The Republican Insider Now Running Trump’s Labor Department

Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s sudden exit from the Labor Department on Monday is surfacing a belief long held by many inside the agency and in the business community: Her deputy was running the operation all along.

The White House decision to tap Keith Sonderling as acting secretary elevates a quintessential Washington insider who is well-connected in the capital’s Republican circles and his home state of Florida. Business groups even lobbied for him to serve as DOL’s second in command after being caught off-guard by President Donald Trump’s decision to pick Chavez-DeRemer, a union-friendly former House member, to lead the agency.

Now Sonderling is tasked with steadying a department that has been gripped by scandal for months.

“His job title considerably understates his importance on labor and employment matters to the administration,” said Roger King, senior labor and employment counsel for the CHRO Association, a trade group for human resources executives.

His influence dates back to the presidential transition but has steadily accumulated over the past year-and-a-half and extends well beyond DOL in ways that have largely gone unnoticed outside of workplace policy circles. In Sonderling, the White House is betting an agency veteran will focus DOL on the president’s workplace agenda instead of acting as a font of unwanted attention.

The Labor Department is not considered a premier destination in a Republican administration, but it has been a particular headache for Trump.

Former fast food executive Andrew Puzder, Trump’s initial pick to lead the department after winning the 2016 presidential election, was cast aside amid resurfaced allegations of domestic abuse that Puzder said were false and part of an acrimonious divorce. Puzder now serves as the ambassador to the European Union.

The White House subsequently turned to Alexander Acosta, whose tenure as Labor secretary was derailed in 2019 amid renewed scrutiny of his prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes while serving as a U.S. attorney in Florida. Eugene Scalia, the son of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and a former DOL solicitor, took over until President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021.

It is unclear if the White House will nominate Sonderling to replace Chavez-DeRemer on a permanent basis. His supporters acknowledge he lacks the cachet Trump often looks for with Cabinet positions but believe he would be the steadiest option.

“He is really the pivot point of all labor and workforce policy for this administration,” a Republican operative close to the administration, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal dynamics, said of Sonderling.

Sonderling can serve indefinitely as acting Labor secretary, just as former acting Secretary Julie Su did during the Biden administration after her nomination to succeed Marty Walsh was blocked by key Senate Democrats.

A White House official, granted anonymity to discuss the situation because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said the president will make a decision on the Labor job “in due time.” DOL did not make Sonderling available for an interview on Tuesday, and he did not respond to a request for comment.

Sonderling worked at DOL in Trump’s first term, where he was a top official in the Wage and Hour Division before being appointed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. At EEOC, he positioned himself at the forefront of how artificial intelligence would affect the workplace.

He left the civil rights agency in 2024 after the end of his term. At the time he told associates he wanted to return to the private sector, according to four people familiar with his thinking, and was initially reluctant to sign up for another stint in government.

Sonderling joined the Trump transition team and was one of the first people deployed to DOL in the administration’s early days, working as a senior adviser to then-acting Labor Secretary Vince Micone. The Senate voted to confirm him as deputy secretary in March 2025, two days after Chavez-DeRemer.

Even some who oppose the acting secretary’s employer-friendly policy beliefs view him as an honest broker who is deeply knowledgeable about labor issues.

“I’ve always known him to be a straight shooter and accessible,” said Judy Conti, a longtime progressive labor consultant. “We disagree, but it’s always in a respectful fashion.”

DOL staffers described Chavez-DeRemer as an infrequent presence in DOL’s headquarters as she worked to visit all 50 states during her first year on the job. Her absences and relative inexperience created room for Sonderling to take an outsize role running the agency along with Courtney Walter, a senior counselor for the secretary’s office and another alumnus of Trump’s first-term DOL.

“Keith and Courtney have run it the entire time,” said a senior DOL appointee, who was granted anonymity to discuss the agency’s operations.

In addition to his duties at DOL, 43-year-old Sonderling is the acting head of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which the White House has unsuccessfully attempted to dismantle.

He has also helped select candidates for positions at several other agencies, including for the National Labor Relations Board, according to four people familiar with the matter. Earlier this month Trump nominated DOL official James Macy to fill a Republican vacancy on the panel along with David Prouty, the board’s sole Democratic appointee whose term expires in August.

“He had to move heaven and Earth to get Macy nominated,” the Republican operative close to the administration said of Sonderling, a sentiment shared by business groups that had been pressing the White House to act.

The Vacancies Reform Act places limits on the amount of time that executive branch officials can fill-in. But the Biden administration relied on a separate statute that allows the deputy Labor secretary to hold acting duties “until a successor is appointed,” and a 2023 Government Accountability Office report backed up that legal interpretation.

“If Trump is happy with Sonderling … even if there is no nomination, he could be acting labor secretary the rest of the term,” said Thomas Berry, who has extensively researched the Vacancies Act for the Cato Institute.

Sonderling has twice successfully navigated the Senate confirmation for his EEOC and deputy secretary nominations, though he or anyone else Trump nominates could face a tougher road for the Cabinet post — as Su found out when Biden picked her.

“Whoever the president nominates, I hope it’s someone with robust labor policy experience and knowledge,” Conti said. “Those of us in this field are sick of DOL being an afterthought.”