“If you wish to talk about insurance policies within the Division of Labor, let’s usher in the true secretary,” Sanders stated.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) is urging Republicans to name on Elon Musk to testify earlier than the Senate labor committee with a view to probe who within the Trump administration is actually in cost, because the Senate continues advancing cupboard picks regardless of Musk seemingly being behind most main choices.
In remarks on the nomination of President Donald Trump’s labor secretary decide, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, within the Senate Well being, Training, Labor and Pensions Committee, Sanders stated that he opposes Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination — however that it hardly issues who’s within the cupboard with Musk at giant.
The labor secretary must be somebody who protects staff’ rights and the pursuits of working folks, with tens of hundreds of thousands staff topic to “hunger wages” and an more and more large gulf between the wealthy and the working class, Sanders stated. And but, the particular person making choices associated to labor and different points going through working folks is as an alternative the richest particular person on earth, he stated.
“An important level of this listening to is, let me be very clear: Right this moment, we aren’t voting on who the subsequent Secretary of Labor is. The following Secretary of Labor, the subsequent Secretary of Training, the subsequent Secretary of Housing, the subsequent Secretary of the Treasury is Elon Musk. And allow us to perceive that actuality and never play together with this charade,” Sanders stated.
“Does anybody right here actually suppose that any Secretary of Labor, any Secretary of Training, goes to make choices by himself or herself?” he requested.
Certainly, because the senator identified, Musk held an outsized presence at Trump’s first cupboard assembly of his second time period on Wednesday. Musk shouldn’t be a cabinet-level official — in truth, his title as a special government employee means that he’s solely purported to work for 130 days in a calendar yr and underwent much less vetting than regular federal workers.
And but, Musk spoke more than any of the official cupboard members, and when he was not talking, Trump often referred to him as somebody advising him on main choices like shedding one million federal staff.
At one level, Trump stated: “Is anyone sad with Elon?” Trump requested. “If you’re, we’ll throw them out of right here.”
“Let’s be sincere. The American folks perceive it, and it’s time that we understood it as effectively. If you wish to talk about insurance policies within the Division of Labor, let’s usher in the true secretary,” Sanders stated. “Mr. Chairman, I respectfully request that this committee convey Elon Musk earlier than this committee in order that we are able to actually hear what’s occurring with the federal government.”
The committee ultimately voted 14 to 9 to advance Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination, with three Democrats joining Republicans in voting in her favor.
Sanders voted “no.” Labor advocates have noted that, whereas Chavez-DeRemer was one of many few Republicans to help the pro-union Defending the Proper to Set up Act when she was a Home member, she additionally falls in keeping with Republicans’ anti-worker views — supporting anti-union “proper to work” legal guidelines.
Musk, in the meantime, desires to close down federal labor regulation totally. After years of his corporations being investigated by labor regulators for quite a few alleged labor violations, Musk’s SpaceX filed a lawsuit final yr trying to shutter the Nationwide Labor Relations Board, the nation’s prime labor regulator.
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