President Donald Trump’s initial choice to lead the Department of Labor blamed the “biased nature” of the news media for his withdrawal from consideration.
“When they announced my withdrawal, there was a tweet from somebody who was in the newsroom, one of the reporters at Politico, saying that they broke out in applause,” Puzder said in his first television interview. “So, you could imagine the biased nature of the coverage.”
Puzder was forced to withdraw after Senate Republicans informed the White House that they did not possess the votes necessary to confirm the CKE restaurant CEO. (RELATED: Andy Puzder Withdraws Name From Consideration For Labor Secretary)
He was under a barrage of negative stories ranging from reports that he paid some employees in cash, hired an illegal immigrant housekeeper and allegedly abused a former spouse.
“I think the big problem here was that the left, the Democrats, really didn’t want a successful businessman who started out as a working class kid,” Puzder asserted, adding that the left would do anything they possibly could to keep me out of that office (Secretary of the Department of Labor).
Puzder recently revealed liberal activists sent a plastic bag of white powder to his Tennessee home, addressed to his wife. “The white powder was in a plastic bag, but you open the envelope and a little powder came out,” Puzder explained to radio show host Hugh Hewitt in late February. (RELATED: Liberal Activists Sent Anthrax Scare To Andy Puzder’s Wife)
After Puzder’s withdrawal, the president nominated R. Alexander Acosta to lead the department, a choice that is expected to pass through the confirmation process with little friction.
Acosta is a former federal prosecutor and the dean of the Florida International University College of Law in Miami. He earned his undergraduate degree and Law Degree from Harvard and served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
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