‘Dude!’ Bannon Demolishes Trump Cabinet Secretary for Pushing ‘Patently False Info’ On H-1B Visas
Former Trump White House advisor turned MAGA world podcaster Steve Bannon lit into Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick this week over Lutnick’s comments announcing the new fees attached to H-1B visas for foreign workers.
The Trump administration announced on Friday that all H-1B visa holders will now have to pay a $100,000 annual fee, but press secretary Karoline Leavitt quickly clarified that the new rule will be a one-time fee for new visa applicants. The new rules sparked confusion and panic in the economy, particularly in sectors like healthcare and big tech that rely on high-skilled foreign workers.
Bannon, who has long pressed for limiting H-1B migrants, tore into Lutnick for the confusion. “The commerce secretary, who is kind of in charge of this area, in his description, said—and this is what I said at the time—he said it’s $100,000 per year for the– I think he was talking $600,000 coming from one H-1B, and I said, ‘That’s impossible. If you’re going to do that, you got to shut the program down because that makes it so economically unfeasible,’” Bannon began, adding:
And of course, later, Karoline Leavitt had to come out and confirm, “Oh no, it’s just $100,000 upfront,” which I said had to be the case. Well, the secretary of commerce… and then he said it was for renewables. It’s not for renewals. Leavitt had to come out correct. Yo, dude, you’re the secretary of commerce!
These are not tiny details in the document. These are in the footnotes. This is the deal. You’re supposed to be a deal guy. You got to understand your own deal that you put before the president. I’m not sure if that… all I’m saying is the secretary of commerce sat up there and gave not just erroneous information—patently false information—that during the show in a hot take I can sit and go, “That makes no sense, because if that’s true, then hey, we got to win the whole program. Just shut the program down.”
Then you found out it’s not for the… it’s now for renewables. It doesn’t cover the 500,000 foreign students that are here that are the other way. They got to feed them through here, right? And it doesn’t… and it’s $100,000 a year. Oh… but besides those, that’s the heart of the deal. When you make a deal and say, “Hey, this is the basic architecture, these are the key points”—those are the points you didn’t even know them. Either didn’t understand it or patently lied about it. You pick them. I’ll play the… we’ll get it cut to seven so you can see it. Don’t take it from me. See it with your own lying eyes.
Watch the clip above via WarRoom.
