once stole cadavers in order to drive in the carpool lane and surgically swapped poor Mr. McGreg’s arm and leg.

But Dr. Nick may just be a better physician than Dr.

A recent episode of The View got so heated between Sunny Hostin and Alyssa Farah Griffin that Whoopi Goldberg had to step in and shut everything down.

Whoopi moderates The View and frequently takes direction from the producers, who tell her when to pause and go to the commercial.

Most of the time, she fights the clock a bit if she’s mid-sentence, but this time was a different story, and Whoopi hastily called a halt to an interchange that kept escalating.

A recent fight between Sunny and Alyssa caused Whoopi to shut down the discussion and send the show into a commercial break to end the chaos.

Fans have commented on Sunny’s behavior in the recent past since she has been so angry over the election results that she has been snippy with the other ladies.

As Monsters and Critics has reported, Sunny has attacked several of her co-hosts,...

Update, with video: Donald Trump hasn’t even taken office yet and today there was already a sense of discord and bad vibes on The View that has barely been seen since You Know Who’s first term and Meghan McCain’s tenure on the ABC daytime talk show.

A heated, cross-talking debate on school vouchers between liberal prosecutor Sunny Hostin and Republican (and former Trump staffer) Alyssa Farah Griffin was interrupted several times by an increasingly frustrated Whoopi Goldberg whose attempt at moderating the discussion was met with continued arguing.

“Don’t make me shut this bad boy down again,” an angry Goldberg said after Hostin and Griffin resumed their cross-talking even after a commercial break that seemed meant to calm things down.

Watch the segment below.

The debate – Hostin is opposed to vouchers, Griffin in favor – came during a Hot Topics discussion of Trump’s intention to name...

Another day, another round of jaw-dropped cohost reactions to Donald Trump‘s latest cabinet picks. This time, on Wednesday’s (November 20) episode, the hot topic of the day was the nominations of Dr. Mehmet Oz to head up Medicare and Medicaid programs and the WWE’s Linda McMahon as Secretary of Education. And, as has become increasingly common lately, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Sunny Hostin got into a heated tiff during the conversation. Whoopi Goldberg introduced the segment by noting that there are “two more TV stars” potentially joining in the incoming administration. Then, Joy Behar noted that Dr. Oz, though a heart surgeon, doesn’t have administrative experience, and added, “They might as well pick Dr. Pimple-Popper.” Behar then went on to guess that Trump is “in burning-down mode” and wants to “just destroy all these organizations and start all over it again… Something like that is going on in his brain.

After the recent string of Donald Trump‘s TV-famous cabinet picks, The Late Show‘s Stephen Colbert is wondering why he hasn’t been offered a position in the administration yet. The late-night host opened Tuesday’s (November 19) episode by continuing to analyze the president-elect’s baffling cabinet picks, which now includes former WWE CEO Linda McMahon as his Secretary of Education and Dr. Mehmet Oz as the man in charge of Medicaid and Medicare. Focusing on the Dr. Oz news, Colbert said Trump is “still just picking people he sees on TV” before joking, “Next up, the head of Amtrak goes to Thomas the Tank Engine.” “In a statement, Trump talked about Oz’s education, his surgical work. Meow, meow, meow… then the real reason he picked him: ‘He won nine Daytime Emmy Awards hosting The Dr. Oz Show,’” Colbert continued. “I didn’t know winning TV awards qualified...

Jimmy Kimmel commented on Donald Trump’s nomination of former Fox Business host Sean Duffy for secretary of transportation during his Tuesday night monologue, calling it “one of his least embarrassing picks.”

Though Duffy served as a U.S. representative for Wisconsin from 2011 to 2019, he started his career in the ’90s as a reality star, which Kimmel was quick to point out.

“Duffy served in Congress for eight years, but you know what he did before that? He was on ‘The Real World’ and ‘Road Rules’ on MTV,” Kimmel said. “[Trump] hired the guy from ‘Road Rules’ to be secretary of transportation, because of course he did — the word ‘road’ is right in there.”

Kimmel continued, “And that’s one of his least embarrassing picks. Maybe he’ll pick one of the Teen Moms to be secretary of labor!”

