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President Trump is a well-known fan of professional wrestling. Pundits often describe his moves in the White House in wrestling terms - smackdowns, cage fights and so forth. NPR's Neda Ulaby wondered if the wrestling world might be informing his second term.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: When President Trump jumped in the ring over TikTok, then tariffs, it reminded comedian Jaboukie Young-White of nothing more than the WWE.
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ULABY: Yes, World Wrestling Entertainment. Young-White grew up watching its rowdy, televised matches throughout his childhood in the 1990s. The drama around TikTok, he says, matched WWE storylines beat for beat.
JABOUKIE YOUNG-WHITE: It had the hero. It had the villain and all of these roles that are turning and changing at these sharp hair turns that keep us on our toes, keep us engaged and keep us just, like, in a frenzy.
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GORILLA MONSOON: A slam by the Hulkster.
ULABY: The president, says Young-White, seemed inspired by the playbook of the WWE empire - built by Vince McMahon - in terms of character, timing and impact.
YOUNG-WHITE: It really comes down to the spectacle and knowing how and when to play the villain and how and when to play the hero, which is at the backbone of pro wrestling.
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GORILLA MONSOON: (Yelling) What a miscarriage of justice.
BOBBY HEENAN: (Yelling) I told you so.
SHARON MAZER: Me and Vince McMahon go way back.
ULABY: That's scholar Sharon Mazer. She studies professional wrestling and cultural politics. Last year, she appeared on the Netflix documentary, "Mr. McMahon," that took a critical look at McMahon's controversial leadership of the WWE. McMahon's estranged wife, Linda, was picked by Trump to run the Small Business Administration in his first presidency, and now the Department of Education. And President Trump himself went from being a wrestling fan to a character in a wrestling dynasty.
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UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #1: Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #2: Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #1: Donald Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #2: Donald Trump.
ULABY: In a hyped-up WWE feud called "Battle Of The Billionaires," back in 2007, the future president and Vince McMahon got wrestlers to fight for them by proxy.
MAZER: And Trump would walk out, and money literally poured from the rafters.
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UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) Money, money, money, money.
ULABY: Thus began a drawn-out WWE storyline with Trump as a good guy - a baby face in wrestling terms - standing up to the villainous heel played by Vince McMahon.
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UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #1: Donald Trump is having a little too much fun here, man.
MAZER: It's all kayfabe.2
ULABY: Kayfabe - it's an old wrestling word but relevant now, says Sharon Mazer, to today's politics.
MAZER: Kayfabe is, in wrestling, the agreement between wrestlers and the promoter and the referees and most of the audience to act as if what is being performed is for real.
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UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #2: Couldn't knock him down. Couldn't slam him. Watch this.
ULABY: The rules and conventions of kayfabe, she says, are what makes the performance enjoyable.
MAZER: Kayfabe is a narrative. It's a story that everybody agrees on.
ULABY: Take Trump's takedown over tariffs, she says.
MAZER: The tariff exchange is classic kayfabe.
ULABY: In that everyone played their roles. Trump performed tossing his opponents onto the ropes, Mazer says, and in turn, they performed a win for him and his fans - classic kayfabe. So she says is the idea of Elon Musk playing a villainous manager in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency, a setup that might remind wrestling fans of Trump and McMahon's onstage dynamic. But the reality, she says, is nothing wrestling fans would recognize.
MAZER: This is something beyond kayfabe - the chaos right now.
ULABY: She has a name for it - post-kayfabe.
MAZER: If everything is kayfabe now, then nothing is kayfabe. And what we lose is the security of that structure.
ULABY: In wrestling and in government, Mazer says.
MAZER: This rematch has been really messy. And in any case, the question is who's the guy with the money who is setting up the show that we're seeing and getting us to play along? Who's the guy with the money who is commanding our performance in relation to what we're seeing?
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UNIDENTIFIED REFEREE: One...
UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #2: Come on.
UNIDENTIFIED REFEREE: ...Two.
UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #2: Get up.
ULABY: Comedian Jaboukie Young-White jokes there's a lesson here for Democratic Party leadership.
YOUNG-WHITE: You need to get somebody at WWE SmackDown right now. You need to get somebody at RAW right now. Put them in front of those crowds. This is not even talking about presidential readiness. I'm talking about who could get in a Speedo next week.
ULABY: And who understands that brawls between elected officials in 2025 might involve as many jumps, bumps and throws as parliamentary procedures.
Neda Ulaby, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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