New battle looms after union ‘win’
BURGER BARON Andy Puzder flamed out as labor secretary Wednesday — just in time to avoid a Senate grilling.
The 66-year-old head of CKE Restaurants — which owns fastfood joints Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s — withdrew his nomination amid a swirl of devastating details about abuse accusations made by his ex-wife decades ago.
“While I won’t be serving in the administration, I fully support the President and his highly qualified team,” Puzder said in a statement announcing his withdrawal.
He withdrew a few hours after top Senate Republicans urged Trump to yank him from contention — saying some in the GOP rank and file lost their appetite for the nomination.
According to CBS News, Puzder had recently told friends that he was “very tired of the abuse” he felt he had received from the media — an unfortunate choice of words given the court documents that surfaced Wednesday from Puzder’s 1987 divorce from his ex-wife, Lisa Fierstein.
Fierstein alleged in the documents that Puzder “assaulted and battered” her during a horrifying May 22, 1986, incident, “striking her violently about the face, chest, back, shoulder and neck, without provocation or cause.”
The battery caused “serious and permanent personal injuries” Fierstein said, including “bruises and contusions to the chest, back, shoulder and neck” and “two ruptured discs and two bulging discs” in her back.
In a March 1990 episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” on domestic abuse in wealthy families, a disguised Fierstein said the executive “vowed revenge” after she leaked spousal abuse allegations to the public.
In the video, obtained Tuesday night by Politico, Fierstein, donning a curly wig and oversized sunglasses, explained how fame, money and prestige worked in her then-husband’s favor.
“(Puzder) said, ‘I will see you in the gutter. This will never be over; you will pay for this,’ ” said Fierstein, who spoke as “Ann.”
Fierstein later recanted her story and has continued to deny the allegations since.
In the hours leading up to Puzder’s withdrawal Wednesday, CNN reported that at least four GOP senators — and as many as 12 — were prepared to vote against the billionaire CEO amid growing concerns over the abuse allegations and his admission that he’d hired an undocumented immigrant to clean his house.
Puzder’s confirmation hearings had already been delayed four times.
He was set to go before the Senate’s Health, Education,
Andrew Puzder’s implosion as labor secretary nominee was chalked up as a Wednesday win among many unions — but they better start gearing up for Round 2.
Donald Trump is unlikely to pick anybody who would be significantly different than the fast-food billionaire, several experts said. And considering that Puzder wasn’t a total hard-liner on immigration, Trump’s next choice might even be worse.
“From the perspective of organized labor, it’s hard to imagine,” said Jake Rosenfeld, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “But I don’t expect we’ll get a nominee who varies all that drastically. Look for someone who’s less of a lightning rod with less personal baggage, but cast in the same basic mode.”
The real nightmare for labor organizations would be Scott Walker, who waged a blistering and ultimately successful campaign to pass right-towork laws as governor of Wisconsin.
Walker’s name was bandied around in November when Trump was narrowing his labor secretary field — but the governor let it be known immediately on Wednesday that he’s not looking to follow Puzder’s path into the D.C. gauntlet.
“The future is too bright in WI for me to do anything other than being Governor,” Walker tweeted shortly after Puzder withdrew his nomination.
Several other candidates who were once on Trump’s short list have gone on to other jobs. But they all lack one specific quality Puzder has that Trump truly likes, said Georgetown Prof. Harry Holzer, a former chief economist at the Department of Labor.
“Billionaires — we know Trump likes billionaires, and Puzder was one,” said Holzer. “You never know what Trump will do, but it’s hard to imagine he will find anybody more ideological than Puzder, who opposed a minimum wage increase, was anti-regulation and had strong labor views.”