Bad Jobs Report Caused by Shutdown, Deportations — Not Tariffs, Lutnick Says

White House scrambles for 'damage control' as report pins job losses on Trump policy

One of President Donald Trump's top economic advisors is scrambling to blame anything but tariffs after a new jobs report indicated that they might be 'hammering" small business jobs, a move the New Republic dismissed as "only damage control."“No, no, it’s not tariffs,” Lutnik told CNBC’s Sara Eisen...

Private employers cut 32K jobs last month — hiking odds of interest rate cut as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick goes on defensive

Odds of an interest-rate cut at the Fed’s meeting next week jumped in the wake of disappointing November private payroll figures, with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick arguing President Trump's tariffs were not to blame for the numbers.

Bad jobs report caused by shutdown, deportations — not tariffs, Lutnick says

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's defense of President Donald Trump's tariffs came as experts warn that the trade policies could hurt domestic head count.

Howard’s beginning: the luck of Lutnick

With Elon Musk no longer sleeping in a cot in Washington, only one member of the White House inner circle comes close to matching Donald Trump’s net worth: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Commerce is usually a mid-tier cabinet post; even fervent political observers would be hard-pressed to name previous officeholders. But Lutnick has been one of Trump’s most impactful advisors in this second term. His ideas about tariffs have greatly affected…

Jobs drop due to shutdown, deportations, not tariffs: Lutnick

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Wednesday denied that the Trump administration’s tariff policies were to blame after a new report showed a surprise drop in private payrolls in November. Instead, Lutnick argued on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that the government shutdown temporarily slowed small-business activity. He added that the federal efforts to enact mass deportations of undocumented immigrants also suppressed jobs numbers. “No, no, i…