Breitbart described Andrew Puzder, right, as "a cheap-labor, migration-boosting employer." | Getty Breitbart rips Trump's labor pick

Donald Trump on Thursday faced criticism over his labor secretary pick from an unlikely source: Breitbart News, a right-wing media organization that championed Trump's presidential candidacy.

As reports spread of the Trump transition team's plan to announce restaurant chain CEO Andrew Puzder as head of the Labor Department, Breitbart released a piece picking apart the executive's views, writing that he "stands diametrically opposed to Trump’s signature issues on trade and immigration."


The piece charged Puzder with "[preferring] foreign labor to American workers" and seeking to "import foreign workers to fill U.S. jobs," saying his position "stands opposed to the desires of the American electorate" that elected Trump. Citing numerous op-eds authored by Puzder over the years, the article also critiques his "support for immigration amnesty."

The article, authored by Julia Hahn, left the door open for Puzder to "abandon his former open borders positions on these issues and will take up Trump’s pro-American worker platform on trade and immigration, which won him the election."

Soon after the Puzder announcement was made official, Breitbart reupped its criticism in an article calling the executive "a cheap-labor, migration-boosting employer" who "just wants more immigration to boost employers and business." It also drew attention to the #NeverPuzder hashtag.

The criticisms mark a departure for the site that staunchly supported Trump's presidential candidacy and whose former executive chair, Steve Bannon, left to join the Trump campaign. Bannon has since been tapped as a top adviser in the incoming Trump administration.

Trump has come under fire for his recent attack of an Indiana union boss who questioned his claim of having saved more than 1,000 Carrier jobs from moving to Mexico.

“If United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana,” Trump tweeted Wednesday after union boss Chuck Jones criticized him on cable television. “Spend more time working-less time talking. Reduce dues.”

Trump's response was rebuked by several union leaders, who also saw Puzder's appointment as the president-elect doubling down on anti-worker policies.

“It’s part of a larger agenda, and you can see it playing out in terms of his picks, which is to destroy the labor movement,” said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United. “They want to do away with democracy. That’s the problem. Labor is a check on the balance of power with corporations and they want labor out of the way.”

Puzder, the CEO of CKE Restaurants, is a union critic who in the past has floated the idea of automating his workforce to cut costs.