Who Trump Picks Democrats Really Like
Last year, Democrats spent more than $20 million to end then-Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s congressional career. Now, however, the Republican they worked so hard to defeat is their favorite nominee for President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet.
Trump's selection of Chavez-Dremer as labor secretary surprised many Democrats and union leaders, who expected Trump to follow the lead of past Republican presidents and appoint a conservative hostile to organized labor. But Chavez-Dremo endeared himself to unions during his two years in Congress. A former mayor of suburban Oregon who narrowly won her seat in 2022, she is one of only three House Republicans to co-sponsor the labor movement’s top legislative priority: a bill called the PRO Act ’s bill that would make it easier to unionize and expand labor protections for union members.
After Chavez-Dreimer's nomination was announced, two senior Democratic senators – Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Patty Murray of Washington – issued statements of cautious optimism about her – which A rare sentiment expressed by Democrats against any Trump nominee. Additionally, Teamsters union president Sean O'Brien, who spoke at last year's Republican National Convention and remains neutral in the presidential race after repeatedly endorsing Democratic candidates, also endorsed Chavez -Nomination by Dremer. It also gives hope to more progressive union leaders that Trump may change his party's approach to the labor movement after winning the largest union vote share among Republican households in 40 years.
“This is a positive step for those of us who represent workers and want a better life for workers,” Randy Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers and a close ally of Democratic leaders, told me. She noted that Chavez-Dremo went against her party not only by supporting the PRO Act, but also by voting against private school vouchers and cutting public education funding.
Trump has courted union members throughout the campaign, viewing them as a vital part of his blue-collar base that helped him flip states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, which Joe Biden won in 2020 victory. In September, his running mate J.D. Vance told reporters that the decline in private-sector union membership in recent decades was “a tragedy” — a statement that ran counter to Republicans' long-standing advocacy for laws that would make unions It's even harder, including in Vance's home state of Ohio. O'Brien and congressional Republicans reportedly urged Trump to select Chavez-Dremer after the election. The decision could be a reward for the Truckers snubbing Kamala Harris.
Before choosing Chavez-Dremo, however, Trump’s support for unions remained only rhetorical. He is surrounded by conservative billionaires who generally support business interests and oppose raising the minimum wage, increasing overtime pay and other policies supported by organized labor. Given that record, Democrats added qualifications to their support of Chavez-Dremer. “If Chavez-Dremer is committed to strengthening unions and advancing worker power as secretary of labor, she is a strong candidate for this position,” Warren said in a statement.
This is still a big if. Trump transition spokesperson Aly Beley told me that Chavez-Dremer no longer supports the PRO Act — a major shift that will disappoint Democrats but could help She has the Republican support needed to win confirmation. “President Trump and his intended nominee for labor secretary agree that the PRO Act doesn’t work,” Bailey said.
Conservatives were concerned for the same reasons as Democrats like Chavez-Dremer and pressured her to abandon her pro-union stance before Republicans agreed to vote for her. “It’s an infuriating person,” Grover Norquist, a conservative activist and president of Americans for Tax Reform, told me of her nomination. Norquist said her support of the PRO Act reflected “very poor judgment.” Before Trump announced Chavez-Dremer's nomination, the anti-union group National Right to Work Committee wrote in a letter to Trump that she “should have no place” in his administration: ” She wouldn’t be out of place under Biden — Harris’ Labor Department has been a total sell-out to big labor from the start.”
In the Senate, Chavez-Dremer's nomination has not moved as quickly as Trump's other nominees. The Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), which oversees the Labor Department, has not yet scheduled her confirmation hearing. (Republicans have prioritized holding hearings for Trump’s national security nominees.) She has yet to meet with committee chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, who issued a statement after her nomination was announced Noncommittal statement. “I need to better understand her support for legislation by congressional Democrats that would strip Louisiana of its ability to become a right-to-work state and whether that will be her position going forward,” Cassidy told X. Rand Paul (X. Rand Paul) posted on. Chavez-Dremo, who is also a member of the committee and a key sponsor of major anti-union legislation, has rarely spoken publicly and did not respond to a request for comment, but his chief strategist responded to the post urging Card. Sidi “stop her.” (Cassidy was similarly lukewarm on another nominee within the committee’s purview: Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)
Just months before last year's election, Chavez-Dremer added her name to the PRO Act. Norquist speculated that she was doing this to appease unions in her district in hopes of keeping her seat. If that was her strategy, it failed: Chavez-Dreimer lost to Democrat Janelle Bynum after one of the most expensive campaigns in the country.
Other Republicans view Chavez-Dremo's pro-labor stance as sincere rather than strategic. One of her former colleagues, Rep. Cliff Bentz of Oregon, praised her nomination and said Trump chose her for the Labor Department not because of her close ties to unions, but because of them. “The fact that President-elect Trump is reaching out to labor shows that he understands the need to build better relationships between labor and Republicans,” he told me. “He saw in Lowry what he wanted to do.” Bentz said he would be surprised if Chavez-Dremo “walked most of the stuff back.”
But Chavez-Dremer is not the first Trump Cabinet nominee to repudiate past positions in an effort to win over Senate Republican skeptics. Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard has reversed her opposition to FISA Section 702, a key surveillance tool enacted in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Kennedy reportedly softened his longstanding attacks on vaccines in a meeting with Republican senators.
Democrats and unions are sure to give Chavez-Dreimer the cold shoulder if she opposes the PRO Act, but they wouldn't be shocked. Union leaders told me they have no illusions that Republicans will fully roll back their hostility to the labor movement, even if her nomination represents a step in that direction. “We’ve seen the 2025 plan,” said Jody Calemine, advocacy director for the AFL-CIO. “This agenda is anti-worker at its core.”
It's unclear how much influence Chavez-Dremo will have in a government filled with business leaders. For example, even with the support of the labor secretary, the PRO Act is unlikely to go anywhere in a Republican-controlled Congress, and Norquist expects the White House to exert tight control over policies enacted by cabinet leaders, as it has in recent administrations Do that. both sides.
To progressives, Chavez-Dremer is clearly more popular than some of the other picks Trump reportedly considered for labor secretary. Most notably, they include fast-food CEO Andrew Puzder, whose 2017 nomination failed due to ethics conflicts, revelations that he hired an undocumented immigrant as a housekeeper, and questions about Reports of labor law violations in its company restaurants. She is also considered more union-friendly than Alexander Acosta and Eugene Scalia, the two labor secretaries in Trump's first term.
Chavez-Dremer might be the top Democratic nominee under Trump. But labor leaders like Weingarten will closely watch the relationship between her recent support for union-friendly legislation and an administration that has empowered business leaders and billionaires in other key positions. Weingarten told me that on labor issues, “that's the key question of whether the parties stay in their pre-existing camps.” She said she would lobby Democratic senators to support Chavez-Dremo if the candidate persists in his pro-union stance. But if she gave up on that, Weingarten said, “then it would be all over.”