He cracked that Trump’s appointments are like a “season of ‘Dancing With the Stars....

Donald Trump’s leftfield cabinet choices have continued with the nomination of WWE co-founder Linda McMahon for Education Secretary.

Trump announced the pick just after he chose TV doctor Mehmet Oz to serve as administrator of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services on his Truth Social app last night, saying that McMahon would “use her decades of leadership experience, and deep understanding of both Education and Business, to empower the next Generation of American Students and Workers.”

Trump has known McMahon for a long while and has had a long-time association with World Wrestling Entertainment. She served during his first presidency leading the Small Business Administration and has donated to his campaign.

McMahon, who resigned as CEO of WWE in 2009 to run for senate, is tasked with leading a department that Trump has been heavily critical of, and one that he has said could be closed down.

Oz, known as Dr. Oz on screen,...

President-elect Donald Trump nominated his transition co-chair Linda McMahon to serve as secretary of the Department of Education.

McMahon, a major Republican donor and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), headed the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term. After donating a reported $814,600 to Trump’s campaign as of July, McMahon was made transition team chair in August.

“Linda will use her decades of Leadership experience, and deep understanding of both Education and Business, to empower the next Generation of American Students and Workers, and make America Number...

Much has been made of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise to purge the federal government of officials unwilling to be loyal to his agenda. He’s now positioned to make good on that promise during the next 10 weeks of his presidential transition.

Though he’s denied it, this promise reflects the goals of one of Trump’s main supporters, the powerful, far-right Heritage Foundation. At the center of the Heritage’s Project 2025 playbook is a far-reaching, but meekly named, plan dubbed Schedule F. Loyalty to anyone other than the president,...

With the possible exception of Melania, few people have a better bead on Donald Trump than Michael Wolff, the veteran journalist and author who spent much of 2017 quietly embedded in the White House, a fly on the wall during the chaotic first year of Trump’s tumultuous first term. Wolff’s book about that period, Fire and Fury, was an immediate smash hit, selling almost 2 million copies at last count. (He followed it up with two other popular books on the Trump presidency, Siege and Landslide.)

So, last Thursday, shortly after the 45th president became the 47th, Wolff was naturally our first call. What does he predict for the next four years? Who will be in Trump’s new inner circle? How will his second reign upend life in Hollywood and the world beyond? Is it time to jump on a jet to New Zealand? (Not just yet, Wolff says.

While we have often heard of the powerhouse Vince McMahon, his wife of 58 years, Linda McMahon is no less. A prominent professional wrestling and business figure, she has built her own career thanks to her corporate success and political ventures. Known primarily as the former CEO of WWE and Vince McMahon’s wife, she has been as essential to the success of the World Wrestling Federation as her husband, transforming it into a multimedia empire under her leadership.

Linda McMahon | Credit: Image by Gage Skidmore licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

A mainstay in sports entertainment and mainstream culture, Linda has been actively involved with politics and has played a crucial role in Donald Trump’s political campaigns. Her political alignment with the former and now upcoming president of the United States of America is well documented, stemming from years of professional interactions and mutual support in each other’s ventures.

Pre-election transition planning is famously so tight-lipped that you’d barely know it is happening when you read the news of the day. The dreaded headline claims the candidate is “measuring the drapes of the White House” long before any votes are counted. Opposing campaigns are all too eager to pounce on the arrogance of that presumption.

This is why the recent trickle of news about the Trump transition planning is so intriguing — particularly the revelation that Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is serving as a transition whisperer.

Earlier...

On Wednesday, five men who had worked as “ring boys” for World Wrestling Entertainment as young teenagers in the 1980s filed a lawsuit alleging that they were groomed and sexually abused by ring crew boss and ring announcer Mel Phillips on the company’s watch. The suit, filed by five John Does, names WWE, parent company Tko Group Holdings, and WWE co-founders/former executives Vince and Linda McMahon as defendants. (Phillips died in 2012.) The suit paints a picture of Phillips as someone to whom WWE gave unfettered access to kids...

With just weeks to go in this election, we are on the brink of another transfer of power, with a near 50/50 chance that Donald Trump will again be preparing to govern. Ominous signs right now suggest Trump’s plan for this transition is chaotic and risky, flouting rules established to keep the country safe and secure.

