Washington Free Beacon editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti said that Democrats may end up regretting their calls for Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta's resignation during a Tuesday appearance on MSNBC's Meet the Press Daily.
"Democrats might end up regretting calling for Acosta's resignation because it is true that many conservatives feel that Acosta has been slow rolling some of the labor deregulation agenda of this president," Continetti said. "So you might get a replacement for him should he resign who would actually be much more forward leaning in terms of deregulating the labor market."
The panel addressed the increasing calls for Acosta's resignation coming from top Democratic lawmakers like Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.), Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). Acosta is under fire for a plea deal he negotiated in 2008 with billionaire Jeffery Epstein, over a felony solicitation of underage girls. The plea deal stated Epstein serve 13 month prison sentence but was allowed work release six days a week.
Continetti pointed out that the story is still developing and Acosta has not made a large number of public statements about the case.
"Acosta hasn't spoken much about this case, the few times he has done it included his confirmation hearing for labor secretary and there he said that he did not like some aspects of the deal, including the kind of work release program that Epstein was on," Continetti said. "So I think you will have two forces trying to convince the president, one, which we hear from the Democrats and many others saying that this was a bad deal, that Acosta authored."
"But the other was Acosta himself saying, you know, I did the best I could under certain circumstances, the state government, the state authorities, were even more lenient than I was, and it just depends on who Trump listens to in the end," he continued.