Trump Jumps to Howard Lutnick’s Defense After Commerce Chief Said No Americans Died in Iran

(Alex Brandon/AP photo)

President Donald Trump jumped to the defense of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Thursday morning after Lutnick claimed during a CNBC interview that there have been no American deaths in the war against Iran.

In a Truth Social post, the president took it upon himself to speak up for Lutnick, explaining that the secretary was referring to Venezuela, not Iran.

“Sec. Lutnick had Venezuela on his mind when he said nobody was killed. 18 people were killed in Iran!” Trump wrote.

Lutnick made his comments during a Wednesday morning interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box.

“I think the way the president is playing Iran, there haven’t been American deaths, it’s really just an economic choke-out, which the administration is now executing more broadly and I think it will be very effective. So I’m very optimistic that the bond market will treat us very well. It may take over the next couple of months, but you’re going to see rates stabilize,” Lutnick said.

As the president noted, 18 Americans have died during the Iran war.

Lutnick himself took to X to offer his own apology, saying he “misspoke.”

He wrote:

While speaking yesterday at the G20 innovation summit about AI, I answered a question about the military actions in Iran, I misspoke. 18 members of our military have died, and to those families my heart breaks and I am so very sorry for their loss. I was thinking about the Venezuelan military operation where no service members died. As the 25th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, I am deeply thankful for our military and the sacrifices the men and women who serve our great country make, so such an attack, where I lost my brother Gary (36), my best friend Doug (39) and 656 other close friends and colleagues in the attacks on the World Trade Center, never happens again. Never!

It wasn’t the only moment from the interview to earn Lutnick some pushback. He also oddly claimed at one point that AI data centers don’t use any water, when the facilities can actually go through thousands of gallons of water a day in their cooling processes.

Lutnick said:

One of my favorite things is when people talk about data centers using water. The number one product in America that uses water is cattle. I mean data centers don’t use water. This is propaganda by our adversaries to try to slow us down. We’ve got the greatest chips in the world, we’ve got the greatest economy in the word.

Data centers are really world class productions. Build a data center, produce huge economics, right? And that economics will go to the community that surrounds it. So I think those who are inviting to data centers will win them and their economies and those communities will just be better off. It’s obvious black and white.

Lutnick was quickly reminded on social media that just a year earlier, he discussed the large amounts of water that data centers need.

“Think about it, these AI things, they suck water and they need water, and so they need a plumber, but not a ‘plumber’ plumber; they need, like, an HVAC specialist that starts at $100,000. These are great jobs,” he previously said.

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