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If You Have ANY Doubt About ANYTHING In The Trump Administration, Watch This Right Now…

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was on the All In podcast recently for a sit-down interview with Chamath and Frieberg (good choice to leave Calacanis home) and it was so incredible I have to show you the whole thing.

So many things absolutely blew my mind in here and if you have any doubts about anything in the Trump Administration (I’m not saying you do, but if you do) this should go a long way to clearing those up.

Why?

Because the level of competence here is astounding!

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Remember back in 2016 when President Trump said he knew all the best people?  Total killers?

I think he was talked out of bringing many of those people in by wolves in sheep’s clothing who were surrounding the President back then, but with those people gone and with President Trump having 8 years of FULLY understanding how D.C. works under his belt (let’s be honest, the man is a quick study and he didn’t need 8 years, but that’s what he got), President Trump is now fully unleashed and doing 120% of what he wanted to do back in 2016.

I didn’t know much about Howard Lutnick before he was appointed Commerce Secretary but it’s clear this man is one of those “killers” President Trump referenced back in 2016.

In other words, this is the type of guy you want fighting for you and on your team.

But many other things struck me in this interview…

First was just how far back all of the planning started from the Trump Team for this second term.

Back when President Trump was not even leading in the polls, his team was acting as if they knew he’d win and they were assembling people like Lutnick to join and then beginning detailed planning months and even years in advance!

We also learned how ideas are generated and how President Trump makes decisions, and it’s absolutely fascinating to see!

We learned how Elon Musk was recruited to join and how other titans of industry and tech giants are also being recruited to give their services and products for free to save and rebuild America.

We learned about the plan for Lutnick, Musk and Bessent to each generate $1 trillion (probably more) in a tri-fold attack on our debt and deficit and the plans to end the IRS  by establishing the External Revenue Service.

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We also learned who’s idea the External Revenue Service originally was….

I think this will absolutely blow your mind so please enjoy this and share far and wide so people can see the incredible fighters we have in office right now.

Here’s a short little clip to get you started….let this blow your mind: Lutnick reveals that just yesterday he already sold 1,000 Gold Trump Cards in one day!

Watch here:

Do the math on that and that’s FIVE BILLION DOLLARS Trump has already brought in!

On day one!

The entire interview is full of bombshells like this, you truly owe it to yourself to watch the full thing.  I actually watched it twice because I kept picking up new gems.

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Here’s one more snippet….

All the people claiming Elon and Trump are going to kill Social Security have no idea they’re the two guys who are actually going to SAVE it.

Watch this:

Not only are they saving Social Security, but it’s a real possibility that we can ELIMINATE the IRS soon.

Clip here:

It’s all so good, but let’s just get right into it….

Watch the full interview here:

Backup here if needed:

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

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Chamath: Welcome Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick! Do you go to New York much? Howard: Uh, never. I closed my house. Oh wow, I basically tricked my wife. You know how your wife always wants to renovate your house? Chamath: No idea.

Howard: So my wife, that’s like, my wife always wants to renovate my house, right? Every minute I’ve been alive, my wife has wanted to renovate parts of my house. So we moved out once, a year and a half ago. Uh, we moved out for a year and a half about six years ago. And she only did half the house. And she still rued the day that she only did half the house.

Friedberg: Really? Howard: Yeah. So that was the deal. What I did is I bought a house wash and said, “You want to renovate the house?” She said, “Yeah.” I said, “Great, we hired a contractor.” Chamath: Wait, you bought Brett Bear’s house? Howard: No. Yeah, that’s a beautiful house. We can talk about whatever you want. By the way, I’m happy to talk about serious things, casual things. Chamath: No, let’s just do this. Let’s roll because he’s rolling. You’re already running, right? He’s on fire. Friedberg: All right, besties, I think that was another epic discussion. People love the interviews. I could hear him talk for hours.

