'Frustrated' Trump confused why 'emotional' Cabinet member always in White House: report
A key Cabinet member for President Donald Trump has confused the business community and even gotten under the MAGA leader's own skin, according to a report.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has played a key role in shaping Trump's economic policy — including helping craft the president's market-plunging tariff policy. But Lutnick is "frustrating" executives and senior White House officials, who have come away from encounters with Lutnick "exasperated," the Wall Street Journal reported late Monday, citing roughly a dozen people.
Lutnick has "browbeaten" executives as he's pushed tariffs, taken often "contradictory" stances — including whether some imports ought to be exempted from tariffs — and now "frustration with him is "spilling into public view" as financial markets nosedive, according to the report.
ALSO READ: 'Came as a surprise to me': Senators 'troubled' by one aspect of government funding bill
And Trump himself may be showing signs of wearing thin.
"Trump has asked why Lutnick is at the White House so often, and he has grown frustrated with his commerce secretary at times, advisers said, particularly when Lutnick grows emotional in White House meetings. White House officials said he is at the White House more than any other cabinet secretary," the Journal wrote.
White House officials, meanwhile, complained he has a penchant for floating unvetted ideas to Trump, such as eliminating income tax for people making under $150,000 a year.
"White House staffers were also stunned when Lutnick went on Fox News in February and said the administration wanted to abolish the Internal Revenue Service. Several Trump aides said Lutnick hadn’t seemed to think through how the public might interpret the commerce secretary calling for the closing of the IRS in the middle of tax season," the report said.
While the White House may be souring on Lutnick behind closed doors, publicly, officials are sticking by the Commerce secretary.
“Secretary Lutnick has always been a staunch defender of President Trump’s America First agenda, and his immensely successful private-sector career makes him an integral member of and communicator for the President’s trade and economic team,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told the Journal. “The entire Trump administration is playing from the same playbook—President Trump’s playbook—to restore American Greatness from Main Street to Wall Street.”