What The Hell America!

It feels like nowadays, you can’t talk about the professionalized world of fighting for entertainment without talking about Donald Trump.

Earlier this month, Trump and several Cabinet members sat cageside at the UFC match in Miami; Trump himself holds a spot in the WWE Hall of Fame, where his official bio page notes that he’s the first WWE Hall of Famer to hold the presidency. Ahead of last weekend’s annual WrestleMania, wrestling news sites were abuzz with rumors that the president might again be ringside. At the same time, one of professional wrestling’s biggest stars, Roman Reigns, made headlines for declaring himself as a Trump supporter. 

The former CEO of WWE, Vince McMahon, is a longtime friend of the president’s and financial supporter of his political endeavors; McMahon’s now-estranged wife, Linda, is also a former WWE CEO and a current member of Trump’s Cabinet. And the CEO of UFC, Dana White, introduced Trump before he spoke on the final night of last summer’s Republican National Convention — Hulk Hogan also spoke, ripping off his shirt to reveal Trump/Vance campaign merch — and attended Trump’s inauguration in January. 

The kinds of theatrics baked into the massive success of professional wrestling have been on display throughout Trump’s ascendency in American politics. On the campaign trail and now in the White House, a Trump event has a distinctive feel, a well-honed blend of spectacle, pageantry and hypermasculinity. It’s a style that feels lifted from the professional wrestling handbook, where aesthetics and narrative device choices are central to the delivery. In professional wrestling, this product is a form of entertainment that lets fans — predominantly young men — openly feel and freely celebrate masculinity. In the second Trump administration, the product is a barrage of new policy measures intent on crafting a very specific version of America where the feelings of men are prioritized and their power is irrefutable. 

Though not a part of the action in the ring, there’s another significant tie between professional fighting and the Trump administration: allegations of sexual misconduct that have stretched back for decades. Vince McMahon, the visionary showman who made professional wrestling into the cultural force it is today, built the persona of “Mr. McMahon” around being a womanizing, vindictive philanderer — and today faces real-life accusations of sex trafficking, which he has denied. Donald Trump, the visionary showman who reshaped American politics in the mold of reality television, built his industry-spanning brand in part around the idea of being the consummate ladies’ man — and won the presidency for the first time just weeks after the “Access Hollywood” tape leaked in which Trump boasted, “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything….Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Central to the concept of professional wrestling is the practice of kayfabe, or committing to the illusion that clearly staged events are real and true. It’s a narrative device that asks audiences to suspend their disbelief, not in a way of passive acceptance, but rather active participation in the creation of what is possible. 

“It really does matter how well you’re doing the performance, but then what also really matters is how much the audience is going to buy into it. If they’re emotionally connected, that’s where the buy-in comes in,” said CarrieLynn Reinhard, an associate professor of communication arts and sciences at Dominican University and an expert on narrative devices in professional wrestling. “When you look at what Trump does, he is very good at getting to people’s emotions and understanding their emotions and — I’m going to say — manipulating their emotions for his own goals, and in doing so, he focuses on a reality that he believes in or at least he performs to believe in.”

Reinhard pointed to Trump’s rollout of tariffs — which he touted as immediately bolstering the economy even as markets tumbled — as an example of this dynamic. “What’s interesting is that with that little bit of doubt, his followers, his fans, they have the ability to engage in that rationalization that allows them to say, ‘He’s got a plan.’” 

The gimmicks

Professional wrestling is immensely popular in America, one of the most enduring and dominant forms of pop culture of the past three decades. Just last year, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) merged with the WWE under one new parent company, TKO. UFC is now the fourth-most watched sports league in America, after MLB, the NFL and the NBA. 

And the people who made UFC and WWE what they are today are also inextricably intertwined with the creation and actions of the dual Trump presidencies. 