Chamath: Absolutely. Oh, he crushed your questions. I made it. We are giving people ground truth data to underwrite your own opinion. What do you guys think? Friedberg: That was fun. That was great. Howard, thanks for being here. Howard: Thanks for having me. Chamath: Howard describes his 30+ year relationship with President Trump and his road from business to politics, joining myself and David Friedberg on the All-In podcast. I want to take a step back before we talk about today and instead talk about your friendship with the president—how it started, how you guys got to know each other, and walk us through the moment when you, you know, frankly went out on a limb a little bit, stepped up, became the campaign finance chair, and then just that evolution. Howard: So I’ve known the president since I was 30 years old. I used to go on what we call the charity circuit in New York.

Chamath: Sure. Howard: So there’s basically a charity party every night when you live in New York—like the rubber chicken dinner. Literally, the rubber chicken. And so sort of every night you go out. And the boss of my company, Bernie Canter, he got tired of going, right? So he didn’t want to go. So he would send me with his wife, and I would be her walker. You know, I’m the 30-year-old CEO of the company, and I’d take her to the party. And after the party, I’d put her in a limo, and she’d go home, and DJT would say, “Well, let’s go out.” And so we’d go out. It wasn’t planned, but he was at the party. He’s 45, I’m at the party, 30. And we chase the same girls. Okay, it basically worked out fine. And by the way, here’s the thing about Donald Trump: he was the most famous, the most fun, the most interesting person 30 years ago, 33 years ago. I mean, here’s the best thing: he’s been on the cover of Time magazine 59 times. Chamath: No way.

Howard: And then he leans over to me and he goes, “And 20 were good.” Like, who can take that? I mean, who could take it? Like, other people, when you have a bad cover of Time magazine, you’d crumple, right? And be sand on the floor. And he’s like, but so, Howard, is it that he’s just totally wired to understand that moment of being a public figure, or like, what is it that’s so unique about what constitutes the ability to navigate that over 40 years? I think it adds energy to him. Right? So everybody else’s energy—what they don’t understand—is people bring negative energy to Donald Trump, right? And they’re just charging his battery.

Okay, your energy around him comes to him. So when I come at him with a lot of energy, he comes back with a lot of energy. Right? It doesn’t matter. He never steps back. He just sort of takes it like a centrifuge and then hurls it back at you. And he’s been that way always. So this is not new. This is just who he is. This is who he is. So those other people who attack him, they think they’re attacking him—they’re charging his battery. They’re literally charging his battery. So he comes back bigger, stronger, bigger, stronger. And once you understand the man—the most intuitive person that you’ve ever met. Yeah. And people say, “Well, okay, so people who know me, I don’t suffer fools.” And they have all these derogatory—my left liberal friends—all these derogatory statements about the guy, right?

And they know me really well. Right? And they’d say, “Well, how can you work for him?” I’d say, “How can I work for him? The most intuitive person—he senses it. He knows it.” He calls me up and he says, “Panama Canal.” That’s what he says. He goes, “Panama Canal.” It just feels wrong, right? And then he sends me on the quest to go—I didn’t do anything, I just start the quest to go look at it. Right? The mouth that’s east is a deep water port by the Chinese. The mouth that’s west is a deep water port by the Chinese. They’re building bridges over it. So our ships and our military ships should go under, right?

In our hemisphere, a Chinese bridge. So then I said, “Okay, let’s go prove it.” So I have a friend of mine—he owns a big shipping company. I said, “Take two iPhones, put them on a stand, and just go through the Panama Canal.” You know, the Panama Canal, they sort of drag ships through like this. And I said, “Just go video both ways.” No, just video both ways—70% of every letter is Chinese. Then I’m talking, like, the sides of containers, ships, the stores—like, I’m not talking like signage, just random signage, like you’re riding on a road. It’s all Chinese. And then I do the research, and I call him back, and I say the magic words between me and him: “I have your path,” which is I’ve done it. I’ve done the legal work. I’ve done everything. Right?

