Welcome back to Podforce One. I'm Miranda Divine, and today I'm with Howard Lutnick, the Secretary of Commerce.
Secretary Howard Lutnick, thank you for joining Podforce One. You're a New Yorker. You have known Donald Trump for 30 years. Everybody — Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk — Jeffrey Epstein was your neighbor. I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about him. East 71st Street. He was your neighbor for 10 years. How well did you know him?
All right. So we are in number 11, and he lives in number nine.
So we renovate, we buy our house, and our house is pigeons and mice, right? It was derelict, right? So we build, we rebuild our house, we move in in 2005.
Jeffrey Epstein is arrested in like '08, I think, or something like that. So, knock on the door. His assistant on like a Saturday says, 'Mr. Epstein, your neighbor would like to invite you over for coffee.' So my wife and I go next door. You know, we walk the seven steps to the next house for coffee. We share a wall.
So it's in New York City. So he invites us in. We have coffee in this. And he says, 'Do you want a tour?' We said, 'Great.' He's got a really big house. Well, I'll tell you. So his house is like super big, really wide. And so he gives me a tour in the living room. Big living room. And then across from it is double doors. I assume it's the dining room.
And he opens the doors and there's a massage table in the middle of the room and candles all around and stuff. So I ask very insightful, cutting questions. I say to him, 'Massage table in the middle of your house? How often do you have a massage?' And he says, 'Every day.' And then he gets like weirdly close to me and he says, 'And the right kind of massage.'
Now my wife is standing here. So she looks at me and I look at her and we say, 'I'm sorry. We have to go.' And we left. And in the six or eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.
So I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy. If that guy was there, I wasn't going because he's gross. And so I look back at it as a gift. He gave me a gift of a voice. And so yeah, that's my story. A one and absolutely done.
Right. So I mean, that's an incredible story that you could pick up that he was a pervert.
It's gross. That guy's gross. With my wife. Like, the guy's gross. This was not, oh, the deep nuance of Howard Lutnick. This guy's gross, right?
So how come Bill Gates and all these other people could hang around him and not see what you saw? Or did they see it and ignore it?
No, they participated, right? That's what his MO was. You know, get a massage. Get a massage. And what happened in that massage room, I assume, was on video. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever. Blackmail people, that's how he had money.
So what happened to those videos? Why is there now such a dearth of information when, you know, Donald Trump's people are running the FBI and the DOJ?
I assume way back when they traded those videos in exchange for him getting that 18-month sentence, which allowed him to have visits and be out of jail. I mean, he's a serial sex offender. How could he get 18 months and be able to go to his office during the day and have visitors and stuff? Must have been a trade.
So my assumption — I have no knowledge — but my assumption is there was a trade for the videos because there were people on those videos.
And have you talked to Donald Trump about this and shared your theory?
No. I mean, he knows the story, right? But like my story that, you know, I was the one and done with the guy, he knows that story. But that's it. He would have been interested in that story. But I don't know. It was just a story. It's just a one and done. That guy.
And does Trump feel — did Trump feel the same way about him?
I don't speak to him about these kind of things. These are just distractions. The thing about the president is I'm doing the most important thing that I see, and then right after we do that, he does 10 other things that are as if not more important that are not my thing, right? And you're like, wow, and he is great at it. And sometimes he lets you know — he lets me stay. So like he lets me stay for the Joint Chiefs of Staff to come in. I'm like, 'This is like the coolest thing ever.'
Tell us a little bit about how you got into this bizarre role, really. You're a billionaire. You've been an incredibly successful businessman. You were a Hillary Clinton supporter, a classic New York Democrat, and here you are, Commerce Secretary in a Republican administration. How did you get here?
I have known Donald Trump for decades, and I supported his campaign. But Hillary Clinton was very supportive of us after 9/11, right? And so I sat down with President Trump, then candidate Trump, and I told him that I just don't forget. So I supported both in 2015. Because I told him I had to support her because she was helpful to me post-9/11, and I don't forget. Remember, she was the New York senator, and she helped get bills passed that helped New York, right?
But then once, you know, so I supported both candidates, but once Donald Trump got elected, I was all in with Donald Trump. And you know, he came over to my house. I had him to fundraisers. I did all sorts of things together with him. But again, I was still rebuilding my company post-9/11. So I really wasn't involved in the politics side. I was just being financially supportive, and that was really it.
