Spicer Praises Choice of McMahon for SBA

On a Trump-Pence transition team press call Thursday, Republican National Committee communications director Sean Spicer praised President-elect Donald Trump's pick of former WWE executive Linda McMahon as head of the Small Business Administration.

He said McMahon brings "firsthand knowledge about what it takes to grow a successful small business" and as head of SBA "will make sure America's entrepreneurs have access to the capitol and resources they need to grow."

He said by making the SBA administrator a cabinet-level position and having "a leader of McMahon's stature" leading the agency, the President-elect was sending a "clear signal to small businesses and entrepreneurs and workers that their interests were of the highest importance."

He said that as former CEO and co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment, she helped grow that small business from a 13-person staff to a publicly traded global business with more than 800 employees.

Spicer called her one of the country's top female executives. She was a 2007 Multichannel News Wonder Women honoree.

McMahon is currently CEO of Women's Leadership Live, which promotes entrepreneurship. She stepped down from WWE in 2009 to run as a Republican in Connecticut's 2010 U.S. Senate race, losing to Democrat Richard Blumenthal. She ran again two years later for the state's other U.S. Senate seat, losing to Democrat Chris Murphy.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.