So when you start talking about it, you have a foundation. It’s not just you talking. So people think he’s just talking—he’s never just talking. He has people behind him who bring him his foundational structural outcome. And then what does he do? He went and played golf that afternoon. He called me at 7:00 in the morning. He said, “What do you got?” We talked from 7:00 to 8. He went and played golf, right? And that afternoon, there’s the American flag in the middle of the Panama Canal in some, you know, truth he puts out, right? And that’s the fun part, right? So you work for the most intuitive guy. Yeah, unbelievably smart, unbelievably thoughtful, who knows what he’s doing. So it’s so fun for me.

Chamath: Howard, let’s just go back one second. So you have this deep relationship with him. You guys are friends. Scott Bessant told us the story that about 18 months ago, though, he saw all this data about what was happening under Biden, and he was just so concerned that these deficits and debts were getting so out of control, he went to the president and said, “How can I help? Can I help?” That’s a story. But was there a moment for you that was rooted in something other than friendship—like, was there something on the ground where you said, “Hold on a second, this is a train wreck, and we need to do this?” You were the finance chair for the campaign. Howard: Well, no, I wasn’t the finance chair. I was the transition chair.

Chamath: Transition, okay. Howard: So I ran transition, which we’ll talk about. But so, let’s go through. So I’m friends with him, right? But I’m building my business—young guy building my business. And then 9/11 happens. Yeah. Okay. So I’m friends with the guy. I’m just friends with the guy. But then 9/11 happens—kind, sweet, calls me all the time. Just good human being. Nice, warm, caring, good human being. Right? But then I’m knocked out. So what do I do next? I try to rebuild my company, take care of the families of 9/11. You know, I lost 658 people who worked for me. And we had a policy: we want to work with people that we like. So when we had an opening, we didn’t use headhunters. We would say to everybody at the firm, “Does anybody know anybody who’d do this job?” No. And so, you know, a young lady works for me says, “You know, my best friend is an HR person.” They have to have capacity. Yeah. But once they have capacity, imagine we hire that person.

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Yeah. Now what happens is, it’s not one big happy family. Yeah. But people really, really care about the company, and that’s our company—that’s on the top five floors of the World Trade Center on 9/11 when the plane hits it. Kills everybody at the office. My brother Gary—he dies at 36. My best friend Doug—he dies at 39. I had just turned 40 that summer. I had a party—65 couples. It’s my 40th birthday.

40th birthday. Yeah. Right? 27 people at my party get killed. Jesus. My friends. These are my friends. So I’m driven to take care of the families of the people who died. And I commit 25% of all of our profits. But the company’s destroyed. So we go from making a million a day—I was a rich guy, right? What’s the definition of a rich guy? No personal debt, no corporate debt—Canter Fitzgerald, no debt. So how do you survive 9/11? If you don’t owe anybody any money, the only money you’re losing is your money. So we survive, and we take care of our friends’ families, and then we build the company back up. So you could see, like, I’m a special guest on the Celebrity Apprentice, the first season of Celebrity Apprentice. Piers Morgan wins. Chamath: Did he fire you?

Howard: No, no, I wasn’t a contestant. I’m a little beyond being a contestant. I was a special guest. I’d come in—like, if you see during the auction, I’m standing next to him at the auction, you know, and I’m helping him. Like, I’m just his friend, sort of as an extra all along the way, you know, every once you kept the friendship going as you’re rebuilding. We’re friends all the way, but I’m rebuilding my company. Yeah. And then, so I’m not interested in politics. Okay. I don’t do anything in politics because I’ve got my head down. Right? We had the financial crisis—Canter Children’s great in the financial crisis. Had you ever donated to candidates at all or not? Yeah, New York candidates. Okay. Right, New York. So think about it—you’re in New York. You try to pick social liberals, fiscal conservatives, right? If that even exists anymore. Right?

