Andrew Puzder Withdraws as Labor Secretary Nominee

Fred Prouser/Reuters via ZUMA Press

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


On Wednesday, millionaire fast-food executive Andrew Puzder withdrew his nomination to become President Donald Trump’s secretary of labor. Puzder’s confirmation hearing, delayed weeks due to his failure to submit required financial and ethics paperwork, was set for Thursday.

With his nomination facing stiff opposition from labor groups, Puzder had been bleeding support in recent days. On Wednesday, Mother Jones published details of some of the 39 labor violation claims that have been brought against his company, CKE, which owns both Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. Also on Wednesday, Politico obtained and published video of a 1990 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, in which Puzder’s ex-wife, Lisa Fierstein, wore a disguise and claimed he abused her. (Winfrey handed over the tape at the request of senators.)

Earlier in the day, National Review tried to get ahead of the nomination’s impending collapse by opposing it on immigration grounds. But as MoJo‘s Kevin Drum noted, it was probably just to change the narrative.

Well, it turns out he’s soft on immigration: he supports comprehensive immigration reform rather than walls and high-profile raids. Can’t have that. And just by coincidence, NR’s opposition comes shortly after we learned that Puzder “employed an undocumented housekeeper for several years and failed to pay related taxes.” I don’t think NR actually cares about that, though. They only care that it gives Democrats a hook to fire up the opposition. Why give them a victory that will just make them even smugger than usual? Might as well pull the plug now and pretend that it was all because conservatives have such high moral standards.

This is a developing story and we’ll update as more information becomes available.

 

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate