MAGA guru Steve Bannon slammed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Monday as “close to an unmitigated disaster.”
Lutnick, the billionaire Cabinet secretary who promised “no recession in America,” has become one of Donald Trump’s most prominent spokespeople on tariffs.
But Bannon—who is a major proponent of tariffs—turned on him in his podcast and linked him to Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO and DOGE supremo with whom Bannon has openly been at war. The intervention creates a new civil war inside MAGA, or at least a significant new front in the existing Bannon-Musk hostilities.
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Bannon started his rant with, “Let me be blunt. Lutnick, who is Elon’s pick for Secretary of Treasury, I think he’s close to being an unmitigated disaster. We should see a lot less of Lutnick on TV.”
Bannon—who on Friday had suggested that Trump is “going to run for a third term”—chose to roast Lutnick for his pronouncements on U.S. manufacturing.
Lutnick had claimed that tariffs would bring back jobs but that at the same time, robots would make American workers “more efficient.”
“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 told CBS News last week.
Bannon, however, said that was an example of a Lutnick gaffe.
“We’re not doing this so we can set up so robots have a better life,” he said. “In fact, I don’t know why Lutnick is still doing media.”
Lutnick’s futuristic proposal has been met with confusion from both parties, especially when he said the “army” of Americans would soon be assembling iPhones.
Bannon argued that there’s a way to have an “America first” trading order that brings back manufacturing. “And no, Howard Lutnick, it’s not going to all be done by robots.”
Bannon listed off other Trump officials that could take Lutnick’s place: economic adviser Kevin Hassett; trade adviser Peter Navarro; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent; and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
But he said it should be MAGA’s most ferocious true believer who should be out making the case for tariffs: Stephen Miller.
“Stephen Miller should be doing more about trade and about this new economic order that we’re trying to hammer through,” he said.
The robot obsession one of Lutnick’s most bizarre moments. Several outlets have reported that White House officials and Trump’s closest allies have grown increasingly frustrated with Lutnick’s attempts to be the president’s favorite, his “abrasive personality,” and above all else his flawed policy advice. One Politico source said that Lutnick was “trying to be a mini-Trump” while another said he was “pushing crazy s---” and that he didn’t “know anyone that isn’t p----- off at him.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that Lutnick’s media appearances have “proven so challenging to White House officials that he was asked to curb them” in March—to no avail.
Lutnick has remained one of the biggest fans of Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs but even Trump officials say that he’s put his foot in his mouth more than once. He first guaranteed there would be “no recession in America” in early March shortly before Trump declined to rule out the same.
Lutnick then backpedaled only days later, saying the “policies are the most important thing America has ever had,” on CBS News and adding that a recession “is worth it.”
He also angered the 40 percent of elderly Americans who rely on Social Security income by claiming only “fraudsters” worry about missing Social Security checks.
In the weeks since, he’s made various claims that have directly contradicted Trump’s. Not all have been successful and one was a particularly eyebrow-raiding Freudian slip that he posted on X: “The Golden Age is coming,“ he wrote. ”We are committed to protecting our interests, engaging in global negotiations and exploding our economy."