But if you’re in New York, you have to pick. And look, I grew up in New York, so I’m socially liberal. What else could I possibly be? Yeah. So, you know, early when Chuck Schumer was young, before he became what the president now calls a Palestinian, you know. You know, I raised him—you know, I raised him money and gave him money. Donald Trump gave him money. Chamath: Same. I did too. Howard: Yeah, I mean, because he was—he was a social liberal, fiscal conservative, and so I—you know, we’d all give to those kind of candidates, but mostly giving to get along, right? And to be able to, you know, ask him a question if you needed to ask him a question. But there was really no—I had no drive, right, in that. Like I said, the first four nights I slept in Washington in the last 20 years—when Donald Trump was elected. I had never slept here. I’d come down, visit a little, go home, go home. What am I staying here for?

So he calls me at the end of October ’23. Okay. So he’s already had his first term. You didn’t support or get— No, I was—so I gave him money, and I gave Hillary money. Chamath: You gave Hillary money in the first term? Howard: Yeah, because Hillary was incredibly helpful to me post-9/11. Remember, she was a senator, right? And New York needed help, right? And Hillary was incredibly helpful, and I was driving the team to help New York rebuild because I had relationships with a whole bunch of congressmen, and they were going to do nice things. Like Bill Young ran House Appropriations, right? Bill Young was my friend, right, through a whole variety of things that had to do with—I used to go to Bethesda Naval Hospital, and I used to walk around, and I would bring music there for the men who got hurt from the military who were in Bethesda Naval Hospital. And we would walk around. I’d go with my wife, and then I would engage the young man with music. I’d give him music and ask him what CDs he wanted—this is when CDs were there—and I’d bring up a Walkman.

And my wife would pull the family outside, and she’d pay a year of their mortgage and all their expenses because what people don’t realize is your son loses his leg, right? Dad and mom come flying in, and they’re going to stay by his bedside. What job do these people have that allows them to be at their son’s world? And their world is falling apart ‘cause their son lost his leg. So the world is falling apart, but at home, their world is falling apart—falling apart. And so my wife would just try to figure out how much money it was and just give them a check. Yeah. And no form, no nothing—just give them the money. Yeah. And help them. So I would bump into Bill Young and his wife, who were—they were just—they ran defense appropriations, and they were there just being good human beings. And so we became friends. And he said to me once, he said, “Is there anything I could ever do to help you?” I’m like, “Look, you’re like a congressman from Florida who does defense appropriations, and I’m like a Jewish guy from New York who’s in finance.” If there ever were two skews that were never going to meet, these are two ships going, like, right—we got nothing. So I said to him, “Look, we’re just going to be friends, right? We’re never going to do anything.”

And then he runs House Appropriations. And so when New York needs money to rebuild after 9/11, they go see Bill Young to try to get a bill passed. And he said, “How can you come see me without Howard?” Yeah. You know, this is post-9/11. So I’m running New York, and Hillary does a really nice job. Okay. For New York. Yeah. And I told—I told DJT—I call him DJT because I’ve known him for always—I said, I told him that I can’t forget. Yeah. I’m just not the person who’s gonna forget. Of course I gave him money, right? But I give it—and by the way, he still tortures me for it. So, like, and you know what the best part is? A good friend does. Yes. Right? You know what the point is? See, other people would sort of curl back. Yeah. Right? So here, right after he gets elected, okay, here’s a story for you. So right after he gets elected, he has a dinner in New York, right? So he invites me to the dinner in New York ‘cause I’m his friend. And then, while he’s giving his talk to his first dinner in New York, he goes, “Wait, wait—Hillary’s supporter,” and he points at me, right?