And then towards the end of his campaign — the end of his presidency when he's running again — then I went all in big. I raised a lot of money for him. I gave him a lot of money, and I was all in for Donald Trump. And then, you know, the election was stolen from him, as we all know, 2020. And I spent lots of time with him. We played golf together. We would hang out. And I always talked to him, 'Oh, you're running again.' And even when he was saying, 'I'm not running again,' I'd say, 'Oh, you're running again. You're running again.'
And why did you think that he would?
Well, because of course he would, because the country needed him. Right. The country needed him. So now it's November 2023. He gives me a call. He says, 'Will you help me?' And this was not a normal conversation. He wasn't asking just for money. He was talking to me as his friend. And I said, 'I would.' And then I gave him a lot of money. I raised him a lot of money. Probably a hundred million dollars.
And then I went on the campaign trail with him, and I think the most important thing we did is we designed his tariff policy together. We talked through — he taught me — I tell you what, he taught me everything about tariffs. We designed the tariff policy together, and we talked about economic policy. I didn't really understand tariffs before I met Donald Trump. I mean, you know, you're a New York businessman. It's not really your world, right? And then once I started talking to him about it, I understood it.
And then I'm a voracious reader. I'm a voracious studier. I studied everything he did during his first term. I knew everything that was possible. And I started talking to him about it — what is possible in his next term. And so we designed this model, and that's why we came out so hot, right? Think about January 20. He walks into the Oval Office, right? And by April, full-on tariff policy is gone. I mean, so no one's ever gone this fast. No one's ever gone this big. And it was because we talked about it for over a year and a quarter to get ready, to understand what to do and how to do it, what the laws were, and how to go out there and go get a change in US trade policy to stop every other country taking advantage of us and finally put America on the right footing.
And you became his chair of his transition. Tell us, what does that mean? And what did you actually do then?
So in his first term, Chris Christie started as his transition chair. And what Chris Christie had done, we learned, is that he made like deals with the other guy saying, you know, 'If you get a job, you'll be loyal to the president, but you'll also, you know, be a little loyal.' I don't know what happened. Right after the election, they fired him from transition, and they had to start again. That's why it just didn't work so smoothly.
So I started talking to the president about it in June. Said, 'I will do it. I'll go learn everything about it.' In August, he gave me the official role.
How did you know what to do?
Well, you study. You read, you study, you think, you understand it, and you talk to Donald Trump a lot. And I knew what he liked and what he wanted. So then I went out and recruited everybody. I recruited eight people for each job. I went out and found the top 150 Republicans across the country, had them help recruit for me. From Warren Stevens to Steve Schwarzman, Ross Perot, Chuck Schwab, you name it, across the country. I called them all and told them, 'I'm going to deputize you for transition to help Donald Trump build the best cabinet ever.'
So is that the job? Transition is finding his personnel, his cabinet.
Yeah. Yeah. That's what transition is. To fill the cabinet positions, the top 30 jobs of the government. So he had eight candidates for each job, right? And he would not talk about it while on the campaign trail. He would think about it. I'd be with him and he'd say, 'You know what? No, no, superstitious.' Right. Let's win, not worry about after, because he thought he would jinx it if he assumed he was going to win. But he trusted me to know that I would recruit the best people.
And so what we did is I had four screens, four giant 85-inch screens. This is in a big room in Mar-a-Lago. Four screens behind him, four screens behind me that mirrored each other. So you and I could sit across from each other. You could see the screen over my shoulder, but I didn't have to sort of go look around. I could see it right over your shoulder.
And each screen had candidates, and it had their resume. It had their video speaking. So he could see how they present on TV, all the details about them, correct? And all the other people. But right, it started with 12 jobs. National security.
And then I'd say to him — he'd walk in, I go, 'Pick a job. Any job.' And he'd say, 'Okay, Secretary of State.' And up would come eight pictures, right? And then he'd say, 'Okay, let's pick Marco Rubio.' And then all the details of Marco Rubio, beautiful picture of Marco Rubio, right? All his details, all his background, everything you'd want to know. Page after page after page. And the next candidate, next candidate. And the president's job, go from eight to four, which he did the first day. On national security, next day four to two, interview the two, choose who you are. And that's why it went so quickly.
And was he ever indecisive about — you know, was there one particular — like for instance, attorney general? How hard was that?
