Trump expected to pick Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick as Commerce Secretary
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Source: NBC News
Nov. 19, 2024, 11:31 AM EST
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump is expected to nominate a key transition adviser and billionaire financial services executive, Howard Lutnick, to lead the Commerce Department, according to two sources familiar with the process. The Cantor Fitzgerald CEO has led and been the public face of Trumps transition. Its not clear yet what his selection for a cabinet post would mean for his role in the transition going forward.
As co-chair of Trump's transition, Lutnick has been an outspoken advocate for Trumps agenda, including explaining how he plans to use tariffs once in office. Lutnick is the CEO and chairman of financial services titan Cantor Fitzgerald, joining the investment firm after graduating from college and quickly rising through its ranks. The Commerce Department will play a key role in executing some of Trump's proposed tariffs on goods imported into the United States.
Lutnick has been at Cantor Fitzgerald since the early 1980s when he graduated from Haverford College in Pennsylvania with an economics degree. Lutnick suffered immense personal tragedy at a young age, losing his mother while still a student in high-school and then his father during his first week at college. When terrorists targeted New Yorks World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, hundreds of Cantor Fitzgerald employees, including Lutnick's brother, were killed.
Following the attacks, Lutnick became an outspoken advocate for the business community as New York worked to rebuild itself.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-expected-pick-cantor-fitzgerald-ceo-howard-lutnick-commerce-secr-rcna180176
badhair77
(4,608 posts)jimfields33
(18,837 posts)His company and employees went through hell. I bet he gets not one no vote.
nmmi
(42 posts)9h
Donald Trump Has NOT Won a Majority of the Votes Cast for President, The Nation, 11/19/24
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-has-not-won-a-majority-of-the-votes-cast-for-president/ar-AA1umNPa
citing Cook Political Report as of Monday afternoon (11/18).
(49.94 to 48.26, so his margin over Harris is just 1.68%, and more west coast states' ballots yet to be counted),
No paywall for this msn.com hosted story.
ETA - I know that popular vote doesn't have any effect on who is president, in case someone wants to give me a civics lesson, and there's no indication in the article that Harris has any chance of closing the gap anyway. And the remaining ballots aren't going to change anything in the electoral votes either. But it's a nice talking point to have - -- the traitorous orange anus got less than half of the presidential vote.
But since he's a minority and a BIPOC (color orange), maybe we should be respectful?
Yavin4
(36,362 posts)Interesting. Very interesting. Lutnick was Wall Street's favorite for Treasury which still hasn't been filled.
jmowreader
(51,438 posts)(1) Trump has found someone REALLY bad as his Treasury Secretary. Lutnick, being head of Cantor Fitzgerald, understands finance well enough to be a good treasury secretary. Since Trump doesn't want anyone good - witness Tulsi Gabbard as DNI - having a competent treasury secretary would kinda throw things off. I can almost see Trump putting Winston Shrout (a sovereign citizen who's in prison for not only evading taxes, but for running seminars teaching others to do the same thing) in as Treasury secretary.
(2) Trump's tradition of putting the wrong people in every position continues.
I think what really got Lutnick this job is he waxes poetic about the early 1900s, where tariffs rather than income taxes funded the government. He's also on RFK Jr's side about vaccines.
Yavin4
(36,362 posts)Maybe it's someone not so crazy.
zappaman
(20,617 posts)get a fuckin circus
Omaha Steve
(103,442 posts)Speculation, without a named source.