So I stand up, I go, “Hey, everyone,” and I sit down. You know, he’s just sassing me, okay? ‘Cause I gave him tons of dough. He knows I love him, and it’s fine. Okay, so we’re 2023. So we’re 2023, and he calls me, and he says, “Will you help me?” Yeah. And I had not thought politics. Now, I gave him money in 2020 re-election. Yeah. Probably gave him 10 million bucks. I raised him 15 million bucks. So I was, you know, once I’m on a side, the whole way through, I’m raising him money in ’17, ’18, ’19, ’20. While he’s president, I’m totally on his side. Yeah. And I’m—but I’m just his friend. I’m not engaged. Yeah. Okay. Because I’m still rebuilding my life. Yeah. Okay. And then 2023, he calls me, says, “Will you help me?” And I actually thought about it—like, and that was the first time I really thought politics. And then I said, “Yes.” And I gave him 10 million bucks right then and there. And then I started talking to him. I started going on the campaign trail. I started doing research. I started doing knowledge.

I wanted—I talked to him about everything. I talked to him all the time about everything. Chamath: Did you love it? ‘Cause our friend Sachs—we were talking at dinner last night—he seems to love it. Howard: Like, there’s nothing not to love. As Donald Trump says, this is a thousand Super Bowls, right? For him, and for me, it’s only a hundred Super Bowls. I mean, if you’re dedicated to America and you’re willing to wear America’s clothing and to stop worrying about yourself and only care about America—yeah—and have no objective post— The president hates when these people have, like, they raise money post from people they’ve met in here. So I’m never going to work again. Okay. I’m never going to work. This is all I care about—I’m just going to help America. So he asked me to help him, and I start thinking about it. I start studying everything, and I read everything, and I read everything about the White House, and I read everything about everything I can possibly read because I’m just that way. And then I start helping him. Yeah. Right? And I went to learn how he picked the judges, right? And the Supreme Court, and why it didn’t.

And I’m just very detailed. And so I started studying what transition is, right? Right. And I started studying it, and I started studying tariffs ‘cause he wanted to talk about tariffs. And he’s always thought the trade deficit was wrong and basically a ripoff of America. And I started studying everything about it. Yeah. And so he and I would talk about it, and we knew everything about it. And then he picked me to run Transition. Okay. So we’re going to talk about tariffs in a sec, but so, double-click into Transition. What did you find that was so interesting? Like, what’s— I’ll give you an example. So there’s a book called The Gatekeepers that was written that people gave me—“Oh, you should read this book.” And it’s about chiefs of staff. Okay. And basically, there’s another way to call it—it’s called The Jerks, right? Because what they do—imagine you’re the gatekeeper. Yeah. You’re the gatekeeper of what? Yeah—of the man who was elected president of the United States of America, that he needs the gates kept from him. And if you listen to Nixon tapes, you hear him scheming to try to learn anything because what happens is the chief of staff—everybody reports to the chief of staff, and the chief of staff reports to you.

So you can’t get on Air Force One without asking the chief of staff. You can’t get a document unless you have the chief of staff. No one can come see you unless you have the chief of staff. And if they take your phone away, you know what you are? You’re imprisoned. And that’s the gatekeepers. So I said to Donald Trump, I said, “Look, you fired Reince Priebus, who was your chief of staff.” Then you fired John Kelly as the chief of staff. Then you fired Mick Mulvaney as chief of staff. Then you would have fired Meadows, but you didn’t get a chance ‘cause the next election. So I said, “Why don’t you fire the job? What you need is a chief of staff who’s actually your chief of staff—not who’s the gatekeeper.” Right? Right. And so that was an example of how I changed it. And so Susie Wiles is perfect for Donald Trump. You know why? She lets him be him. John Kelly took away his phone, right? So he couldn’t communicate with anybody. Whereas Susie embraces who he is, helped him get elected, ran a great campaign—she’s perfect for him in this role.