Well, I think he had a plan, right? And his plan was, we'll go with Matt Gaetz because we don't know what that report says. So forget the eight candidates. No, he had lots of candidates. And he whittled it down because he thought Matt Gaetz would have backbone and guts, right? And that's what he wanted. He didn't have that last time. You remember that? He had the opposite of backbone and guts last time. So he was going to err on more backbone and more guts.
So you would have had some sort of more conventional candidates, but he went with Matt Gaetz. And then where was Pam Bondi in there? Was she number two?
No, right behind. Basically the model was, we're going to read the report that's going to come out from Congress on Matt Gaetz. And you got to remember the president had lots of reports written about him — dirty. So he takes them with a grain of salt because he knows they can often be full of it. Right. So he said, 'Let's go read that report, and if it's okay, we'll stick with Matt, and if it's not okay, then Pam will come in one second later.' So everyone knows the deal is already done, right? And that's what happened. So you saw it was like right away. So Pam was always a great choice. A great choice.
It almost worked with the Senate because they were so horrified about Matt Gaetz that Pam Bondi just skated through. Was that deliberate?
I think Pam is a fantastic choice. I mean, sharp, capable, amazing. So I think the cabinet — you know, so for me, I know the cabinet really well.
Was everyone that he chose your number one choice?
No. No. See, here was the beauty of it. I had no number one choice. To do my job correctly, I can't say I like this one a little better, you know, because that would make me a player. So he called once and he said, 'What do you think of my choice?' And I said, 'I think it's a great choice.' Doesn't matter. And he said — he was angsty a bit. No. And he just said, 'Why?' I said, 'Because it's one less thing for me to do. You're happy, therefore I'm happy,' right? And he goes, 'You didn't have a favorite.' I go, 'No, that's not my job.'
My job — I mean, if you think about it, let's say we're talking about the Department of War, right? So you'd say, 'Well, based on my deep government experience, which is zero, and my deep knowledge of defense and the military, which is zero, I think you should pick...' Oh, come on. Right. And so the answer was find the best candidates, set up the best candidates, and let President Trump and anybody he wants to bring in the room to advise him and guide him, let them all come in because he likes to do things with other people. Let him pick who he wants, let him interview who he wants. And I would just support them and support the process.
And it went brilliantly well, brilliantly quickly. He was very, very happy. I mean, he just loved it because he'd say, 'Oh, play their video.' And there they are talking, right? Now, they're not talking about being Secretary of War or Secretary of State there, but he could see how they present. And the thing about our cabinet is — and I love these cabinet meetings because these people are so capable and so, you know, they can talk, they can present, they're really super smart. This is the best cabinet that any president has ever had.
Yes. And they're all very young, intelligent, and as you say, they can sell the message of the government. And was that a number one criteria?
I think it was a key criteria that they could talk, right? That they could present. He didn't want people who couldn't get out there. And if we're going to have a policy, go sell the policy, go talk about the policy, make sure the people of America can understand what we're doing. And that mattered to him. So I think he wanted people who are smart, thoughtful, and could present.
You set it up a bit like The Apprentice.
Well, not really. A little bit.
And at what point did you decide that you wanted to do more than just be transition chair and go back to your life? That you actually wanted to be an active part, a cabinet member, and in fact Treasury Secretary?
Well, the deal was that I was going to help with transition. And then the train was going to leave the station and I was going to wave goodbye on the platform. And go back because remember, after 9/11, you know, my company was located on the 101st to the 105th floors of the World Trade Center, and all 658 of my 960 New York employees were killed. My brother Gary was killed. My best friend Doug. So I rebuilt the company to take care of their families.
We gave 25% of our profits — which, since the company didn't really make much profit after the murder of everybody, we gave 25% of our payroll to the families, your bonuses — and we gave them $180 million to those families. So I just had to rebuild my company, you know, and my company was finally back, you know, it was big and strong and winning and capable, and that was sort of what I was supposed to do.
So I did this for Donald Trump. I really set aside working, you know, starting in August full-time. I worked on the transition because you can't recruit all these people and do it right sort of as a part-time job, and I expected to go back to my firm. But the president had such a good time with the transition, and it went so fast, and he felt so good about it. He would leave the room and slap me on the back and say, 'Come on, you're going to serve. Come on, Howard, you're going to serve. Come on, How, you're going to serve.' So that's where it came from. You know, you got to serve. You got to be with me. Come on, you got to be with me. And he would just say it, you know, pat me on the back and head out.
