Trump’s Labor Secretary Suddenly Resigns as Scandals Catch Up to Her |
Trump’s Labor Secretary Suddenly Resigns as Scandals Catch Up to Her
Lori Chavez-DeRemer has become the third Cabinet secretary to leave her position.
Donald Trump’s scandal-plagued labor secretary resigned Monday, the White House announced.
“Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer will be leaving the Administration to take a position in the private sector. She has done a phenomenal job in her role by protecting American workers, enacting fair labor practices, and helping Americans gain additional skills to improve their lives,” White House spokesman Steven Cheung said on X.
Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling will take over as acting department head, according to Cheung.
Chavez-DeRemer’s tenure was brief but tumultuous. The secretary was accused of having an affair with a member of her security detail, asking staffers to buy her alcohol at all hours of the day, and misusing government funds—including to throw herself a birthday party.
Chavez-DeRemer also reportedly specifically asked younger female staffers to keep in touch with her husband and father. People familiar with an investigation by the department’s inspector general told The New York Times that Chavez-DeRemer told the young women to “pay attention” to the men.
Her husband was banned from Labor Department grounds after he allegedly assaulted two female staffers.
The writing may have been on the wall for Chavez-DeRemer. After unceremoniously firing ex-Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump was apparently on the warpath against his own Cabinet. An administration official anonymously told Politico at the start of the month that Trump was “very angry” with his advisers and was looking to move some of them around or even axe them entirely.
Chavez-DeRemer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick were at risk of losing their jobs “imminently,” three anonymous sources told Politico at the time.
As of publication, Chavez-DeRemer has not commented on her resignation. She is now the third woman to hit Trump’s chopping block, after Bondi and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Chavez-DeRemer was also one of the few people of color in Trump’s Cabinet.
Both Bondi and Noem were replaced by men: Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has taken over the Justice Department for the time being, and former Senator Markwayne Mullin was sworn in as the Homeland Security chief in March.
This story has been updated.
White House Is in Full Panic Mode as Trump Doubles Down on Iran War
Chief of Staff Susie Wiles reportedly called a crisis meeting with Republican strategists to discuss the midterms.
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles summoned dozens of Republican political consultants from across the country for a meeting Monday at the Waldorf Astoria, a person familiar with the plan told Politico’s Playbook.
The gathering of Republican operatives comes as the White House is developing its strategy and aligning the broader party apparatus to face November’s midterm elections amid Donald Trump’s rather unpopular “excursion” to the Middle East.
Former deputy chief of staff James Blair, who departed the White House earlier this month in order to run the president’s political operation, was also involved in organizing the meeting at the Waldorf.
“Taken together, the sessions underscore growing urgency inside the White House about the midterms and concerns around energy prices and cost of living exacerbated by the Iran war,” Politico reported.
Trump’s overall approval rating has hit a new low of just 37 percent, according to an NBC News poll Monday. Two-thirds of Americans disapproved of Trump’s handling of inflation and the Iran conflict, which has upended global trade and sent energy prices skyrocketing.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright admitted Sunday that gas prices may not come back down until next year, leaving Republicans in a tough spot when it comes to seeking reelection in November. It seems that strategists in the White House are aware that there’s only so much spin they can do.
“The rhetoric around this stuff matters way less than the reality,” one person close to the White House told Politico’s Dasha Burns Monday. “It either will be or it won’t be. If we don’t see the $3 gallon of gas, we’re gonna get killed.”
House Republicans in Disarray as Members Try to Expel Each Other
House Republicans are descending into chaos, with two more targets on the chopping block.
Republicans are fighting over expelling some of their own members of Congress.
Representative Cory Mills, under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over allegations of assaulting women, soliciting sex workers, lying about his military service, and profiting from federal contracts as a member of Congress, has drafted a resolution to expel his colleague, Representative Nancy Mace, from Congress after she tried to expel him and three other members of Congress last week.
A source told NOTUS, which first reported the news, that the resolution would highlight an incident at Charleston International Airport in South Carolina, last year, in which Mace yelled at TSA agents and security officers, calling them “fucking incompetent.”
The resolution could bring up any other number of Mace’s scandals. The South Carolina representative is also facing her own House Ethics Committee investigation over allegations that she collected $12,000 in congressional reimbursement funds that she wasn’t eligible for, and ordered her staff to buy her alcohol late at night, clean her house, and promote her on forums as one of the “hottest women in Congress.”
The congresswoman took to X after news of Mills’s resolution broke, posting that he “lied about his military service, has been accused of beating women, has a restraining order against him, and has allegedly been stuffing his own pockets with federal contracts while sitting in Congress. As a survivor, I will always stand up and right the wrongs of others. He is only coming after me........