And so that’s what I brought. So I brought an understanding of him, right? And an understanding of the role, right? Right. And that’s why I convinced your friend David Sachs. Every time he said, “I can’t do it,” yeah, I would call him and say, “It’s an emergency. It’s an emergency. I need to see.” He’d fly and go, “What is it?” I go, “You need to join the administration.” He goes, “That’s what the emergency was?” I go, “Of course.” Chamath: And was—and Howard, was that when you conceived originally DOGE in that initial—was that during the transition? Howard: All right, so DOGE, yeah, we should talk about DOGE and tariffs. Okay, so DOGE comes—it’s October of, uh, before the election. Okay. Early October—October 2024. October 2024. Yeah. Like the beginning. Yeah, of October 2024. And I called the president, and I said, “I need, uh, I need to spend an hour with you because I have my big ideas.” Yeah. Right? So he gives me—he says, “Look, I’m not sure what to do October 7th, right? Why don’t we figure out what I should be doing October 7th?”

So we decided we’re going to go out to the Ohel, which is, uh, a super religious, uh, Hasidic Jewish, um, Messiah—you know, the people who wear black hats think he’s the Messiah. And they have a crypt for him where you write a note and you put a note in. All right. And so we agreed we’d go out to that gravesite, and we’d probably win 60,000 of those kind of voters, which is pretty cool for a day. And then we drove there and back together, the two of us. So I had an hour and a half, just he and me, talking. And I said, “I want to balance the budget in the United States of America.” And this is the way we’re going to do it. We—no one’s ever checked the just under four trillion dollars of entitlements. Every politician thinks what you have to do is you have to take the retirement age from 65 and make it 70, right? And you have to do this and this and this and this because they never think about the money. Totally. But people like us totally would say, “What’s the first thing you do? What’s the value I’m getting for my money?” Totally, right? And what you find is, if nobody ever—like, as in ever—like, I could say the word “ever” 12 times—has looked at where the money goes. Totally.

And so there’s not even a process to get it back when you send it to the wrong person. You just send another one out. Yeah. Like, think about it—you just— Well, I sent it accidentally—or accidentally—notice how it’s “accidental.” It’s always accidentally sent to the wrong person. Really? You wouldn’t ever say the 5.9 million people who work for the government—there could be some crooks in there, right? No, no, no—it’s all accidental. What a load of nonsense this is. There’s some percentage of this—but you would say—and you would say, “No, just zero-base it and let’s figure out where it’s got to be—25%.” Yeah. We’d all say, “If it’s never been checked, how could it not be 25%?” How could it not be? And the answer is, that’s a trillion dollars a year, right? Okay. So I said, “I think we’re going to cut a trillion dollars a year in expense, and then I think we can, through tariffs and other means, we’re going to get revenues—have a trillion dollars incremental revenue—incremental revenue—and we’re going to balance the budget.”

But all—but, sorry, let me just ask one question—how do the tax cuts, the extension of the tax cuts—there, they’re—there is zero basis that means where I was yesterday and where I am tomorrow, like, “Oh, it’s a tax cut.” No, it’s not. It’s the exact same thing as yesterday as today. To say continuing yesterday tomorrow is, like, silly. Chamath: So let me ask you—let me ask you on tariffs. Having studied it yourself, when there’s higher tariffs, people purchase less—things cost more. Howard: No, we’ll talk about tariffs. Let’s—let’s just finish—let’s just finish, uh, DOGE. So I’m in the car with him, right? And I said, “We’re going to balance the budget.” And I said, “I have one favor to ask of you. If we can balance the budget for you, will you agree to waive all income tax—I see—for every person who makes less than $150,000 a year for the United States of America, which, by the way, is about 85% of America?” Right? Right. And the reason you want to work for Donald Trump is he looks at me, he goes, “Sure.” You realize the president of the United States said, “If you balance the budget, sure.” And he’s not lying. He’s not kidding. He’s like, “Yeah, that seems—that seems like a great idea.” Right? Right. And so—and then I tell him, “Okay, I’m going to go recruit Elon because Elon’s all in.” Yeah. Right? He’s already said he’s all in. He’s already said he’s going to Pennsylvania. Yes. Right?

So I call Elon, and I don’t know Elon. I don’t know. But he’s perfect for this. So I use my superpower, which is I call everybody else I know who knows him, and they arrange, and I’m texting with him, and he agrees to meet me on October 14th.


 

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