By the time Trump mounted his first campaign during the 2016 presidential race, the McMahons were already major Republican donors. Linda, the former CEO of WWE and the current secretary of education, contributed a total of $7.2 million to two pro-Trump super PACs that cycle — Rebuilding America Now and Future45 — and the couple together donated more than $10 million to outside groups funding Trump’s race for the presidency. The McMahons also supported Trump before he formally entered politics, donating $5 million to the Trump Foundation in 2007.

Linda McMahon’s ability and facility in playing a role — a skill honed during her time as not only a WWE executive but also an on-screen performer — is essential to understanding her nomination within this administration, according to Kelly Dittmar, an associate professor of political science and the director of research at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. 

In naming her to his Cabinet, Trump “chose somebody who was willing to work herself out of a job. He had to find somebody that was willing to go and sit at a confirmation hearing and try to explain how she wanted to be the secretary of education, but also effectively get rid of the Department of Education, which is an incredibly hard position to be put in,” Dittmar said.

It feels not dissimilar to a part she had in what is considered by many fans to be one of the most infamous WWE storylines, playing comatose in a wheelchair for weeks before ultimately rising from her supposed catatonic state inside the ring to kick her philandering husband in the groin on live TV. 

This time, of course,, the shock ending isn’t revenge for a titillating affair, but effectively shuttering a major federal agency. 

Dana White, the CEO of UFC, has also been a longtime fixture in Trumpworld. He spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2016, 2020 and 2024. When it was clear Trump had won a second term last November, White spoke at the victory celebration, saying, “I’m in the tough guy business, and this man is the toughest, most resilient human being that I’ve ever met in my life.” White has long credited Trump for supporting UFC from its start, hosting UFC matches at Trump properties, attending events cageside, and generally being a champion of the brand of macho entertainment that became explosively popular under White’s watch. 

The accusations

The Trump administration and WWE share another overlapping characteristic: The way leaders of both have faced numerous allegations of sexual misconduct and sexual abuse, or of ignoring such misconduct. 

Trump, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women and long surrounded himself with men who have been similarly accused during his time in the public eye, was found liable by a jury in 2023 of sexually abusing and defaming the advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. In his second term, he put forth multiple nominees accused of or linked to sexual misconduct allegations.    

White has offered more tacit support in other ways that underscore the misogyny and allegations of criminal sexual misconduct that proliferate in Trumpworld. In March, White welcomed Andrew and Tristan Tate ringside. The brothers — who face charges in Romania, including rape, human trafficking, trafficking of minors and sex with a minor — returned to the United States in February. They have denied any wrongdoing, calling the charges against them “garbage” and part of a “conspiracy.”  The Financial Times reported that the Trump administration asked Romanian officials to return the Tates’ passports to them and allow them to travel while the criminal case against them proceeded in court. Trump’s presidential envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell, raised the Tates’ case with the Romanian foreign minister. Additionally, Paul Ingrassia, a former Tate attorney, is now a White House liaison for the Department of Justice. 

The McMahons are currently facing a lawsuit accusing them of failing to stop abuse by an employee from the 1970s to the early 1990s. The suit, from “ring boys” who helped with setting up and breaking down wrestling matches, was filed in October. It says that a former WWE employee, Mel Phillips, sexually assaulted the ring boys and that the McMahons fired him in 1988 because of abuse allegations and then rehired him six weeks later. In a February statement, Greg Gutzler, the attorney representing the ring boys, said, “My clients’ lives were destroyed by the defendants who allowed and enabled the open, rampant sexual abuse to occur for years. … We will bring light to their truth and fight for accountability and justice.”

In early April, attorneys for Linda McMahon filed a motion to dismiss the ring boys’ lawsuit, saying that she has no connection to the state of Maryland, where it was filed. She also asserts that she has never met or communicated with the plaintiffs, to the best of her knowledge and memory. Vince McMahon has also denied all wrongdoing. Attorneys for Vince McMahon, Linda McMahon and WWE did not respond to The 19th’s request for comment.  

Linda McMahon’s time in the WWE, including the ring boys’ suit, was barely a topic in her February confirmation hearing. 

