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lori chavez-deremer
Good Riddance to Trump's Horrible, No Good Labor Secretary
The disgraced Lori Chavez-DeRemer is what you get when you have a president and White House staff who don’t give a rat’s ass about whom they appoint to positions of power except for their loyalty to Trump and how they look on television.
Apr 21, 2026
Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned Monday as secretary of labor [translated: she was told to resign by the White House], after facing investigations by the department’s inspector general into multiple allegations of misconduct.
She’s alleged to have been drinking during the workday from a “stash” of alcohol in her office, arranging official trips for herself that were extended vacations, taking subordinates to an Oregon strip club while on one such trip, showing no interest in the work of the department, and having an affair with a member of her security team.
Sources have described Chavez-DeRemer as the “boss from hell,” saying she demanded staffers run personal errands for her or perform other menial tasks unrelated to their government jobs. More than two dozen department employees from across the political spectrum described in interviews with The New York Times a toxic workplace characterized by an absentee secretary, hostile aides, and a deeply demoralized staff.
In other words, Chavez-DeRemer was turning the great department I once headed and loved into shit. And I hold Trump responsible because he appointed her.
As I shared with you a few weeks ago, I loved the Department of Labor from the moment I entered the Frances Perkins Building on Constitution Avenue as secretary of labor in January 1992. I loved its mission: to protect and raise the standard of living of working Americans.
I loved its history. The first secretary of labor, Frances Perkins — appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 — was also America’s first female Cabinet secretary. She was the guiding light behind the creation of Social Security, the 40-hour workweek, the National Labor Relations Act, and much more.
I hung the painting of Frances Perkins behind my desk in my huge second-floor office. Whenever I felt discouraged, I looked at her, and she bucked me up. (Although I’m Jewish, I called her Saint Frances.)
I admired the Department of Labor’s career staff, who were dedicated to helping American workers. I was deeply impressed by the assistant secretaries, the deputy secretary, the chief of staff, and other appointees with whom I toiled, often six or seven days a week from early morning to late at night.
Never before or since have I had the privilege of working with such talented people who cared so much about what they were accomplishing for the American people, and who made such a positive impact on so many lives.
We raised the minimum wage for the first time in many years, even under a Republican-controlled Congress. We implemented the Family and Medical Leave Act. We fought against sweatshops. We took on big corporations that were cheating their employees. We kept workers safe. We … well, I could go on and on. (And I have, in my book Locked in the Cabinet, which you can also find here, but please don’t order from here.)
But like so much else Trump has done, he’s turned what was once a great department into a fucking mess. And it frankly breaks my heart.
It’s what you get when you have a president and White House staff who don’t give a rat’s ass about whom they appoint to positions of power except for their loyalty to Trump and how they look on television.
Trump and his White House assistants don’t mind if his appointees wreck our government because they don’t care about government. Hell, they came to government to wreck it. If the public loses confidence in, say, the Department of Labor, that’s perfectly fine. If Congress slashes its funding, so much the better.
What they do mind is if a Cabinet member makes Trump look bad, which is why Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi are now history — along with Chavez-DeRemer.
It infuriates me, because I’ve seen government work for the people. I’ve witnessed public servants who care deeply and bust their asses in service to this country. I know how important government can be if it’s doing the job it should be doing.
I loved the Department of Labor because it has improved the lives of millions of Americans. I worked like hell as secretary of labor because I believed in what we were doing. That it’s been treated like crap is an insult to generations of hardworking DOL employees, to American workers, to America.
The least we can all do is flip Congress in November, so senators and representatives who care about this country can oversee the departments of the government and try to remedy some of the wreckage that Trump and his appointees have wreaked on America.
In the meantime, goodbye and good riddance to Madam Secretary Chavez-DeRemer.
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Trump Loses Another Cabinet Secretary as 'Scandal-Ridden' Chavez-DeRemer Resigns
"Chavez-DeRemer failed to protect workers, jeopardized the Department of Labor's work to support the economy, drove down morale among agency staff, and abused federal government resources to serve her own whims."
Apr 20, 2026
President Donald Trump's "scandal-ridden" Department of Labor leader, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, resigned from her post on Monday, making her the third member of his Cabinet to leave since the beginning of the year, following the firings of former US Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Confirming reports of the latest departure, White House spokesperson Steven Cheung said that "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."
Her deputy, Keith Sonderling, "will take on the role of acting secretary of labor," Cheung added.
As Politico noted Monday, "Chavez-DeRemer has been under scrutiny since January, when DOL Inspector General Anthony D'Esposito opened an investigation into allegations that she was involved in an extramarital affair with a member of her security detail, that she drank on the job, and that top aides concocted official events to facilitate her personal travel plans."
