The Commerce Secretary’s latest gaffe follows conflicting statements on data centers and his admission that he visited Jeffrey Epstein’s private island despite denying having ever done so
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President Donald Trump on Thursday was forced to use his Truth Social megaphone to play cleanup after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s televised claim that no Americans had died in the administration’s six-month-old war against Iran sparked outrage and ridicule.
Writing onTruth Socialearly Thursday morning,Trump claimed Lutnick“had Venezuela on his mind when he said nobody was killed” in the war that has led to 18 American service members returning in flag-draped transfer cases to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
The Commerce Secretary had previously told CNBC on Wednesday that “there haven’t been American deaths” in the war while touting the administration's push to isolate Tehran economically after the half-year airstrikes has both failed to topple the Islamic Republic and supercharged cost-of-living issues by raising gasoline prices across the country.
“The way the president is playing Iran, right, there haven’t been American deaths. It’s really just an economic chokeout which the administration is now executing more broadly, and I think it’ll be very effective,” he said at the time.
After Trump’s post, Lutnicktook to Xand apologized for his gaffe, writing that he “misspoke” and parroting Trump’s claim to say that he “was thinking about the Venezuelan military operation where no service members died.”
“[Eighteen 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,” he said.
Lutnick also touched another third rail in the same CNBC interview when he claimed that the massive data centers used by AI giants and opposed by a majority of American voters “don’t use water” and called allegations that the huge computer facilities are water-intensive “propaganda by our adversaries to try to slow us down.”
His claim directly contradicted a statement he made in an interview last year in which he said they “suck water” and “need water.”
The Commerce Department head, a longtime friend of the president who served as the chair of his transition effort after he won the 2024 election, is widely disliked by many administration officials who have bristled at his seat-of-the-pants approach that has led him to clash with other administration principals involved in trade and economic policymaking.
Although he remains in good stead with Trump thanks to their decades-long relationship,Lutnick has been under fire for monthsdue to his ties to pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein and the conflicting statements he has given about the extent of his relationship with the disgraced sex offender.
