Linda McMahon's Super PAC Pledged $18 Million To Florida On The Same Day WWE Was Designated As An Essential Business

On April 10, Vince McMahon decided WWE would return to live programming for episodes of Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown, despite a mass taping of the blue brand having already been planned for that day. McMahon's decision came the day after the Florida Governor's office released a memo which added "professional sports and media production" to the list of essential services in the state.

If Governor DeSantis had not released the memo, the Performance Center would have been closed down as WWE was not initially deemed an essential business. Local Police even visited the WWE facility in March and April advising them to shut down. 

On the same day the memo was published, Linda McMahon's Super PAC, America First Action, pledged to spend $18.5 million on broadcast advertising in the Tampa Bay and Orlando, Florida markets during the 2020 presidential election cycle. This is part of the Super PAC's efforts to re-elect Donald Trump as president of the United States. 

A spokesperson for American First Action dismissed any link between the pledge and WWE being designated as an essential business, adding that it is part of "Trump Derangement Syndrome" and that any idea of a connection was "looking to connect some sort of dots that simply don't exist."