“It almost killed me.”
That’s how Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), has repeatedly described the challenge of writing her first book, Why Fascists Fear Teachers (WFFT).
But as reported today in a New York Post exclusive, a Freedom Foundation analysis of AFT financial records shows that Weingarten had more help than she let on, with AFT members apparently footing the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars in ghostwriting services and other expenses associated with the book’s preparation, publication, and promotion.
The investigation also discovered that the proceeds from Weingarten’s book were not allocated as charitably as she and AFT assured they would be, with at least a third of the book’s early royalties going to Weingarten herself via a shadowy, newly created LLC.
Why Fascists Fear Teachers: America according to Randi Weingarten
As the long-serving president of the nation’s second-largest teachers union, it’s been three decades since Weingarten last darkened the door of a public school classroom, at least as an employee. Perhaps sensitive to her relatively modest teaching experience, Weingarten makes a point of peppering her public remarks with conspicuous references to her brief teaching career.
In an act of incredible restraint, Weingarten manages to refrain from (first) mentioning her “civics class at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn” until page four of her book.
Nevertheless, her lengthy tenure at the helm of AFT — which, unlike the National Education Association (NEA), lacks term limits for its officers — has allowed her to carve out a position in mainstream and progressive media as de facto spokesperson for teachers.
Leaning into the role, Weingarten describes WFFT — published in September 2025 by Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House — as both “a love letter to teachers,” who she says are enduring “relentless attacks” from the “far right,” and a warning against the “authoritarian threats” that “endanger the nation’s future.”
While she makes much of the fact that she does not explicitly identify any modern-day fascists within the confines of her 245-page manuscript, there’s little doubt she has someone specific in mind.
Perhaps unconsciously, Weingarten’s book opens with a borderline Godwin’s Law faux pas, name-dropping Adolf Hitler only three words in.
Weingarten’s lack of self-awareness compounds in the second paragraph, in which she condemns the establishment of a “Nazi teacher network” in Norway “that all teachers in the country” were “mandated” to join. Presumably Weingarten only objects to forcing teachers to join Nazi unions; after all, she derided a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision freeing teachers and other public employees from being forced to financially support neo-Marxist unions like AFT as “a dark day in U.S. jurisprudence.”
And on page three, Weingarten pivots to comparing the oppression of Norwegian educators by the Nazis to the “unprecedented attacks” against teachers by “anti-government, anti-pluralism, anti-opportunity fascists, oligarchs, and far-right activists” unleashed “[s]ince Donald Trump was first elected in 2016.” Still, she insists, “my point here is not to label people.”
The disclaimer might be more plausible if it came from a different messenger.
Weingarten — who was a member of the Democratic National Committee for nearly a quarter of a century — has rallied the troops and assailed the Trump administration at various “No Kings” protests, and her union has thrown its weight behind the recurring and overtly anti-Trump demonstrations.
Such partisan political advocacy is no new front for the AFT, nor for its larger counterpart, the NEA.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wall Street Journal editorial board aptly described the NEA and AFT as “the ideological and institutional vanguard of progressive politics” and “a powerful wing of the Democratic Party” intent on “invading” public schools with “progressive politics.”
In WFFT, Weingarten clumsily endeavors to deny such obviously correct assessments while also defending her union for engaging in exactly this kind of political activism. But she can’t have it both ways.
Predictably, the book is a grab bag of incongruities (“people who… want to shrink government” and “fight against public education” are fascists who also “want to control our minds, control our ideas, and control the future”), historical revisionism (during COVID-19, “I led the AFT in developing a concrete plan to reopen schools as quickly and safely as possible”), denial (“Fascists accuse teachers of indoctrination, when it’s really fascists who are trying to control what Americans think and believe… Sigmund Freud called this projection…”), and dubious factual assertions (“students in red states… fare worse on math and reading assessments”).
Perhaps most disingenuous, however, is Weingarten’s endeavor to cloak her views and policy prescriptions in the mantle of traditional values and the language of American patriotism — a backhanded tribute to the purchase these noble virtues still have in our society and political discourse.
