FILE - In this Nov. 19, 2016 file photo, President-elect Donald Trump walks with CKE Restaurants CEO Andy Puzder from Trump National Golf Club Bedminster clubhouse in Bedminster, N.J. Trump is expected... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Nov. 19, 2016 file photo, President-elect Donald Trump walks with CKE Restaurants CEO Andy Puzder from Trump National Golf Club Bedminster clubhouse in Bedminster, N.J. Trump is expected... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump is expected to add another wealthy business person and elite donor to his Cabinet, with fast-food executive Andrew Puzder as labor secretary. 
 
 Puzder heads CKE Restaurants Holdings, the parent company of Carl's Jr., Hardee's and other chains. In 2010, he published a book called "Job Creation: How it Really Works and Why Government Doesn't Understand It." 
 
 A Republican official and a person close to Trump's transition said Thursday Trump had settled on Puzder for the job, but it had not been announced. 
 
 The Californian was one of Trump's earliest campaign financiers, serving as a co-chairman of his California finance team and organizing fundraisers well before most major donors got on board with the eventual Republican nominee. Together with his wife, Puzder contributed $150,000 in late May to Trump's campaign and Republican Party partners, fundraising records show. 
 
 As one of Trump's most outspoken defenders, Puzder frequently appeared on cable news and Twitter to talk up the benefits of having a business leader in the White House. 
 
 A week after Trump's election, Puzder said he agreed with Trump's aim to ease business regulations. 
 
 "We've reached the point where overregulation is doing meaningful damage to our businesses," he said last month at the Restaurant Finance & Development Conference in Las Vegas, citing high labor costs, increased health care costs and "political and social" policies as hindrances. 
 
 Trump's recent appointments have reflected his desire to turn to business leaders — who also were campaign donors. Trump tapped former WWE chief executive and top campaign contributor Linda McMahon to lead the Small Business Administration. He also selected his campaign's national finance chairman Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive and hedge fund investor, as Treasury secretary. 
 
 Puzder has visited with Trump several times since the election, including a meeting Wednesday afternoon at Trump Tower. 
 
 Puzder has long been a reliable GOP donor. He was a major financier for 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney and has remained close to him. At Romney's annual donor summit in June, Puzder was one of just a few attendees who aggressively promoted Trump to the dozens who were more squeamish about their party's new star. 
 
 He told The Associated Press at the Republican National Convention in late July that he enjoyed the challenge of raising money for Trump, saying he often sought common ground with reluctant GOP donors by talking up Trump's children. 
 
 "If he's such an evil villain," Puzder said he would tell would-be donors, "how do you explain the kids?" 
 
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 AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this report. ||||| Though he did not explain what a “rational” increase would entail, he opposed the Obama administration’s efforts to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 from $7.25, where it has stood since 2009. That is far below the $15 per hour that many advocates have called for and that a variety of cities and states have enacted in recent years, albeit on a gradual timetable. 
 
 Economic research suggests that an increase to the vicinity of $10.10 per hour would have little or no effect on employment in much of the country, though the impact could be larger in low-wage, low-cost areas. Mr. Puzder has raised concerns about the effects in those regions. 
 
 On other issues, Mr. Puzder has taken hard-line positions that leave less room for negotiation. Perhaps most prominent is the so-called joint employer doctrine that the Obama administration and its agency appointees have put forth in recent years. 
 
 Under that doctrine, large companies that have franchises or hire other companies as contractors are more likely to be held liable for violations of employment laws by those contractors or franchisees. Parent companies typically argue that they have no legal responsibility in these cases. 
 
 Mr. Puzder has been unambiguous in his disdain for the new standard. As labor secretary, there are certain immediate steps he could take to undo it, though there are some applications, like to the law governing unions, that would require action by the National Labor Relations Board or federal courts to overturn. 
 
 Perhaps the biggest question surrounding Mr. Puzder is how he would be perceived as a wealthy chief executive charged with looking out for workers’ interests. 
 
 According to a 2012 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr. Puzder’s base salary that year was more than $1 million and his total compensation over $4 million, down from more than $10 million the year before. “Annual base salaries should be competitive and create a measure of financial security for our executive officers,” the filing said.
– Donald Trump's latest Cabinet pick is Andy Puzder, the CEO of fast-food chains including Hardee's and Carl's Jr., who is widely expected to be named labor secretary, reports the Wall Street Journal. The AP frames the pick as adding "another wealthy business person and elite donor to his Cabinet," while the New York Times reports on Puzder's policy stances, namely that he is an outspoken critic of raising the minimum wage above $9 an hour or expanding overtime protections, and has strongly supported the repeal of ObamaCare and opposed worker protections rolled out by the current administration. "We've reached the point where overregulation is doing meaningful damage to our businesses," he said last month, citing high labor and health care costs, and "political and social" policies. Puzder would mark another notable Cabinet-level pick that Trump plucks from the business community, along with WWE co-founder Linda McMahon at the top of the Small Business Administration and former Goldman Sachs exec Steve Mnuchin as Treasury secretary, notes the AP. A Trump spokesman Wednesday called Puzder "an excellent advocate for the president-elect and his economic message."