How to Lose Friends and Influence People

The case of Howard Lutnick.

“To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.”—Walter Pater, “The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry,” 1873.

The Trump White House is where reputations go to die. Howard Lutnick was not exactly loved when he became Commerce secretary in January, but he was respected for rebuilding Cantor Fitzgerald after 650 of its employees inside the World Trade Center were killed on 9/11; for extending health care to surviving families for 10 years; and for giving $90 million of his own money to these families. Now he’s Trump’s biggest tariff enabler. Inside the White House hatred for Lutnick burns with a hard, gemlike flame; he’s displaced Elon Musk as the most despised person in the Trump administration. That’s the subject of my latest New Republic piece. You can read it here.