Taken in isolation, many conservatives would surely join Weingarten in praising the importance of critical thinking and lamenting the sorry state of Americans’ civic fluency — “[M]ore than one-third of Americans can’t name all three branches of government. Over one in ten can’t even name one. About one in five Americans cannot name a single freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
How this represents anything other than a stinging indictment of the government schools she so vehemently champions, Weingarten declines to say.
On a January podcast with Nat Malkus of the American Enterprise Institute, Weingarten boasted about how much her book “talk[s] about the Founders and the Framers,” but discerning readers should have little difficulty sensing the strain in Weingarten’s efforts to speak American-ese.
For instance, according to Weingarten, “what makes us Americans isn’t a singular identity or a singular ideology but a shared belief in democracy and the freedom and liberty for all that democracy creates.”
Looking past the pretentious use of patriotic-sounding nouns, Weingarten’s conception of freedom as a “creation” of democracy (a particular form of government) directly clashes with the Declaration of Independence’s pronouncement that the right to liberty is a gift bestowed upon mankind by its Creator and that the purpose of government is to protect this inalienable endowment.
On the question of which form of government best defends and minimally impairs humanity’s God-given liberties, the Founders rejected “democracy” as more of a threat to liberty than a generator of it.
Federalist No. 10 points out that the tendency of “pure democracies” to trample minority rights and viewpoints renders them “spectacles of turbulence and contention” that “have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.”
Far superior to democracy, in the Founders’ view, was a federal republic governed by elected representatives with varied constituencies and interests and featuring dispersed and competing powers, checks and balances, and constitutional protection of the fundamental rights of all citizens, including political minorities.
It’s enough to make one wonder what Weingarten was teaching those students in her high school civics class all those years ago.
Though the general public could rightly be forgiven for writing off the book as a generally unremarkable manifesto of a career union boss and progressive political operative (but I repeat myself), AFT’s own members should take particular interest in Weingarten’s literary enterprise since they appear to have been the ones who financed it.
Sparing no expense
A Freedom Foundation analysis of the AFT’s most recent Form LM-2 annual financial disclosure to the U.S. Department of Labor found that the union appears to have used hundreds of thousands of dollars in members’ dues to assist in the writing, publication, and promotion of Weingarten’s book.
Ghostwriting: <$400,720
In the book’s acknowledgements, Weingarten notes that “writer Sally Kohn was indispensable as a day-to-day thought partner and collaborator,” but “ghostwriter” may have been a more accurate description.
AFT’s LM-2 discloses $200,720 in “consulting fees” paid to Kohn under Schedule 15, “Representational Activities,” and another $200,000 in “consulting fees” under Schedule 19, “Union Administration.”
AFT’s relationship with Kohn is not new. Like Weingarten, Kohn is a prominent progressive lesbian from the northeast, and AFT has paid Kohn consulting fees each year since 2020. Even so, the $400,720 AFT paid Kohn between September 2024 and April 2025, while Weingarten’s book was under development, far exceeds the $323,000 the union had cumulatively paid Kohn prior to that point.
Additionally, “ghostwriting” for “high-end thought leadership books” is one of the services Kohn advertises. The day Weingarten’s book was published, Kohn posted a gushing congratulatory and promotional statement on Facebook in which she wrote, “I couldn’t be more proud to be playing a supporting role around this important book — which could not be more timely.”
As an aside, it is not clear how spending money on Weingarten’s book of political commentary qualifies as either representational activity benefiting the union’s members or the administration of the union’s regular internal affairs as described by the Department of Labor’s Form LM-2 instructions.
Fact-checking: $6,000
Weingarten’s acknowledgements also credit Emily Krieger for fact-checking the book and, sure enough, Schedule 19, “Union Administration,” of AFT’s LM-2 discloses a $6,000 payment to Emily Krieger Editorial LLC in Bozeman, Montana. On the portfolio section of her website, Krieger says she “[f]act-checked the book Why Fascists Fear Teachers, by Randi Weingarten.”
