On Labor Day, America Remains a Work in Progress

A special archive edition of the Hive newsletter [View in your browser]( | [Update your preferences](newsletter=vf) [Vanity Fair Hive logo image]( On Labor Day, America Remains a Work in Progress Happy Labor Day. All too often in America, workers go overlooked. That’s why the Hive is taking time today to revisit five excerpts that spotlight some of the most unforgettable sacrifices made by American workers during times of tumult and crisis. Few people have put workers in more peril than Donald Trump, whose administration, as author Peter Goodman [chronicled]( in June, ordered meat plants to stay open during COVID, putting the lives of slaughterhouse workers on the line at the behest of big business. Trump also repeatedly put his own government’s employees through the ringer, including Situation Room officers, who struggled to return to work after January 6 left an indelible scar on the nation’s sense of security, [recounted]( George Stephanopoulos in his recent book, The Situation Room. All in all, Trump has never been a friend to working people. And that’s something The Village Voice exposed as early as the ’70s—thanks, as Tricia Romano [wrote](, to the utterly fearless muckraker Wayne Barrett. Elsewhere, we should also tip a hat to America’s war correspondents, like Fox News’ Benjamin Hall, who was gravely injured during his coverage of the war in Ukraine, leading to an emergency evacuation that he bravely [recalled]( in his book from March 2023. And let’s not forget all the trials and tribulations workers have gone through at the company formerly known as Twitter, where Elon Musk brought employees to their emotional breaking point, as Zoë Schiffer [reported](, during his chaotic corporate takeover. Thanks for reading, and see you on Tuesday. [Image may contain: Adult, Person, Art, Collage, Wedding, Painting, and Graphics]( [How the Trump Administration Sacrificed Slaughterhouse Workers for Meat Monopolies]( By [Peter Goodman]( [As COVID ravaged production lines nationwide, the former president stoked baseless fears about meat shortages and personally ordered plants to stay open, all at the behest of the agribusiness lobby, as Peter S. Goodman writes in an excerpt of his new book, How the World Ran Out of Everything.]( [Read more button](   [“Just Do It, No Delay”: Inside the Secret Mission to Evacuate an Injured Fox News Correspondent From Ukraine]( By [Benjamin Hall]( [Fox News carefully coordinated with the Defense Department and a former Special Forces agent to get Benjamin Hall, who was gravely wounded in a Russian shelling, safely across the Polish border, Hall recounts in his 2023 book, Saved.]( [Read more button](   [A Brief Oral History of Wayne Barrett, the First Journalist to Doggedly Cover Donald Trump]( By [Tricia Romano]( [Then a fresh-faced real estate scion, Trump was seen as the “embodiment of a rising city,” Barrett recounts in Tricia Romano’s excerpt of The Freaks Came Out to Write. But, as his former colleagues at The Village Voice recall, Barrett instantly saw through the façade.]( [Read more button](   [“It Was Horrific”: A Situation Room Officer’s Harrowing Account of an American Insurrection]( By [George Stephanopoulos With Lisa Dickey]( [In an excerpt of George Stephanopoulos’s new book, The Situation Room, Mike Stiegler recalls how Donald Trump whipped up a “surreal” storm that put the White House’s emergency protocols into action: “We went into a continuity-of-government situation.”]( [Read more button](   [How Elon Musk’s Twitter Ultimatum Brought Employees to Their Breaking Point: “People Were Emotionally a Wreck”]( By [Zoë Schiffer]( [The billionaire CEO subjected staffers to brutal loyalty and competence tests immediately after taking the helm, as Zoë Schiffer writes in an excerpt of her recent book, Extremely Hardcore. “With Elon,” one engineer recounted, “every day could be your last.”]( [Read more button](   Get on the list Subscribe to our Hollywood newsletter for your essential industry and awards-season news, every day. [Sign Up Now](   [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [LinkedIn](   This e-mail was sent to you by The Hive. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, vanityfair@newsletter.vf.com, to your address book. View our [Privacy Policy]( [Unsubscribe]( Sent from Condé Nast, 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007 Copyright © 2024 Condé Nast