Andrew Puzder's downfall shows a flawed trend in Trump’s presidency

Extract from The Guardian

Trump is learning that while he may love to give the middle finger to (supposedly) liberal public opinion, there are Republicans who will not join in

• Andrew Puzder, Trump’s labor secretary pick, withdraws from consideration

Protesters rally against Andrew Puzder outside of a Hardee’s restaurant on 13 February 2017 in St Louis, Missouri. Photograph: Jeff Curry/Getty Images

Dominic Rushe

Thursday 16 February 2017 09.21 AEDT 

The howls of disapproval started the moment Andrew Puzder emerged from behind the fat fryer as Donald Trump’s pick for labor secretary.

The labor department’s mandate is to “promote and develop the welfare of working people, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment”. Was the chief executive of the CKE fast-food chain that owns Carl’s Jr and Hardee’s really the man for the job? Democrats, fast food workers and advocates for low-wage employees chorused: “NO.”
His appointment was an example of “anti-worker extremism” said Service Employees International Union (SEIU) head Mary Kay Henry. New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman said that under Puzder’s leadership, CKE had stolen from low-wage workers and called the appointment “a cruel and baffling decision by President-elect Trump”.
None of this mattered to Trump or the Republican party, or so it seemed. “Andy will fight to make American workers safer and more prosperous by enforcing fair occupational safety standards and ensuring workers receive the benefits they deserve, and he will save small businesses from the crushing burdens of unnecessary regulations that are stunting job growth and suppressing wages,” Trump said, announcing his appointment.
Only yesterday, the Republican national committee sent out a press release citing a Wall Street Journal editorial that highlighted “the bogus charges” Democrats and “their union machine” were lobbing at Puzder in “a desperate attempt to block his confirmation at all costs. Puzder’s record “as a proven job creator and business leader makes him the perfect candidate to stand up for American workers.”

But while Trump and his intimates were immune to the anti-Puzder campaign, other Republicans were not. At least four Republican senators – Susan Collins (Maine), Johnny Isakson (Georgia), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Tim Scott (South Carolina) – looked set to vote against him, ending his chances of nomination. Rumor had it more knives were ready to be plunged in Puzder’s back.

The fast-food boss’s fall shows another flaw emerging in Trump’s presidency. Having been seen off by the judiciary over his immigration ban, Trump is now learning that while he may love to give the middle finger to (supposedly) liberal public opinion, there are Republicans who will not join in. And without them, his plans can come undone.
If Trump wants someone to blame, he could start with Barack Obama. The Obama administration led the most dramatic turnaround in employment in living memory. Unemployment peaked at 10% after the recession Obama inherited from George W Bush. It was less than 5% when he vacated the White House. But wages have stagnated and many of those new jobs have been created in service industries such as fast food.
Out of this conundrum has emerged a vocal, organized and union-backed movement fighting for a higher minimum wage and more worker rights, Fight for $15. When Trump appointed Puzder, the well-oiled machine that won some major concessions from McDonald’s, WalMart and others under Obama saw its chance. Protests across the country highlighted Puzder’s record – and it was not a good one.
Alongside street protests, pressure groups including National Employment Law Project and Jobs With Justice targeted anti-Puzder op-eds in over 30 newspapers across the country. They coordinated tens of thousands of calls to key Senate players. Fight for $15’s #NotOurLaborSec hashtag reached 28 million people on Twitter.
Here was a man who talked gleefully about dumping staff for robots: “They’re always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex or race discrimination case,” he told Business Insider last year.
He told Bloomberg BusinessWeek his firm was hiring “the best of the worst. It’s kind of the bottom of the pool.” And in his first memo to Hardee’s managers, he wrote: “No more people behind the counter unless they have all their teeth.”
His company, famous for racy – or sexist, depending on your views – ads reported “disturbing” rates of sexual harassment, according to a recent report.
Unsurprisingly, those workers felt little loyalty to their former boss. Darin Brooks, a Hardee’s worker and a member of Raise Up $15, the Fight for $15 chapter in Durham, North Carolina, said: “When Donald Trump first tapped Andy Puzder to be labor secretary, fast food workers told the president that if he sided with fast food CEOs instead of fast-food workers, he’d be on the wrong side of history.
“We rallied outside Puzder’s stores nationwide and showed America how his burger empire was built on low pay, wage theft, sexual harassment and intimidation. And today, we are on the right side of history. This is a major victory for the Fight for $15, but we can’t and won’t back down until the Trump administration gives us a real labor secretary who will put working people over corporate profits.”

While activism certainly played a major part in turning public opinion, it seems that Trump did little or no vetting of their smart-mouthed labor pick. Puzder’s downfall also dragged up allegations, denied by both sides, of spousal abuse and comments made by his ex-wife on Oprah Winfrey’s show. In 1990 America’s most popular media mogul filmed Lisa Fierstein, Puzder’s ex-wife, for an episode titled High Class Battered Women.
Using the name “Ann” and appearing in disguise in wig and dark glasses Fierstein, who was married to the the fast food boss for 14 years, told the show that Puzder had threatened her and said: “He vowed revenge. I will see you in the gutter. This will never be over. You will pay for this,” according to Politico, which reviewed a copy of the show all of media had been hoping to score. “Most men who are in positions like that don’t leave marks. The damage that I sustained, you can’t see. It’s permanent damage but there’s no mark. And there never was. They don’t hit you in the face. They are too smart,” she says over the closing credits.
Fierstein has since retracted her allegations of domestic abuse and told the Guardian, and others, that the allegations were a tactic to gain leverage in her divorce.
Nevertheless a tape of the show was turned over to the senators on the health, education, labor and pensions committee, which was to hold Puzder’s confirmation hearing, by the Oprah Winfrey Network. Now that committee can stand down. The fast food boss has left them with nothing but a bad taste in their mouth and Trump with another headache.

• This article was amended on 15 February 2017 to correct the name of the National Employment Law Project