Almost every night, President Donald Trump apparently calls top Cabinet officials for late-night conversations. One of those officials recently opened up about what he and Trump discuss.
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick recently did an extensive interview with the New Yorker's Antonia Hitchens (daughter of the late writer Christopher Hitchens), in which he discussed a variety of topics surrounding the president's second term. He told the outlet that every night before he goes to bed — usually around 1 AM — Trump will call him to talk. He noted that while some of these conversations are about policy, Trump also sometimes just wants to gossip.
Lutnick said that aside from "real stuff" like international trade, Trump also likes talking about "sporting events, people, who’d you have dinner with, what was this guy like, can you believe what this guy did, what’s the TV like, I saw this on TV, what’d you think of what this guy said on TV, what did you think about my press conference, how about this Truth" and other topics.
"Trump has other people he calls late at night," Lutnick continued, though he didn't mention specific names.
In one revealing section, Hitchens reported that Trump was furious with Lutnick after rolling out his "Liberation Day" tariffs in April, in which he slapped broad import taxes on virtually every U.S. trading partner, causing significant shock in financial markets. The formula for the tariffs had been found to have been calculated by finding a country with which the U.S. had a trade deficit , then taking the amount of goods imported from that country and dividing it by two.
"Trump called Lutnick in a rage, wanting to know how the tariff amounts had been determined. Lutnick himself wasn’t certain. Trump told Lutnick to go on TV and defend them anyway. Lutnick would take the fall, even if he didn’t really know what had happened," Hitchens wrote.
Hitchens quoted several unnamed sources who were less than complimentary of the commerce secretary. One administration source said that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was seen as the "smart" economic voice in Trump's Cabinet, with another source dismissing Lutnick as "not a real actor" but an "errand boy" for the president.
Click here to read the New Yorker's profile of Lutnick in its entirety (subscription required).