What is most worrisome about the Trump planning, though, is the dangerous game of chicken he is playing with the outgoing Biden White House. We recently learned that the Trump transition team has not...

Fans couldn’t understand why Vince McMahon would distance himself from the Netflix documentary Mr. McMahon. The series has disappointed fans who were looking to get a peek into “the real Vince McMahon” as the promo of the series had originally promised. Long-time wrestling fans found it to be the compilation of all the known controversies against the former CEO of WWE.

Vince McMahon | Credits: WWE

Mr. McMahon began work way before the Janel Grant lawsuit against McMahon. In the wake of the allegations and McMahon’s removal from WWE, the docu-series almost took a different path as filmmaker Chris Smith now gained access to talent and footage that the former CEO would’ve never signed off on.

Fans Find Mr. McMahon As A Compilation Of Controversies With Nothing New To Offer A still poster of the docuseries Mr. McMahon | Credits: Netflix

Vince McMahon‘s ring stories go on about...

Attorney Ann Callis of Holland Law Firm, who represents former World Wrestling Entertainment employee Janel Grant in her sexual misconduct lawsuit against Vince McMahon, the former CEO of WWE, gave a virtual press conference on Thursday ahead of the Sept. 25 premiere of the Netflix documentary series Mr. McMahon. Grant, Callis said, does not appear in and has not seen the show, which features interviews with McMahon and WWE stars including John Cena, Steve Austin, Dwayne Johnson, and Hulk Hogan.

Grant’s allegedly traumatic experience with McMahon, Callis said, is “integral...

Hulkamania is going to run wild at the Republican National Convention. As reported by multiple outlets, Terry “Hulk Hogan” Bollea will speak before Donald Trump officially accepts the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday night.

What’s more, longtime Trump supporter Kid Rock will perform at the event after boasting on social media that he would be on hand to support the “American badass president.” He also hinted at doing something wild, asking, “Are you scared?”

CNN anchor Jake Tapper has posted a video of Kid Rock’s soundcheck, during which he appeared to be rehearsing a new song inspired by the assassination attempt on Trump. Check it out below.

Hogan has teased political aspirations over the past several years. In 2018, he claimed that former Trump advisor Roger Stone was pushing him to run for US Senate. More recently, the former WWE wrestler told Fox & Friends that “we need somebody in...

At the Republican National Convention, numerous speakers have been trotted out as so-called “everyday Americans.” Tonight, the list of “everyday Americans” will include Diane Hendricks, a woman who has topped Forbes’ Richest Self-Made Women list for seven years in a row and has a net worth of $20 billion.

Hendricks has donated millions to support Donald Trump’s political rise and played a key role in his shocking 2016 victory in Wisconsin — before scoring a massive tax deduction as a result of Trump’s 2017 tax law. She’s scheduled to speak at...

Donald Trump’s acceptance speech will be the highlight of the final night of the Republican National Convention, but the other speaker lineup will have the feel of a cage match.

Hulk Hogan has been added to the lineup. The entertainer and wrestler sued Gawker for invasion of privacy over the publication of an excerpt of a sex tape. Hogan won and the case was eventually settled, but the case put Gawker out of business. As it turned out, venture capitalist Peter Thiel financed Hogan’s lawsuit. Thiel also helped bankroll vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance’s 2022 U.S. Senate campaign, donating $15 million to a super Pac supporting his candidacy.

Other speakers to be featured tonight include Dana White, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship and Linda McMahon, former CEO of WWE and Small Business Administration administrator during Trump’s presidency.

Other speakers will include Tucker Carlson, Trump attorney Alina Habba,...

Tucker Carlson is among the celebrity names slated to speak at next week’s Republican National Convention, reportedly in a plum spot on Thursday night before Donald Trump himself accepts the party nomination.

In addition to a long list of elected officials who are backing Trump, the speaker lineup also includes celebrities like Amber Rose, the model, rapper and former stripper; Dana White, the CEO of UFC; and Savannah Chrisley, the TV personality whose parents are serving prison time for fraud and tax evasion. Also on the bill: Lee Greenwood and Chris Janson.

