Donald Trump’s former White House strategist and rightwing podcaster Steve Bannon is on a mission against the president’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
He wants him yanked off the media because he’s “close to an unmitigated disaster,” Bannon slammed on his podcast Monday.
Lutnick, former CEO of financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald, is an almost always gregarious, smiling salesman for Trump’s economic vision, whatever that might be on a given day. But he doesn’t often seem super clear on what that vision is or what might most appeal to Trump supporters.
“I don’t know why Lutnick’s still doing media. Let me be blunt,” said Bannon, who pointed out that Lutnick had been tech billionaire Elon Musk’s pick for Treasury secretary. “I think he’s close to being an unmitigated disaster. We should see a lot less of Lutnick on TV,” he added.
“We have to have a clear message so people understand what the process is,” Bannon added, claiming there is a “well thought through” process concerning Trump’s ping-ponging tariffs that have rattled the markets.
Last week Lutnick pushed a vision of a happy future army of “millions” of Americans delighted to screw screws into cell phones once tariffs somehow move those kinds of jobs back to the U.S. from China.
"The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones — that kind of thing is going to come to America," he boasted to CBS News (to the horror of many who responded on social media).
But then in a total turnaround he said those were the kind of jobs that would be automated.
Bannon smirked on his podcast: “No we’re not doing this so robots have a better life.”
Lutnick was also the one who said that Trump’s tariffs would not cause a recession, but then said if they did cause a recession it would be “worth it.” He has also insisted that only “fraudsters” worry about the possibility of missing their Social Security checks, and that his 94-year-old mother-in-law would never “call and complain” if her check didn’t show up.
Bannon has also railed against Lutnick supporter Musk, primarily for pushing special H-1B visas for immigrants to do higher-paying tech work, while leaving jobs like screwing in screws to Americans. He has also called Musk a “parasitic illegal immigrant.”
Lutnick could not immediately be reached for comment.
