‘He hears me’: Trump’s Wall Street fixer prepares to assemble an obedient government | US elections 2024

Donald Trump struggled to build a government after his surprise victory eight years ago, looking far beyond his inner circle and those who passionately embraced his agenda. Not this time.

The president-elect has hired Howard Lutnick, a longtime friend and one of the few high-profile figures in American business, to provide vocal support for his campaign and recruit officials who will implement his agenda rather than water it down.

The CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and co-chair of Trump’s transition team has made no secret of his plan to pack the new White House with loyalists – and keep out anyone who threatens to derail his promises.

Trump voted “unfortunately” last time, Lutnick told NewsNation last month, describing the hires he made in his first term as “rookie mistakes.” “He’s the CEO. Why would you choose someone who tries to go the other way? That would be silly.”

Lutnick, who says he speaks with Trump every day, stood on the sidelines in 2016 and 2020 as his friend won and lost the presidency. In 2024, he went all out – raising millions of dollars and loudly advocating for his ally’s political comeback

Trump “will assemble the greatest team ever to enter government,” Lutnick told a triumphant crowd at Madison Square Garden last month, nine days before the start of the campaign. As co-chair of the transition, he is responsible for this development.

Lutnick has indicated that he is eminently qualified for this task. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, he noted that Cantor Fitzgerald hired thousands of employees after most of its workforce died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Her office was in the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

At the Palm Beach County Convention Center in the early hours of Wednesday morning, Lutnick watched from a distance as Trump addressed his supporters for the first time since his victory. The financier was not available for an interview this week, according to a spokesman.

In tentative conversations about the transition in recent weeks and months, Lutnick has pointed to two central beliefs: that Trump can restore American prosperity and that the wrong people were recruited to do the former president’s job when he took office.

On stage at Madison Square Garden, Lutnick explained what he believes “Make America great again” actually means – and when he believes the U.S. was big enough: 1900. “At the turn of the century, our economy was faltering,” he claimed. “We had no income tax and only tariffs.”

As taxes rose and tariffs fell, generations of U.S. politicians let “the rest of the world” in [to] “Let’s eat our lunch,” said Lutnick, whose preferred course of action is clear: cut taxes and raise tariffs, as Trump has promised.

Trump made many promises before his first term. He succeeded on some—huge tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the very rich—but he failed on many others, such as repealing Obamacare, reducing the federal deficit, and requiring Mexico to pay for the border wall.

Some of those who came into Trump’s orbit in 2016, like former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who served as secretary of state, have strayed from some of his impulses and instincts. This time, however, Lutnick has tried to stop the former president from enthusiastically welcoming other, less loyal businessmen into the fold.

When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently called Trump, Lutnick claimed on Fox News that he had sent his friend a video of his Alexa smart speaker that he had filmed the night before. When asked to play Trump’s interview with Joe Rogan, the Prosecuting Donald Trump podcast was reportedly played instead. “Tell him to fix Alexa and make it fair,” Lutnick recalled telling Trump.

But there are some figures who are relatively new to Trump’s circle and to whom Lutnick was more open. He recently endorsed the vaccine conspiracy theories of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who abandoned his presidential bid in favor of Trump this summer after spending a few hours with the activist. Lutnick later wrote on social media that he and his wife “trust our doctors” and that his family was vaccinated.

Trump’s operation has not been universally welcomed by Lutnick. Last month, he stressed that the transition team was “solely focused” on ensuring the former president’s victory after Politico reported that some Trump loyalists were concerned that he was improperly interfering with his own business with staffing efforts mixed with the administration.

Lutnick continues to run Cantor Fitzgerald, overseeing a network of “blank check” vehicles and vocally championing the possibilities of crypto. It remains unclear what exact role he will play once Trump returns to the White House, but he wants to help (alongside Elon Musk) drastically cut federal spending as part of a government efficiency commission.

During a recent two-hour podcast appearance, Lutnick was in the middle of a detailed account of his rise in finance when he paused to describe his relationship with Trump. “He hears me,” Lutnick said of the president-elect. “He doesn’t always do that Hear to what I say. He didn’t always do that Do what I say. But he hears me.”

Read more of the Guardian’s coverage of the 2024 US election