That probe led to allegations—initially reported by The New York Times in February—that the secretary's husband, Shawn DeRemer, "has been barred from the department's headquarters after at least two female staff members told officials that he had sexually assaulted them." DeRemer denied the claims, and police have reportedly closed a related investigation.
As NOTUS reported Monday:
A source close to the president told NOTUS last week that the White House viewed Chavez-DeRemer as an effective spokesperson for the president's economic message and implementer of workforce policy. But the tales of the labor secretary's alleged scandals had become palace intrigue among people close to and inside of the White House.
Two Republicans who speak with President Donald Trump told NOTUS they expected him to pull the trigger on removing Chavez-DeRemer on Wednesday, when she was due for what was expected to be a bruising hearing in Congress. Some inside the White House anticipated Democrats at the hearing would focus on Chavez-DeRemer's alleged transgressions.
Responding to the resignation on social media, the Democratic Party highlighted Bondi and Noem's ousters, and declared, "This administration is imploding."
Before joining Trump's Cabinet, the outgoing secretary represented Oregon's 5th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, a Democrat who serves the state's 1st District, said that "Chavez-DeRemer failed to protect workers, jeopardized the Department of Labor's work to support the economy, drove down morale among agency staff, and abused federal government resources to serve her own whims. She should be held accountable for the damage that occurred on her watch."
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'This Is Trump's America': Scandals Engulf Labor Secretary as She Guts Worker Protections
A group of Democratic senators accused Lori Chavez-DeRemer's Labor Department of showing "disregard for workers’ lives."
Feb 20, 2026
Lori Chavez-DeRemer's tenure as head of the US Department of Labor was further embroiled in scandal on Thursday after bombshell New York Times reporting revealed that her husband has been banned from the agency's headquarters over sexual assault allegations leveled by at least two staffers.
The reporting landed on the same day that a group of Senate Democrats launched an investigation into Chavez-DeRemer's policy moves at the Labor Department, accusing her agency of showing "disregard for workers’ lives" by "rolling back protections that keep workers safe and hobbling the agency that is tasked with overseeing worker safety."
The sexual assault allegations against the labor secretary's husband, Shawn DeRemer, were made by two women "as part of an internal investigation by the department’s inspector general into alleged misconduct by Ms. Chavez-DeRemer and her senior staff," the Times reported Thursday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter and a police report.
"The widening misconduct scandal at the Labor Department has forced several aides and members of the security staff in Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s inner circle onto administrative and investigative leave," the newspaper continued. "The inspector general’s office is investigating a formal complaint that Ms. Chavez-DeRemer was having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a subordinate—a member of her security detail—and abusing her office by taking staff to strip clubs, drinking alcohol on the job, and taking personal trips at taxpayer expense. Her lawyer has denied the allegations."
"This is Trump's America," retired US diplomat Ken Fairfax wrote in response to the reporting.
Meanwhile, Chavez-DeRemer has been playing a central role in what six Senate Democrats characterized as the Trump administration's "attack on workers from all sides."
In a Thursday letter to Chavez-DeRemer and David Keeling, the assistant secretary of labor for Occupational Safety and Health, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other Democrats expressed alarm over the Labor Department's "ambitious deregulatory agenda that includes many of the regulations that OSHA has promulgated to keep American workers safe."
The lawmakers pointed specifically to Labor Department efforts to eliminate more than a third of the Mine Safety and Health Administration's offices, roll back "a requirement for employers to provide adequate lighting at construction sites," and loosen "respirator requirements for workers exposed to dangerous materials like lead, asbestos, and formaldehyde, as well as chemicals known to be carcinogens."
"But you are not only rolling back rules that protect workers—OSHA also appears to be taking a lighter hand in enforcing even the rules that still exist," the senators wrote. "According to OSHA statistics comparing the months of April through September 2025 with the same period in 2024, the agency reduced workplace inspections by 20%. Those statistics also show a 42% decrease in the number of 'willful violations' found during inspections by OSHA during the months of April-September of 2025 as compared to the same period in 2024."
Chavez-DeRemer was confirmed as labor secretary last year with bipartisan support and a boost from the Teamsters union given some of her past pro-worker stances, such as support for the PRO Act—which she quickly distanced herself from during the confirmation process.
"Chavez-DeRemer refused to commit to supporting a minimum-wage increase, or paid leave for workers," The Nation's John Nichols wrote following her confirmation hearing last February. "And, of course, she unapologetically declared, 'The right to work is a fundamental tenet of labor laws, where states have a right to choose if they want to be a right-to-work state, and that should be protected.'"
"She has made it abundantly clear that she is not interested in serving as an ally of America’s workers or the unions that represent them," Nichols added. "In the great struggle between the working class and the billionaire class, Chavez-DeRemer has chosen to side with Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the oligarchs."
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