Despite his claims to be for all working people, President-elect Donald Trump's administration is shaping up to be the richest in history.
Today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka released the following statement on the recent Cabinet nominations made by President-elect Donald Trump:
After the election, we made clear that we would hold Donald Trump accountable to the promises he made to working people throughout the campaign.
His initial nominations fundamentally threaten these promises. Taken together, the appointments push President-elect Trump away from the values and issues that working-class voters said were most important to them.
As a candidate, President-elect Trump railed against Wall Street greed and the failure of big banks to invest in America, yet his nominee for treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, is a billionaire who got rich by foreclosing on the homes of hardworking American families. Mnuchin will take us back to the risky, unregulated financial speculation that benefits his Wall Street friends, leaves consumers vulnerable and risks another financial crisis.
President-elect Trump promised to protect Social Security and Medicare, yet his nominee for HHS secretary, Rep. Tom Price, wants to privatize and undermine these essential programs and take health care coverage away from millions of Americans.
During the campaign, President-elect Trump complained that our kids aren’t learning, yet his nominee for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, has spent her career undermining our public education system at the expense of students and teachers alike. She is a billionaire lobbyist, who has used her family’s wealth to steer public funds to private schools.
Finally, President-elect Trump talked about a “New Deal” for communities of color, yet Sen. Jeff Sessions, his nominee for attorney general, has a history of racially charged comments and a record of crushing civil liberties, including the right to vote. He is the opposite of what the American people want in their chief legal officer.
These decisions by President-elect Trump are deeply inconsistent with the pledges he made in the campaign. Donald Trump the candidate claimed he would rein in the power of Wall Street traders, protect Social Security and Medicare and ensure all kids have great schools. But his Cabinet choices send a dangerous signal about how President-elect Trump will conduct his presidency. We urge the president-elect to stop stacking his administration with billionaire insiders who do not share the core American values he campaigned on.