Notably missing from the lineup: Former First Lady Melania Trump and the former president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump. They each spoke at the 2016 and 2020 conventions.

House GOP leaders like Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Majority Whip Tom Emmer are on the list, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Minority Whip John Thune and Republican...

Vince McMahon was leading a fairly perfect life after having co-founded the modern WWE with his wife, Linda McMahon. But then everything came crashing down on him with a series of serious allegations from a former employee that the 78-year-old McMahon had to resign from his position as the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment.

Vince McMahon. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Yet, what’s worse is that his sad story didn’t even end with this sacrifice. According to recent reports, McMahon is said to have reportedly joined the list of all those celebrities whose names are banned from being spoken on the promotion’s programming — something that Brock Lesnar’s wife is very well aware of, being a member of it herself.

Vince McMahon’s Name Reportedly Banned From WWE TV

While Vince McMahon may have indeed contributed a major hand behind the establishment of the modern World Wrestling Entertainment, his...

Shares in Truth Social parent Trump Media & Technology Group gave back most of their initial gains but still posted a strong debut on the Nasdaq, boosting the value of Donald Trump’s majority stake.

The start of trading for the stock, which resulted from a Spac merger finalized last week, was not accompanied by the usual Wall Street pageantry of an opening-bell ceremony or a gladhanding photo shoot. Still, a surge of initial interest in the stock Tuesday morning prompted market officials to briefly halt trading. Once it resumed, shares eventually cooled off after rising as much as 50%, though they still rose 16% on the day to finish at $57.99.

At that price, Trump’s roughly 60% stake in the company would be worth about $4.5 billion, a conveniently timed windfall given the former president’s many legal obligations. A judge on Monday gave him a reprieve in a civil fraud case in New York,...

Vince McMahon, who has been in the news for all the wrong reasons, is currently treated as someone with whom Tko group and WWE do not want to get involved. His face has now been blurred out of the company’s new video game. Publisher 2K confirmed that McMahon has been cut following the allegations of s*xual assault and trafficking against him made earlier this year.

Former WWE boss Vince McMahon

McMahon left the organization following an ex-wwe employee’s lawsuit accusing him of assault. Apart from being the real-life boss of the wrestling promotion, McMahon also played the villainous Mr. McMahon, an authoritarian character that was a centerpiece of WWE programming for the last few decades.

SUGGESTEDVince McMahon Talked About His Divorce With Linda McMahon in One of the Wildest WWE Moments With Stephanie McMahon WWE 2K24 Blurs Vince McMahon’s Face

WWE 2K24 has blurred footage of...

Today is the latest deadline for campaigns and committees to disclose donors, offering a glimpse at who is putting up huge sums in the 2024 elections, which may end up being the most expensive ever.

According to the latest filings with the Federal Election Commission, Jeffrey Katzenberg, who is campaign co-chair of Joe Biden’s campaign, contributed $1 million to the Ff Pac, which is short for Future Forward, the main independent entity backing the president’s re-election bid. Future Forward made news this week when it announced plans to spend $250 million in an advertising blitz in battleground states. Money is being raised via the SuperPAC and a non profit, meaning some donors have to be disclosed and others do not.

Also contributing to Ff Pac was Sheryl Sandberg, the former Meta exective who recently announced that she was leaving the tech giant’s board. According to Fec records, she contributed $500,059 in...

Editor’s note: This post contain extremely sexually explicit details from the lawsuit against WWE founder Vince McMahon.

Updated, 1:51 Pm: Following a harrowing sexual assault and sex-trafficking lawsuit filed Thursday against Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment by a former WWE staff member, the wrestling mogul and current WWE owners Tko Group Holdings have broken their silence on the grisly claims.

“This lawsuit is replete with lies, obscene made-up instances that never occurred, and a vindictive distortion of the truth,” a spokesman for McMahon said today. “He will vigorously defend himself.”

“Mr. McMahon does not control Tko nor does he oversee the day-to-day operations of WWE,” a Tko spokesperson told Deadline this afternoon regarding the company’s Executive Chairman. “While this matter pre-dates our Tko executive team’s tenure at the company, we take Ms. Grant’s horrific allegations very seriously and are addressing this matter internally.”

