When trying to win a gig working for Donald Trump, there’s apparently a fine line between displaying the undying loyalty he requires and sticking your head so far up his ass that it starts to annoy him. And that’s a lesson that Cantor Fitzgerald CEO and would-be Treasury secretary Howard Lutnick has recently learned.
The New York Times reports that Trump “has been having second thoughts” about the two candidates previously under consideration for Treasury secretary. One of those people is Scott Bessent, a former employee of George Soros who went on to found investment firm Key Square Capital Management. The other is Lutnick, who has been running Trump’s second-term transition team, and “has gotten on Mr. Trump’s nerves lately.” According to the outlet, Trump has “privately expressed frustration that Mr. Lutnick has been hanging around him too much and that he has been manipulating the transition process for his own ends.” If that sounds like a familiar tale, it might be because of reports last year that failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake had basically moved into Mar-a-Lago in an attempt to become Trump’s VP, only for Trump to grow “less enthusiastic” about her, having decided she was a “spotlight hound.” (At the time, a spokesperson for Lake insisted the chatter around Trump allegedly souring on her was nothing more than “pathetic attempts from Team DeSantis” to create drama.)
Anyway, with Lutnick apparently on the outs, Trump is reportedly now considering former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh and Wall Street billionaire Marc Rowan for the top job. (Bessent is “said to still be under consideration.”) According to the Times, Trump wants someone “big” for the role, whatever that means, and unsurprisingly, “tends to value wealth and status on Wall Street.” He has reportedly “made clear to people close to him that he is very impressed with Mr. Rowan, the chief executive and a cofounder of Apollo Global Management,” and “remarked that Mr. Warsh is smart and handsome,” the latter of which is obviously extremely important when it comes to running the federal government’s finances. (During his first term, Trump decided that he couldn't reappoint Janet Yellen as chair of the Federal Reserve because she wasn’t tall enough.)
Trump is said to want a Treasury secretary who will embrace his economic policies, like slapping across-the-board tariffs on all foreign goods coming into the country, which experts warn could have devastating consequences and, at a minimum, will make life a lot more expensive for average families. As the Times notes, “of the choices he’s considering, Mr. Lutnick has been especially vocal in support of tariffs.” Lutnick also appears to be the only Treasury candidate who has openly embraced Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine stance and the thoroughly debunked claim that vaccines cause autism.
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