MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump's string of nominations continued today with his selection of celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Trump also named a close ally to be his new commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick. He is the Wall Street CEO who has been running Trump's transition team. Lutnick will now play a key role in carrying out Trump's economic promises, especially those sweeping tariffs. NPR's Maria Aspan joins me. Hey, Maria.
MARIA ASPAN, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise.
KELLY: What do we need to know about Howard Lutnick?
ASPAN: So he is a longtime Wall Street CEO and billionaire investor, and he runs Cantor Fitzgerald, the investment bank. It's not a huge name on Wall Street, but Lutnick does have this public identity as the CEO who survived 9/11. Cantor's headquarters were in the World Trade Center, and almost 700 employees were killed that day, Lutnick's brother among them.
Trump mentioned that tragedy in his Truth Social post this afternoon naming Lutnick Commerce secretary. He and Lutnick have known each other for years, and they have a similar brash, tough-talking personality. Lutnick has become a big fundraiser for Trump, and now he's co-running his transition team. In other words, he has become one of Trump's super-fans. This is Lutnick at a Trump rally last month, doing a call-and-response with his billionaire buddy Elon Musk.
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HOWARD LUTNICK: How much do you think we can rip out of this wasted 6.5 trillion-dollar Harris-Biden budget?
ELON MUSK: Well, I think we can do at least 2 trillion.
LUTNICK: Yeah.
ASPAN: So now you have someone who's very enthusiastic about cutting federal bureaucracy who is going to be in charge of running a federal agency.
KELLY: Well, and I want to remind people who may have been listening yesterday. We were here talking about Howard Lutnick yesterday. And the reason was you were telling me he might be tapped to run the Treasury Department - just a reminder he has just been named to run Commerce, not Treasury. Do we know why Trump picked him to run this agency instead?
ASPAN: Yeah. Commerce is a little bit of a surprise. And as you remember from yesterday, Mary Louise, there's been this messy public competition over who Trump would pick to be Treasury secretary. And Lutnick had the public support of Elon Musk and some other Trump advisers for that job. But Commerce also has this big role to play in the economy, and Lutnick has been very enthusiastic about Trump's promises to impose sweeping tariffs on a whole range of imports. Trump really campaigned on this, and Lutnick has embraced it. At that rally last month, he even said he wants the country's economy to go back to when, he said, it was great - in 1900.
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LUTNICK: We had no income tax, and all we had was tariffs.
ASPAN: So at Commerce, Lutnick is going to have a really big role to play in enforcing those tariffs.
KELLY: Indeed. OK. Along with tariffs, what else is he going to be overseeing?
ASPAN: So Commerce has a budget of about $11 billion and a wide-ranging set of other responsibilities. It oversees the Census Bureau and the National Weather Service, and it's a big liaison between the White House and the business community. But it's clear that Trump and Lutnick are especially excited about tariffs. Trump said on Truth Social that Lutnick, quote, "will lead our tariff and trade agenda," which is going to be a tricky balance. The Commerce secretary also traditionally encourages trade with other countries. So if the next Commerce secretary is enthusiastically slapping tariffs on of everything, that's going to anger a lot of trading partners.
KELLY: NPR's Maria Aspan, updating us on the news Howard Lutnick nominated - pending confirmation - to run the Commerce Department. Thanks, Maria.
ASPAN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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