Two days after President Donald Trump formally nominated Eugene Scalia to be secretary of labor, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka told Newsmax a major campaign to defeat his nomination is in the making.
"When Eugene Scalia was nominated to be solicitor of labor, we actively opposed him," Trumka told us. "He had a record of being anti-union. Since '02, he has only gotten worse."
Trumka said an all-out campaign by organized labor to thwart Scalia's nomination in the Senate was "most likely."
The labor chief specifically singled out a statement of Scalia's in which the nominee "called repetitive injury 'junk science.'"
"His views are dangerously outside the mainsteam and we have no choice but to oppose him," said Trumka, who spoke at a Washington. D.C., press breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor.
Referring to President Trump, Trumka said, "I have to believe that he knew what he was doing when he named Eugene Scalia to head the only [department] that defends workers' rights."
Scalia, the son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was nominated on Tuesday to succeed former Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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