Politics
Why the co-chair of Trump’s transition team is raising eyebrows

In mid-August, Donald Trump released the names of a five-member transition team, which would be responsible for helping make post-election plans in the event that he wins. The list generated headlines because of the former president’s willingness to keep matters within the family: Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. were part of the lineup, despite their lack of qualifications, which struck many observers as odd.
But the one person on the five-member transition team with the lowest public profile was Howard Lutnick, the CEO of a financial services firm called Cantor Fitzgerald. While the billionaire megadonor is certainly known on Wall Street, it’s likely that most Americans are not familiar with him or his message.
That might soon change.
Over the weekend, for example, Lutnick spoke to NBC News’ Vaughn Hillyard and suggested that some of Trump’s high-profile critics from his own former team — including retired Gens. John Kelly and James Mattis — might’ve committed “treason” during their tenure in the administration. Lutnick added that they were “Democrat [sic] generals.”
Soon after, the billionaire spoke at Trump’s hate-filled Madison Square Garden event, where he talked about eliminating all income taxes and touted Trump’s candidacy as necessary to “crush jihad.” (Presumably, the Republican campaign, already hoping Muslim voters will overlook Trump’s years of ugly Islamophobia and discrimination against Muslim Americans, didn’t welcome the rhetoric.)
Common sense might’ve suggested that the Trump campaign keep Lutnick away from microphones for a while, but with just days remaining before Election Day 2024, the co-chair of Trump’s transition team instead appeared on BLN — and the interview didn’t go especially well. Newsweek reported:
Donald Trump transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick questioned the safety of vaccines while speaking with BLN’s Kaitlan Collins on Wednesday night. ‘Vaccines are safe,’ Collins said, while talking about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s self-reported possibility of being ‘promised’ by the former president to head the Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture if Trump wins the 2024 election. ‘Why do you think vaccines are safe,’ Lutnick shot back, adding, ‘there’s no product liability anymore.’
As part of the same exchange, Lutnick added that he knows “so many more people” now that have autism, prompting the BLN host to emphasize the reality that “vaccines don’t cause autism.”
Wait, it gets worse.
Failed independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed this week that he received a promise from Trump about a role in his possible second term. As my BLN colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim noted, the fringe conspiracy theorist expects to have control of both the U.S. Agriculture Department and the Department of Health and Human Services and the agencies under its purview, which include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
Given Kennedy’s bizarre ideas and worldview, that’s a rather terrifying prospect — even Trump’s former surgeon general is concerned — though Lutnick defended the idea.
“[Kennedy] wants the data, so he can say, ‘These things are unsafe,’” the billionaire megadonor argued during his BLN appearance. “He says, ‘If you give me the data, all I want is the data, and I’ll take on the data and show that it’s not safe. And then if you pull the product liability, the companies will yank these vaccines right off, off of the market.’ So, that’s his point.”
That’s the plan? Trump will put an unqualified conspiracy theorist in a position of enormous power, and that — according to the handpicked co-chair of Trump’s transition team — might lead to vaccines being pulled from pharmacy shelves?
This is, as New York magazine’s Jon Chait noted, “a glimpse into a public-health nightmare.”
Every day, the stakes in the 2024 presidential race get higher.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
Politics
Anti-Trump protesters turn out to rallies in New York, Washington and other cities across country
NEW YORK — Opponents of President Donald Trump’s administration took to the streets of communities large and small across the U.S. on Saturday, decrying what they see as threats to the nation’s democratic ideals.
The disparate events ranged from a march through midtown Manhattan and a rally in front of the White House to a demonstration at a Massachusetts commemoration marking the start of the American Revolutionary War 250 years ago. In San Francisco, protesters formed a human banner reading “Impeach & Remove” on the sands of Ocean Beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Thomas Bassford was among those who joined demonstrators at the reenactment of the Battles of Lexington and Concord outside of Boston. “The shot heard ’round the world” on April 19, 1775, heralded the start of the nation’s war for independence from Britain.
The 80-year-old retired mason from Maine said he believed Americans today are under attack from their own government and need to stand up against it.
“This is a very perilous time in America for liberty,” Bassford said, as he attended the event with his partner, daughter and two grandsons. “I wanted the boys to learn about the origins of this country and that sometimes we have to fight for freedom.”
Elsewhere, protests were planned outside Tesla car dealerships against billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk and his role in downsizing the federal government. Others organized more community-service events, such as food drives, teach-ins and volunteering at local shelters.
The protests come just two weeks after similar nationwide protests against the Trump administration drew thousands to the streets across the country.
Organizers say they’re protesting what they call Trump’s civil rights violations and constitutional violations, including efforts to deport scores of immigrants and to scale back the federal government by firing thousands of government workers and effectively shutter entire agencies.
Some of the events drew on the spirit of the American Revolutionary War, calling for “no kings” and resistance to tyranny.
Boston resident George Bryant, who was among those protesting in Concord, Massachusetts, said he was concerned Trump was creating a “police state” in America as he held up a sign saying, “Trump fascist regime must go now!”
“He’s defying the courts. He’s kidnapping students. He’s eviscerating the checks and balances,” Bryant said. “This is fascism.”
In Washington, Bob Fasick said he came out to the rally by the White House out of concern about threats to constitutionally protected due process rights, as well as Social Security and other federal safety-net programs.
The Trump administration, among other things, has moved to shutter Social Security Administration field offices, cut funding for government health programs and scale back protections for transgender people.
“I cannot sit still knowing that if I don’t do anything and everybody doesn’t do something to change this, that the world that we collectively are leaving for the little children, for our neighbors is simply not one that I would want to live,” said the 76-year-old retired federal employee from Springfield, Virginia.
In Columbia, South Carolina, several hundred people protested at the statehouse. They held signs that said “Fight Fiercely, Harvard, Fight” and “Save SSA,” in reference to the Social Security Administration.
And in Manhattan, protesters rallied against continued deportations of immigrants as they marched from the New York Public Library north towards Central Park past Trump Tower.
“No fear, no hate, no ICE in our state,” they chanted to the steady beat of drums, referring to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Marshall Green, who was among the protesters, said he was most concerned that Trump has invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 by claiming the country is at war with Venezuelan gangs linked to the South American nation’s government.
“Congress should be stepping up and saying no, we are not at war. You cannot use that,” said the 61-year-old from Morristown, New Jersey. “You cannot deport people without due process, and everyone in this country has the right to due process no matter what.”
Meanwhile Melinda Charles, of Connecticut, said she worried about Trump’s “executive overreach,” citing clashes with the federal courts to Harvard University and other elite colleges.
“We’re supposed to have three equal branches of government and to have the executive branch become so strong,” she said. “I mean, it’s just unbelievable.”
Politics
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