A member of the U.S. rail regulatory board said he discovered that he had been fired by the Trump administration after returning home from an Amtrak event to unveil new high-speed Acela trains.
“I was just as surprised as anyone else,” the former Surface Transportation Board member, Robert Primus, told CNBC’s Eamon Javers on Thursday in his first broadcast interview since being removed.
Primus, a Democrat who President Donald Trump nominated to the STB in 2020 during his first term, also reaffirmed that he planned to fight his ouster.
“I tell people, I’m from Jersey and Jersey folks know how to fight,” he said.
The shake-up is the latest in a recent series of high-profile firings by the Trump administration.
Trump this week moved to fire Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook and Susan Monarez, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both have contested their removals; Cook filed a federal lawsuit against Trump on Thursday morning.
Primus told CNBC that he was completely blindsided when he suddenly learned Wednesday that he was losing his job.
“I was discharging my duties yesterday with Amtrak” as the U.S. passenger rail company introduced the newest iteration of its flagship Acela trains, Primus said.
He said he “went up into New York and back,” and realized when he returned home that his work phone was locked.
“I thought I actually sat on it or did something different to it,” he said.
Primus said he then checked his personal phone and saw an email from a member of the White House Presidential Personnel Office “that basically said … that my position was terminated.”
“No cause was given” in that email, he said.
Primus’ termination comes as the STB is reviewing a proposed merger between freight rail rivals Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern that is valued at $85 billion.
Primus was the only board member to dissent from a March 2023 decision to approve a merger between Kansas City Southern and Canadian Pacific.
The White House, confirming Primus was fired, said that he “did not align with the President’s America First agenda.”
“The Administration intends to nominate new, more qualified members to the Surface Transportation Board in short order,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.
But Primus pushed back, telling CNBC, “Anybody who knows me, in the four-and-a-half years that I’ve been on the board, knows that I have been pro-growth, pro-America since I’ve been there.”
Primus had first revealed his termination overnight, writing in a LinkedIn post that the White House’s move was “deeply troubling and legally invalid.”
“Ironically, this comes at a time when the Board is considering significant pressing matters of critical importance to both our national freight rail network and supply chain that would directly affect large swaths of our manufacturing, agricultural, industrial and energy sectors,” Primus wrote.
“With all of this in mind, I plan to continue to discharge my duties as a member of the Board and, if I’m prevented from doing so, I will explore my legal options,” he wrote.
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— CNBC’s Lori Ann LaRocco contributed to this report.
