Puzder lasted longer than I expected: Obama vetting chief
The breadth and depth of his problems were unprecedented in a Cabinet nominee.
When I was leading the vetting team at the White House, people asked me some version of the same question at every party I attended: “What’s the craziest thing a Cabinet nominee has ever told you?” Of course, my commitment to confidentiality and simple human decency meant that I would never answer that question. But the truth is, people who are serious contenders to serve in the highest levels of government typically have led pretty boring lives.
Sure, you might find someone who paid taxes late one year or underestimated how much he owed another year. You might come across someone who had to disclose an arrest at age 19 for attempting to steal a street sign to decorate his college dorm wall, or someone who authored an article in law school with a line she wished she had never written. But these are minor issues that reasonable people are willing to forgive.
Where nominees run into more serious trouble is when they have more significant issues, typically in one of three categories: professional, financial, or personal. What is unprecedented, however, is to come across a Cabinet nominee who has significant problems in each of those three categories. Unprecedented, that is, until Andrew Puzder came along.
It is not surprising that President Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Labor withdrew his name Wednesday. He did not just have professional problems. He did not just have financial problems. He did not just have personal problems. He had significant professional, financial and personal problems.
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Starting with the professional: On its website, the Department of Labor states that its mission is to “foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers, and retirees of the United States; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights.” Puzder’s career is filled with examples of him doing exactly the opposite: he limited workers’ rights, argued against an increased minimum wage, touted the benefits of replacing people with robots, and showed disdain for his own employees, the very people who helped make him a multimillionaire.
On to the financial, where Puzder had the problem that knocked out a handful of Cabinet nominees who came before him, including Zoe Baird, Kimba Wood and Bernard Kerik. For years, Puzder employed an undocumented immigrant and never paid taxes. That this did not disqualify him was surprising in and of itself, but especially so when you consider that he was picked to oversee the agency responsible for wage and hour standards, benefits and protecting workers.
Then there is the personal. As was widely reported, in 1990, Puzder’s ex-wife went on Oprah in disguise and said that Puzder abused her. She has since recanted, and recently sent a letter to the Senate saying it didn’t happen. Although rumors alone have been enough to derail would-be nominees in the past, let’s take this out of the equation entirely.
Instead, let’s focus on the advertisements Puzder ran for Carl’s Jr. depicting women in bikinis eating hamburgers, which some described as “pornographic” and “sexist” but Puzder described as “American”; or the Hardee’s billboard with a photograph of a hand pinching two hamburger buns photographed to look like a woman’s derriere with the tagline “fresh buns”; or the fact that his mentor was a mob lawyer. Any of these would have been worth discussing, and each would have been potentially disqualifying.
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In every recent administration, you can find a well-known example of a nominee who got knocked out on one of these three categories of issues: in 1989, the Senate rejected former Senator John Tower, George H. W. Bush’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, due to personal concerns, including allegations of drunkenness and womanizing. In 2005, Supreme Court nominee Harriett Miers withdrew over professional issues stemming from concerns related to her credentials and unknown policy views and judicial philosophy. And former Senator Tom Daschle, nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services in 2009, withdrew due to a financial issue, a failure to fully pay his taxes.
But it is impossible to find an example of someone nominated to head an agency who had the breadth and depth of problems that arose with Puzder.
When asked last week whether Puzder’s hiring of an undocumented worker should disqualify him from serving as the secretary of Labor, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell responded, “We’re always looking for nominees who have never made a mistake. Frequently it’s impossible to find nominees who have never made a mistake.” No, Sen. McConnell, we are not looking for people who have never made one mistake. We are looking for people who have not made mistakes in every single part of their lives.
Sarah Baker led the vetting team in the Office of the White House Counsel from 2014 to 2017. Follow her on Twitter: @sarahsallybaker
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