The statement...

His former aide has been making bank off his name for years and he wants his cut, right now. At least that’s how former President Donald Trump sees it.

“It’s my fucking money!” the 2024 Republican presidential frontrunner privately vented in October, referring to an alleged sum in the tens of millions of dollars, a source with direct knowledge of the matter tells Rolling Stone.

Trump wasn’t talking about a business deal. Rather, he’s been grumbling about money donated to a think tank his former staffers and...

Christian Nationalists were out in force at Mar-a-Lago on Friday night, once again demonstrating their proximity to Maga power.

Lance Wallnau — the chief promoter of a “Seven Mountains Mandate” for right-wing Christians to seize control over government and culture — was dressed in a tux and streaming live to his 1 million Facebook followers. The black-tie event was the America First Policy Institute gala at Trump’s Palm Beach estate, where the former president was soon to speak.

As he filmed with his cell phone, Wallnau grabbed co-religionist Jim Garlow — the Maga...

As of Tuesday, WWE and Endeavor’s UFC have officially been merged into one company now known as Tko Group Holdings.

The change brings the premier names in sports entertainment and mixed martial arts under one roof for the first time. The question remains, however, what does this mean for fans of either or both promotions?

I fall into the male 18-34 demographic, so naturally I am a fan of both the UFC and WWE. My love of pro wrestling started when my parents let us watch “Monday Night Raw” for the first time in early 1999, the same night Mick “Mankind” Foley won the world championship from The Rock thanks to an assist (and stiff chair shot) from “Stone Cold” Steve Austin.

Eight years later, I was flipping channels and came across the replay of a UFC fight, specifically Mirko Cro Cop vs. Gabriel Gonzaga. I was about to change channels,...

WWE, led by CEO Nick Khan after co-ceo Stephanie McMahon resigned, posted revenue in its fourth quarter up 5 percent to 325.3 million, while operating income fell 22 percent to 62.7 million.

Net income for the fourth quarter went down to 38.8 million, against 60.9 million in the same period of 2021. The latest rise in quarterly revenue at the TV wrestling giant was due to higher network revenues for premium live events like Crown Jewel and Extreme Rules, the company said.

Most of the WWE revenue still comes from media rights, with live events contributing 23.8 million during the latest quarter, up from a year-earlier 20.1 million, while consumer products came to 21.8 million, down from a year-earlier 32.6 million.

During the fourth quarter in the media revenue category, content rights fees, or licensing revenue for flagship TV series like Raw and SmackDown, came to 155.2 million, just up from a year-earlier 150.5 million.

The company saw co-founder Vince McMahon recently return...

World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Vince McMahon will step aside from the company’s business affairs amid an investigation into allegations of a hush-money payment to a former employee and new accusations of sexual misconduct.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Thursday that McMahon paid a secret 3 million settlement to an unnamed female employee, a WWE paralegal, in order to keep their “consensual” affair private. That separation agreement was finalized in January 2022.

The investigation into that claim unearthed “other, older nondisclosure agreements involving claims by former female WWE employees of misconduct by Mr.

Click here to read the full article.

WWE founder and CEO Vince McMahon has “voluntarily stepped back” from his roles as CEO and chairman of the sports entertainment powerhouse amid an “investigation into alleged misconduct” by him and John Laurinaitis, head of talent relations.

“McMahon will retain his role and responsibilities related to WWE’s creative content during this period and remains committed to cooperating with the review underway,” the company said. A special committee of the board is handling the probe. It has appointed McMahon’s daughter Stephanie to serve as interim CEO and interim chairwoman, WWE also said on Friday.

The Wall Street Journal had reported of multimillion-dollar hush money payments to women who allegedly had sexual relationships with McMahon. The allegations were spurred on after the board was contacted by someone who knew an employee who left the company earlier this year and who received a 3 million payment.

Glenn Youngkin is squaring off against Terry McAuliffe for the keys to the Virginia Governor’s Mansion on Tuesday.

It’s been a strange campaign.

McAuliffe is as establishment as establishment gets. He’s tight with the Clintons, once chaired the Democratic National Committee, and has even already served as Virginia’s governor. Youngkin is a political neophyte who’s been trying to thread pretty tight a needle by playing to Trump’s base while also distancing himself from the former president in an effort to court the swing state’s moderates.