Tom Cole was the first of the ring boys to come forward with allegations about sexual abuse while employed by WWE, according to his brother, Lee Cole. Tom Cole died by suicide in 2021. 

Lee Cole said that he thinks people have failed to take the allegations against the McMahons seriously because of their ties to wrestling. “This has always been a wrestling story, and people have always known wrestling has been faked. And so they look down at these things, not knowing whether it’s a job — whether they’re pulling a job — or whether it’s real. They don’t know. People don’t take wrestling seriously,” Cole said. 

Cole said he understands that there has been an increase in attention around the McMahons and the ring boys’ lawsuit as a result of Linda McMahon’s role within the Trump administration. Too often, he said, he has seen reporters miss the mark by focusing their stories on the McMahons through the lens of Trump. 

But to understand Trump, you need to understand the McMahons, the way they have used power, fame, and the ability to craft narratives that keep fans invested in the WWE brand and willing to dismiss the naysayers. 

As a Trump supporter, Cole said he can see the appeal McMahon holds for the administration. 

“They’re entertainers. Linda McMahon is an entertainer. She was part of the entertainment world. Why else would Donald Trump love her so much? He’s an entertainer.”

The ring boys’ suit isn’t the only accusation of misconduct against the McMahons. In 2024, Vince McMahon was sued by former employee Janel Grant; in her suit, Grant accuses McMahon of sex trafficking, making her employment contingent on engaging in a sexual relationship with him and being sexually available to others within WWE. WWE and former WWE executive, John Laurinaitis, are named as defendants in the suit as well. All defendants in Grant’s lawsuit have denied all wrongdoing. Attorneys for Vince McMahon and WWE did not respond to The 19th’s request for comment.

When it comes to the allegations of sexual assault against both Trump and McMahon, Reinhard said she sees “the double whammy of the toxic masculinity that still accepts and promotes — something we are seeing more of now since Trump won — the idea that women are supposed to be controlled and then the idea that if you’ve got the money and you’ve got the time, you’re able to essentially spend your way out of these allegations, spend your way out of any charges and essentially wait out the public debate until people forget about it.” 

The feelings

Both Trump and professional wrestling are massive cultural entities that allow men to express their emotions, especially about their own masculinity. In the ring and now in the White House, men’s feelings matter — especially when it comes to defending their own identities and the men who give them that space to publicly feel and perform. “The idea of emotions being antithetical to politics really needs to be addressed, because they’re not just emotions — they’re a motivating force,” Reinhard said.

In the administration, the feelings lead to policies that promote a world where men can not only feel freely, but control the levers of society to make space for these feelings, too. 

Letting voters get caught up in the fandom makes the unprecedented policy decisions all the more possible. From tariffs that threaten to raise daily costs on voters who say they voted because of the economy, to DOGE cuts resulting in job and program losses that are upending economic security for many, to a proclamation for National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month from a sitting president found liable for sexual abuse in 2023, the second Trump administration has taken to operating in a way that constantly asks constituents to not just accept but actively buy in to a reality that runs counter to the facts on the ground. It’s kayfabe for government: Creating a world for men to freely express emotion and set policies with no limits — and no consequences — for violating once accepted standards and norms.

The second Trump administration is showcasing a “much more extreme” version of the first Trump term’s commitment to “dismantling a particular version of politics on the Hill,” said Sarah Banet-Weiser, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania whose research focuses on gender, media and politics. “And if you dismantle those politics, you know, you have to replace them with something,” Banet-Weiser said. 

And what remains is a stoking of men’s feelings in the wake of a slew of public policy decisions that in turn provoke even more emotion — even when the feelings run counter to the facts. The difference between reality television as entertainment and reality television as a political system is the consequences, Banet-Weiser said. “It’s not a group of housewives who fight and are riddled with scandal and then go on with their lives. It’s about the livelihoods of the American people.”

Grace Panetta contributed reporting to this story.