Linda McMahon On If The Rock Would Be A Good President, Why They Donated To Donald Trump, Bill Maher
Former WWE CEO Linda McMahon, who is now the head of the United States Small Business Administration under President Donald Trump, recently sat down for an interview with Katie Couric of Yahoo News. While they discussed some of the more hot button issues in today's political climate – such as Donald Trump's tweets about the mayor of London and the US pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, there were some topics that wrestling fans will find of interest.
Couric asked McMahon about her and Vince donating $5 million [as the foundation's biggest donors] to The Donald J. Trump Foundation and if she was troubled when The Washington Post showed money from the foundation was used to buy a portrait of Donald Trump to settle lawsuits against his for-profit businesses and to make a political contribution.
"We donated our money to that philanthropy," McMahon explained. "We were making it because we were a friend of then Mr. Trump. We knew a lot of the good works, you know, that he had done. We gave the money to them to do as they saw fit. I was not aware of any supposed misuse."
Couric asked if it troubled McMahon when she learned of it, to which McMahon responded, "No, not necessarily." Couric asked why not and McMahon answered, "Well, because we gave the money in good faith and we gave it for projects that you know, I think, maybe not necessarily got reported. So that's how I'm going to think about that."
The conversation shifted to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and about his future political career, possibly looking to run for president in 2020. Linda McMahon looked into the camera and commented, "Dwayne do your homework really, really carefully so you're up on all the things you want to talk about."
"He's a very, bright smart? I can still call him a young man? he's about my son's age so that's about right," she continued. "He's very passionate about what he does and he's had some great success and from what I've heard, I think he wants to give back. Now I'm not sure what all the different roads that would take but if he would decide to do this I think he would be all in."
When Couric asked if she thinks he would be a good president, McMahon commented, "Time will tell." Couric asked if she would be open to The Rock running, McMahon replied, "Wouldn't you be open to anyone who is willing to run for president and who wants to do a really good job for your country? I think you have to be open."
McMahon joked that The Rock may get a good amount of the women's vote based on what she's heard at the Small Business Administration. She revealed people ask her to bring him just so they can say hello.
Couric brought up the possibility of a match pitting Rock against his The Fate of the Furious co-star Vin Diesel. Asked if that match would ever happen and who would win, Linda stated, "I don't know because I don't write those scripts." Hypothetically speaking, McMahon said, "Hands down The Rock would win" because he's got the moves. She jokingly said Vin Diesel could bring it.
Couric closed her interview by mentioning that Linda had to deal with a lot of controversial figures during her time with WWE. She brought up Bill Maher using a racial slur during his HBO program last week and asked point blank if she would fire him.
"I can tell you that when I was the CEO at WWE, we just had very high standards," McMahon explained. "You know, we put in measures for the WWE talent at that particular time about things they could and could not do in the ring."
She talked about having a three-minute delay so WWE could control what went out on the airway. McMahon stated Maher's comment was "totally inappropriate" and "over-the-top" and as for her personally, it would be "intolerable."
The interview can be watched in its entirety in the video above.
Damien Demento contributed to this article.