The WWE learned a lot about the ties that bind with its fans during the pandemic.

The return of live audiences to WWE events with the “WrestleMania 37” event in Tampa, Fla., in early April was moment of celebration, for fans and for the league, WWE chief brand officer Stephanie McMahon tells Variety‘s “Strictly Business” podcast.

“To see the tears in the eyes of our fans — I got goosebumps,” she says. There was joy in a bottom-line sense as the event set sales and viewership records, and was a good way for WWE to energize its new streaming relationship with NBCUniversal’s Peacock, she said.

But perhaps the bigger surprise was how much WWE was able to rally when it had to host the event — the Super Bowl of the WWE’s year — in 2020 with no fans in the audience. A big spike in online sales of WWE merchandise helped...

WWE will be allowed to continue filming its weekly television shows after Florida governor Ron DeSantis declared the sports entertainment brand is an “essential business” amid the state’s stay-at-home order caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“I think initially there was a review that was done and they were not initially deemed an essential business,” Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said at a press conference Monday, per the Miami Herald. “With some conversation with the governor’s office regarding the governor’s [stay-at-home] order, they were deemed an essential business. Therefore, they were allowed to remain open.”

The company had begun filming shows without audiences at their privately-owned Performance Center in Orlando once more states began banning large gatherings to prevent further spread of the virus. WWE also pre-taped their flagship pay-per-view, WrestleMania, ahead of Orlando’s stay-at-home order in addition to pre-taping multiple episodes of their other shows.

WWE’s...

WWE was cleared to resume live programming from its Performance Center in Orlando, Fla. last week, paving the way for last night’s episode of Raw to air live as well as Wednesday’s Nxt and Friday’s SmackDown.

But how, you might ask?

Florida has shut down everything except for non-essential business, as has been the case in most areas around the United States. But in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has declared that WWE is an essential business.

Seriously. This isn’t a joke.

In a briefing this week, Orange County mayor Jerry Demings was asked how WWE was deemed essential during the coronavirus outbreak.

“I think initially there was a review that was done and they were not initially deemed as an essential business,” he said. “With some conversation with the Governor’s office regarding the Governor’s order, they were deemed an essential business. And so, therefore,...

Washington — Anonymous campaign cash is as much a fixture of American politics nowadays as yard signs and awkward photos of presidential contenders eating corn dogs. Dark money may have existed well before Citizens United, but that 2010 Supreme Court decision opened the floodgates for untraceable money to soak our elections. It also left voters clueless about who was putting up the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by groups with anodyne names like Priorities USA and Americans for Prosperity.

One of the most infamous players in the dark-money game was an...

All3Media America’s Main Event Media has teamed up with Audioboom to launch an original podcast division and has prepared a slate of projects including TrumpMania and a series featuring Fuller House star Jodie Sweetin.

The United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell producer, which is run by Jimmy Fox, becomes the latest TV production company to move into the podcast world. The division will be run by Emily Bon, who will both produce and co-write projects in its fast-growing slate, and the podcasts will be available on all major platforms.

The aim is to develop podcasts with the goal of developing them for film and television.

“The biggest motivation behind the launch of this division was simple – creative control. It’s incredibly refreshing as a producer to find talent you enjoy working with or a story that deeply fascinates you and immediately be able to give yourself the green light.

Linda McMahon is stepping down from her position in President Trump's cabinet ... but she won't be far from Potus for long. Trump announced the former WWE CEO is resigning as the head of the Small Business Administration at Mar-a-Lago on Friday .... saying "She has been one of our all-time favorites." "I knew she was good, but I didn't know she was that good."  Although McMahon is stepping down, she's not leavin' Trump -- she's putting her focus on his reelection.

Linda McMahon says she didn't make the call for the WWE to move forward with the Pay-Per-View event in Saudi Arabia on Friday ... saying she's no longer responsible for WWE's business moves.  Besides being married to WWE honcho Vince McMahon -- Linda also served as a high ranking executive in the organization from 1980 through 2009.  She's now part of the Trump administration -- serving as the head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, based in Washington D.