Union Bosses Sink Bernie Sanders as Labor Secretary

Two weeks after Newsmax reported Bernie Sanders very much wanted to be secretary of labor in a Biden administration, sources close to organized labor and Joe Biden himself now say the Vermont senator and two-time Democrat presidential hopeful will stay where he is.

The same sources told us that several powerful union leaders with close ties to Biden made it clear they did not want Sanders — a self-styled a “democratic socialist” — as their voice in the Cabinet.

AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka and American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees President Lee Saunders both reportedly told Biden “thumbs down” to Sanders.

Both are making little secret they want the next secretary of labor to be Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, a one-time member of a construction trades union and a personal friend of Biden’s. 

“Should Bernie Sanders be secretary of labor? No,” Bob Juliano, a retired lobbyist for a major restaurant workers’ union, told Newsmax. “That doesn’t mean I don’t like Bernie. I do. I’ve known him since he was first elected to Congress in 1990 and he’s solidly for the workers.”

Juliano, who has known Biden since he was a freshman senator in 1973, explained that “secretary of labor is just not a good fit for Bernie.”

Other sources close to organized labor said union leaders feared that Sanders, as secretary of labor, would push a far-left agenda that would lead to a clash with Biden and his ouster from the administration. 

“Democrats who aren’t complete imbeciles will be chastened by the close election results — Biden barely won, Republicans gained seats in the House — and will be less eager to push a radical agenda,” said one labor-management attorney who requested anonymity.

“I also doubt Bernie is really Cabinet material,” Henry Olsen, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told us. “Can you see him managing a department and going through the regulatory process?”

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.