Puzder’s labor philosophies have revealed themselves in a pretty Trumpian ways—through attention-getting remarks about his own experience in business and the specter of threats. Earlier this year, registering his displeasure with $15 minimum-wage initiatives, Puzder suggested that he might one day replace workers with robots in his restaurants. "If you're making labor more expensive, and automation less expensive—this is not rocket science," he told Business Insider.

Like Trump, Puzder is also something of an iconoclast, someone keenly able to find his way into controversy. His nomination for labor secretary not only drew the ire of The New York Times editorial board, but also some condemnation from Breitbart, which noted previous remarks in which Puzder said he preferred to use foreign labor and argued in favor of immigration reform.

But perhaps most reminiscent of Trump, Puzder is a provocateur who also—quite unapologetically— sees his business as a reflection of himself. While there are plenty of people who are unfamiliar with Carl’s Jr. or Hardee’s, it’s not for lack of efforts on the company’s part. For over a decade now, Carl’s Jr. has relied on polarizing, sexually-suggestive ads featuring women—models, reality-television stars, and other celebrities—devouring huge burgers in bikinis, on mechanical bulls, or in slow motion. Speaking of the widely maligned ads last year, Puzder didn’t just stick up for them, he took pride in them. “I like our ads. I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis. I think it’s very American,” he told Entrepreneur. “I used to hear, brands take on the personality of the CEO. And I rarely thought that was true, but I think this one, in this case, it kind of did take on my personality.”

This flavor of gimmickry, which resemble Trump’s loud, brash campaign style, is matched only by the grandiosity of Carl’s Jr’s offerings, which promise grandiose, swaggering, patriotic excess. There may be nothing that better sums the Make America Great Again credo than the Carl’s Jr.-Hardee’s Most American Thickburger, a hulking, 1,000-calorie leviathan of a sandwich that features a beef patty, a hot dog, and a layer of potato chips. The burger debuted last May, mere weeks before Trump declared his candidacy for president campaigning on similar displays of brash, grandiose, patriotic excess.

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