Photography: $5,212
The author photograph of Weingarten appearing on the inside dustcover of the book and featured in Penguin Random House’s promotional materials is credited to accomplished artist Tony Powell.
Based in Washington, D.C., Powell is a Juilliard-trained dancer-and-musician-turned-photographer. A fixture of the “glittering galas, embassy parties, fund raising luncheons [and] fashion shows” in and around the nation’s capital, Powell has shot some of the most powerful people in the world, including cabinet secretaries and the Pope.
The $5,212 that AFT appears to have paid Powell for Weingarten’s single, black and white headshot is disclosed on Schedule 19, “Union Administration.”
Legal review: <$977,275
In her book’s acknowledgements, Weingarten recognizes and thanks attorney Charles Moerdler for his legal review of her manuscript. According to its website, Moerdler is of counsel at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP in New York City.
AFT’s LM-2 discloses $838,039 in payments to the firm for “Legal Fees and Expenses” under Schedule 15, “Representational Activities.” It discloses another $139,236 in payments to Patterson Belknap for “Legal Fees and Expenses” under Schedule 19, “Union Administration.”
When pressed about the payments by the New York Post, AFT claimed that Moerdler reviewed the book pro bono.
Publication expenses: $64,090
AFT’s LM-2 also disclosed making $64,090 in payments for “publication expenses” to “InkWell Management a Penguin Random House Co.,” which describes itself as “one of the world’s leading literary agencies, proudly representing major literary prize winners as well as many of the world’s bestselling and best-loved authors.” InkWell lists Randi Weingarten (more accurately, AFT) as one of its clients. The payments were disclosed on Schedule 19, “Union Administration,” of AFT’s LM-2.
AFT personnel and travel costs: ???
While not separately itemized on AFT’s LM-2, Weingarten’s book acknowledges the contributions of nearly 30 AFT staff to her final product. Also undisclosed, but potentially substantial, is the amount AFT likely paid in travel expenses and other costs associated with Weingarten’s nationwide tour to promote her book.
What about the book’s royalties?
Of course, the expenses associated with authoring, publishing, and promoting a book are only half of the equation. What happened to the proceeds from the sales of WFFT?
In an article promoting her book in the Fall 2025 issue of American Educator, AFT’s in-house publication for its members, Weingarten claimed she would donate half of the proceeds from her book to the AFT’s Disaster Relief Fund and the AFT Education Foundation. She did not mention where the rest of the funds would go.
When asked where the proceeds from her book went during a virtual event hosted by AFT on September 28, 2025, Weingarten provided a somewhat different answer:
“We decided early on that half the proceeds from everything go to the AFT in the Disaster Relief Fund or the Education Fund, and all the proceeds from any book bulk sales go to the AFT. I wanted to be really clear that this was a book for people, this was a joint venture with the union, and I wanted to be as transparent and clear as I can, and so that’s what we decided to do.”
Weingarten’s statement did not address whether she would receive or retain any royalties associated with the book.
The AFT’s most recent LM-2 only covers the fiscal year running through June 2025 and WFFT was not published until September 2025, but the disclosure still reports receipt of two advanced “royalty payments” of $187,500 each from InkWell — one on November 30, 2024, and the other on April 17, 2025, totaling $375,000.
Although it appears that AFT members’ funded all or nearly all of the expenses associated with the book, the most likely explanation appears to be that book royalties were allocated in thirds, with AFT retaining one third, another third divided equally between two AFT charities, and the final third being paid to Weingarten through an opaque Delaware corporation.
The AFT Disaster Relief Fund
Although the AFT’s Disaster Relief Fund is legally distinct from AFT itself, operating as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, it is run by AFT officers and personnel, with Weingarten serving as president.
AFT’s most recent Form LM-2 discloses two “contributions” to the Disaster Relief Fund: A $27,500 contribution on January 2, 2025, and a $35,000 contribution on April 28, 2025 ($62,500 total).