He did. And then we would have dinner and he would just talk about it. So, but that really wasn't what I was interested in. You know, that wasn't the plan. That wasn't the gig.
But then you decided you wanted to be Treasury Secretary, but Scott Bessent already had his heart in that role. So there were rumors at the time about tiffs and sort of a showdown at the Mar-a-Lago Corral. What actually happened then?
Yeah. There was no showdown at the Corral. Nothing like that. Subtly. Yeah. Nothing. You're a New Yorker. You don't do it out front. No. All that happened was that the question was what role — if he was pushing me to have a role, right? What role would that be? Because I didn't want — like, that would go against the rules, right? If I'm not pushing for any candidate for any job, right? It was better for me that I wasn't even looking for anything for myself. That was better, right?
And so when he started pushing me, 'Oh, you got to do something, you got to do something,' that created people worried that what if I put my name in for their job, right? And so it was more prophylactic — people protecting themselves rather than saying, 'Oh, Howard's in for the job or Howard's in for that job.' It was they were worried that the guy running transition would try to get this job or that job.
Yeah. And so in the end, I sat down with Donald Trump and I said, 'What do you want?' And he said, 'Well, Howard, what's the most important thing for you?' And I said, 'The most important thing for me is the trade agenda, right? That's what I've been talking about on the campaign trail with you. That's what I care most about. So as long as I can oversee the trade agenda, really, it doesn't matter to me. That's what I want to do with you.'
And so we decided that the Commerce Department has the most tools, right? It has BIS, right? BIS, the Bureau of Industry and Security, right? Export controls, 232 tariffs — that's the auto tariffs, the pharmaceutical tariffs, the semiconductor tariffs, steel and aluminum, right? All these. And these are not part of the Supreme Court case. They are not. These are durable, defensible. It's why Europe did the deal. It's why Japan did the deal. It's why Korea did the deal.
So even if the Supreme Court overturns the tariffs in November, you think that they're still durable?
Oh yes. Oh. These 232s, this building where we're in is the power of tariffs. That's why I am the Commerce Secretary, because there is incredible power of the tariff agenda in this building. This is great. So I think the president's going to win the case in AIPA. It's perfectly sensible that the president of the United States should design our foreign policy. How could he not? Right? That would be ludicrous for him not to be able to do it.
But the backbone of our tariff agenda is also these what we'll call sectoral tariffs. You know, autos, right? Things like semiconductors, those kind of things where we can bring manufacturing back to America. So that's part of the joy of being a Commerce Secretary.
Last time I saw you was in Scotland a couple of months ago, and you and President Trump had just clinched the deal with the EU. And that was a massive one. I think the biggest one ever. You had 15% tariffs they'd agreed to from nothing, and then $750 billion that Europe was going to invest in America in energy. Tell me a little bit about how it works in the room. How does Donald Trump work? I remember you describing it as you set the table and he comes in and closes the deal. But there's a lot of theater in there, isn't there? He pretends to be angry, walks out. How does it work?
I don't think he pretends anything, you know? I don't think Donald Trump is there to act. But it's a show. Well, I think it's a show of strength, right? I mean, Donald Trump knows that he's going down. So the tables are sort of set like their two chairs, the two leaders' chairs sort of face each other but sort of face in and out. Leaden was there. And Madame President is there, and Donald Trump is there, and then his advisers sit sort of right next to him along the way, and they talk to each other, right?
And so Donald Trump comes out and he starts with, you know, a very strong position, right? We are the greatest economy in the world. We have the greatest consumers in the world. And we all know the customer is always right, right? Because we are the buyer, and you run a $235 billion a year surplus with us. What is it about you, Europe, that you should be selling us $235 billion more than we sell you? It just doesn't make sense. It's because the rules are stacked wrong. Do you agree? And that's, you know, that's a tough way of negotiating. But he is.
But you've already softened them up beforehand, haven't you? You've literally set the table. You've gone in and spoken to these leaders, and it's sort of good cop, bad cop with Donald Trump, is it?
I do set the table, and the president calls me the best table setter he's ever had.
And what does that entail? What is it? What's your personality that allows you to be that?
It means — well, it's a businessman, right? A dealmaker and a businessman. And I work for him. So my job is to set it up so he can close the deal, right? And get as much as I possibly can. Don't lay off at all. I'm not a layoff sort of guy. So I get the most that I can.
