On January 22, 2025, President Trump announced his nomination of Puzder to serve as United States Ambassador to the European Union in his second administration.

[3] On December 8, 2016, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Puzder to serve as Secretary of Labor, but on February 15, 2017, he withdrew due to lack of votes needed for his confirmation.

Earning his way through college and law school, while supporting his family by working construction, landscaping, and painting houses, he attended Kent State University, but later dropped out in 1970 to play guitar and perform in bands.

Working with St. Louis area Congresswoman Ann Wagner's mother-in-law, Puzder reasoned that if fetuses were recognized as having rights in other contexts, it would establish a foundation for challenging Roe v. Wade later on.

[15] Following the Webster decision in 1990, Puzder authored a commentary article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that "called on his colleagues and abortion-rights supporters to work together for new laws to help pregnant women and their children."

BJ Isaacson Jones, the Director of Reproductive Health Services (the abortion clinic involved in the Webster case), contacted him and they began talking about areas where they could find common ground in an effort to help women and children.

In a letter dated Jan. 18, 2017 that she sent to Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Sen. Patty Murray, she stated: "Let me be clear.

She acknowledged that she was "misled by faulty advice of someone I trusted" and noted that "[t]he fact that my attorney used 'adult abuse' as a vehicle to gain leverage in our divorce proceedings has haunted me as well as our children to this day.

[26] Puzder organized a transaction in which Karcher would sell a stake in his company to William P. Foley, the Chairman and CEO of Fidelity National Financial.

[25] In January 1995, Puzder became Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Fidelity, managing one of the largest corporate legal departments in the country until June 2000.

[33] PR News and CommCore Consulting named Puzder its 2005 Spokesperson of the Year for his work in representing the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's brands on television and radio.

[34] Puzder earned the Golden Chain Award in 2008 from Nation's Restaurant News, in honor of his accomplishments and career achievements as a multi-unit foodservice executive.

[37] Under Puzder, CKE launched a long-running ad campaign for Carl's Jr. and Hardee's showing thin, scantily dressed female celebrities eating large hamburgers.

And I rarely thought that was true, but I think this one, in this case, it kind of did take on my personality.”[40] After Puzder left CKE in 2017, the corporation announced it was retiring its sexy ad campaign and replacing it with "food-centered" advertising.

[41] Puzder is a frequent author on economic and legal issues in periodicals such as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Real Clear Politics, CNBC online, National Review, The Hill, Politico, and the Orange County Register.

[45] Puzder also served as a Delegate to the 2012 Republican National Convention[46] and as the Chairman of the Platform Committee's Sub-Committee on the Economy, Job Creation, and the Debt.

[51] Puzder also served as a Delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention and as the Chairman of the Platform Committee's "Restoring the American Dream" Sub-Committee on the economy, job creation, and the debt.

Sources close to Puzder insist that he had maintained transparency and provided an enormous amount of detail in order to streamline the confirmation process.

[63][64] Puzder opposed a never-enacted rule that would have required time and a half overtime pay to certain salaried managers when they worked more than 40 hours per week.

In an editorial published by Forbes Magazine in 2016, Puzder wrote: "This new rule will simply add to the extensive regulatory maze the Obama Administration has imposed on employers, forcing many to offset increased labor expense by cutting costs elsewhere.

[67] In an opinion editorial published in The Wall Street Journal in October 2016, Puzder referred to the law as the "Non-Affordable Care Act" and said that "the burden these increased health-care costs place on working and middle-class Americans is inexcusable".

[68][67] Speaking to Business Insider in 2016, Puzder said that increased automation could be a welcome development because machines were "always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there's never a slip-and-fall or an age, sex, or race discrimination case.

"[67][69] However, Puzder does not advocate completely removing humans from the "fast food equation," and has mentioned several drawbacks to increased automation, including detrimental effects on customer service and difficulty in building company culture.