The AFT Educational Foundation
AFT’s Educational Foundation is also an AFT-operated 501(c)(3) of which Weingarten is president.
Just as with the Disaster Relief Fund, AFT’s latest Form LM-2 discloses two “contributions” to the Educational Foundation made on the same days and in the same amounts as the contributions to the Disaster Relief Fund: $27,500 on January 2, 2025, and $35,000 on April 28, 2025.
Combined, AFT’s four contributions to its two charities total $125,000 — exactly one-third of the $375,000 in royalty payments it received from InkWell, less than the half that AFT and Weingarten indicated would be donated to the charities.
What happened to the other $250,000?
Teachers Want What Kids Need, LLC
AFT’s LM-2 discloses making what it describes as two “royalty payments” totaling $125,000 to an entity called Teachers Want What Kids Need, LLC.
The first payment was made on January 2, 2025 — the same date as AFT’s first two contributions to its Disaster Fund and Educational Foundation. Combined, the two contributions of $27,500 equaled the first payment of $55,000 AFT made to Teachers Want What Kids Need, LLC.
Similarly, the second royalty payment to Teachers Want What Kids Need, LLC for $70,000 occurred on April 28, 2025, the same date that AFT made its two $35,000 contributions to the Disaster Fund and Educational Foundation.
The synchronization of timing and amounts, and the description of the two transactions as “royalty payments,” indicates AFT’s payments to Teachers Want What Kids Need, LLC were derived from the $375,000 in royalty payments AFT received from InkWell.
Unlike the Disaster Relief Fund and Educational Foundation, Teachers Want What Kids Need, LLC is not a tax-exempt charity but an opaque corporate entity incorporated in Delaware. It has no website or discernible public-facing presence of any kind.
According to records from the Delaware Department of State’s Division of Corporations, Teachers Want What Kids Need, LLC is a “general” entity, meaning it is “a legal entity with no special attributes such as non-profit or religious.” It was incorporated using a registered agent, shielding the person(s) behind the LLC from public scrutiny.
Still, the Freedom Foundation’s analysis suggested the LLC was associated with Weingarten herself.
First, the registered agent representing the LLC, the Corporation Service Company, is a 127-year-old business services firm boasting a global clientele that includes more than 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies — exactly the kind of large and sophisticated entity a prominent personality such as Weingarten could be expected to use.
Second, the LLC was incorporated on June 28, 2024 — right around the time Weingarten reportedly began her work on WFFT. The two royalty payments in 2025 were the first transactions AFT had disclosed involving Teachers Want What Kids Need.
Finally, and most compellingly, Weingarten has for years regularly deployed the phrase “teachers want what kids need” as a rhetorical device.
When confronted about the Freedom Foundation’s analysis by the New York Post, AFT acknowledged the royalty payments to the LLC were for Weingarten.
If the AFT Disaster Relief Fund and Educational Foundation together received $125,000 and Teachers Want What Kids Need LLC (Weingarten) was also paid $125,000, then presumably the final third of the $375,000 in royalty payments was retained by AFT.
Conclusion
Most AFT members pay dues in exchange for workplace representation, not to fund the union president’s literary pursuits. However, AFT appears to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in members’ dues on top-tier consultants and agents to get WFFT published. Indeed, the wide range of expenses borne by AFT suggests that Weingarten may not have contributed anything at all financially to the enterprise.
In such circumstances, it would be reasonable for AFT members to expect that the entirety of the proceeds from the book would accrue to the union. Instead, AFT and Weingarten have reached an arrangement under which the union keeps one-third of the royalties, AFT’s charities receive another third (not the half AFT and Weingarten have indicated), and Weingarten herself gets the rest.
The lengths to which Weingarten and AFT have gone to obscure her windfall — routing the payments through a brand-new, opaque corporation in Delaware — reflect poorly on the union’s regard for its members, especially given Weingarten’s stated intent to be “transparent and clear” about the finances associated with her book. AFT’s members deserve their money back.
Perhaps Weingarten’s next book should be entitled, Why Teachers Fear Teachers Unions.
