Trump's New Labor Secretary Is a Fig Leaf For His War on Workers

February 27, 2025

Some Democrats have high hopes for Lori Chavez-DeRemer. Good luck with that.

By Alex Nguyen




Lori Chavez-DeRemer sitting in a chair, faced forward, and speaking to senators at her confirmation hearing.

Lori Chavez-DeRemer, nominee to be Secretary of Labor, speaking at a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee at the U.S. Capitol.Michael Brochstein/Zuma

Trump appointee Lori Chavez-DeRemer found herself facing a tight committee vote Thursday morning to head the Department of Labor. The question: was she too pro-worker for the job?

Apparently not.

On Thursday, the same Senate committee where the bill repeatedly died—Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP)—voted to move forward her nomination to lead the federal Labor Department. Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) joined Republicans in support, offsetting Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) “no” vote. The Democratic support in committee means Chavez-DeRemer will almost undoubtedly pass the full Senate floor vote.

Chavez-DeRemer seemed to allay many of the Republican committee members’ fears during her Senate confirmation hearing last Wednesday—taking pains to demonstrate that she regretted her cosponsorship of the labor-friendly PRO Act, rhetorically turning her back on workers and suggesting that she’d fall in line with Trump’s anti-worker agenda. To Paul, she called state “right-to-work” laws a “fundamental tenet of labor laws, where states have the right to choose,” and disowned the bill’s limitations on such laws.

FULL story: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/trump-chavez-deremer-labor-secretary-democrats/