‘It Doesn’t Work That Way’: Commerce Secretary Called Out After Insisting Economy Isn’t Trump’s

Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick insisted that the current state of the economy has nothing to do with the policies of President Donald Trump. The claim earned him a rebuke from Mike Allen of Axios.

While U.S. stock markets have hit record highs in recent days, the job market has shown signs of weakening, while prices have been creeping up. Allen interviewed Lutnick on Thursday’s edition of The Axios Show and asked the Commerce secretary about “increasingly bleak” economic data.

ALLEN: Inflation in August ticking up to 4.3%, the highest since ’21. Manufacturing activity shrank in August, six months running. Unemployed workers exceeding job openings. If Biden had numbers like that, you’d be on Fox saying, “What’s going on?”

LUTNICK: So, the economy that Donald Trump owns starts at the end of this year. You can’t–

ALLEN: It doesn’t work that way.

LUTNICK: Wait, wait, wait. You can’t–

ALLEN: January 20th was day one.

LUTNICK: –build factories and get permits and begin in an hour. You just can’t. And the scale by which these companies are committed to building factories is in America is unprecedented.

Lutnick went on to insist that anyone worried about the economy is “worried incorrectly” and looking in the wrong direction.

On April 2, Trump announced what he called “Liberation Day,” and unveiled sweeping tariffs on dozens of countries. Trump circumvented Congress and imposed the tariffs unilaterally. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in a lawsuit challenging them.

“That case is really important to win because it’s made us a rich country,” Trump said on Friday. “It’s made us a rich country because I don’t want to call it retribution, but we’ve been ripped off.”

Watch above via Axios.