All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Howard Lutnick: How America Can Hit 6% GDP Growth in 2026
09 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What humorous story does Howard Lutnick share about Air Force One?
What was the feeling the first time you're on Air Force One It's just for marine one. Like is there a special thing where you're just like what is going on? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah you when you're on these things you like It's amazing, yeah, right you're you are we're part of his real conversations happen we went to see Putin so I get on Air Force One at 5 a.m. He gets on at 545 We fly to Alaska.
Chapter 2: What is the full scope of the Commerce Department?
So we're talking about it. Then we were there for four hours with Putin. And then we fly back. Now, Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff go take a nap, because we have to wait for Zelensky to wake up. It's called Zelensky, and we have to wait for the European leaders to wake up, because it's the middle of the night.
Chapter 3: How did Trump's tariff agenda impact U.S. trade?
So I stay up with the president. And we're just chatting. We're just chatting, watching golf. I mean, it's a lot of hours. So then Zelensky wakes up. So they get on the phone with Zelensky. And he talks to Zelensky on his phone.
Chapter 4: What challenges have arisen in the U.S.-Japan trade deal?
And then when he calls the European leaders, when they get up, they want to have us only secure a call. So there's three secure handsets in his office. So he's on one. Rubio's on one. And Witkoff's on one. And I'm just sitting on the couch. This is in Air Force One. In Air Force One, in his office, in Air Force One. So I'm just sitting on the couch. And I've been up for like 20 hours.
And the president's been up for 20 hours. But he's on the phone and the European leaders are talking. So I'm just sitting there. And they're all on handsets. So I can't hear a word that anybody's saying. And I'm just sitting there. So I fall asleep.
Chapter 5: Why has the India trade deal not yet been finalized?
So I'm just sitting there. They're talking on the phone right there. And I fall asleep like this. So I'm like that. So Witkoff elbows the president. Right? Points to me.
Chapter 6: How are pharmaceutical deals affecting costs for Americans?
And then he, the president unrolls a tootsie roll. He goes like this. He tries to throw it into my mouth. He hits me in the face. I wake up, he goes, he goes, Howard, while you're napping, we're trying to settle world peace. That's awesome. Well, welcome everybody to the All In interview. I'd like to welcome Secretary Howard Lutnick, our esteemed Secretary of Commerce. When we...
did the first interview with you, it was at the beginning of the administration. It was almost a year ago. And to be honest, it turned out to be one of the most popular things we've ever done. There's the Elon Musk view factor, but then there was the Howard Ludnick view factor, and they were pretty much side by side, actually.
It's great that you gave us a chance a year later to come back and talk to you. Let's just start with the general look back for you. How has the year gone? And specifically, I would love to understand What surprised you as a businessman walking into the government? Let's just start with that.
So overall, you know, I have a goal, which is I want to be the cabinet secretary who has the most fun, right?
Chapter 7: What strategies are being implemented to boost GDP growth?
And so I set out with that goal, which means I am outcome-driven. I don't really buy into I worked really hard at something and it failed. If I worked really hard and it failed, it's a fail. It's a fail. Right? If I got lucky and it just all fell into place and I did nothing, it's still success. Right? Because the outcomes are what matter. Right.
You know, you're not telling people how hard you worked and failed. Right. So how you get things done in government is fascinating. It's just different. What happened is most people who've ever been in government tend to be incremental. They come in, they say, how did this work? So someone explains how they work and they try to move the ball 10% forward. They don't really rethink it. entirely.
And so my objective was to come into this department, which is an awesome, incredible, diverse department, and really think through its powers and its possibilities. Reimagine them, rethink them, hire people, and then mold those people to think outside the box. And so the first three months was really getting people to think, can I really challenge this? Can I really do this?
Can I really try to do this? And then trying to convince everybody around me that this is an okay way to do it. The way it was done yesterday, isn't right. It was just what they did yesterday. You're not even saying it's wrong. You're just saying it's not you.
Do you get the organ rejection, though, of career bureaucrats who think, wait a minute, Howard's out for my job, or this is just a totally different way of doing things. I don't feel comfortable with this. I don't necessarily agree. We hear a lot about sort of this deep state, whatever that is, like this career lifers that sort of push back on radical change. Well- In the beginning, we cut 20%.
I walked in the door here with 52,000 people in this department. And now there's 40,000 people in this department. So the idea is if you're going to cut 12,000 people, you have to do it fast. So that everybody understands the next shoe is not going to drop tomorrow. and find where we had programs that just were like, this program was started in 1978. You'd be like, why are we doing it now?
We had a department that was supporting advanced manufacturing set up in 1986. What were they doing as advanced manufacturing 40 years ago as opposed to what people are doing now? So it was really not taking out What's the core? And so we did that quickly. And then I went and met every bureau at town halls.
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Chapter 8: How has the Trump administration revamped the CHIPS Act?
I went to their offices. And I basically told them where we were going, what we were doing, and why. What I learned about government is the people here are very narrow experts. They're amazing, their knowledge of this particular topic.
So there's not generalists in government, but you have someone who's great at this, someone who's great at this, someone who's great at this, someone who's great at this. And then your job as the secretary is to weave that blanket together so that these specialists succeed. And so when you give them tasks, that maximize their capacity. They get jazzed.
And so I'm getting amazing output from this department because they're jazzed because someone appreciates their capacity and is driving it to success. I want to jump into some of these verticals of expertise that you oversee, but it may be useful for the audience, actually, if you just gave an overview.
of the scope of commerce, because it is incredibly vast, from trade to job creation to NOAA to the Census Bureau to Spectrum. There's a lot of things that you can shape on behalf of the United States. So tariffs, which have been a big conversation. There's two types of tariffs. There's general tariffs. That's in front of the Supreme Court. And then there's sectoral specific tariffs.
Those that are specific, industry specific are in this bill. And they're part of BIS, the Bureau of Industry and Security. And that is both where we have export controls. We don't want to sell our best chips to our adversaries. We don't want to sell whatever is the fill-in, that's the Bureau of Industry and Security, or Do we want a license?
Just to make sure you use it in this sort of way or that sort of way. All of that is, and they have guns and badges. Right, so they have guns and badges. Right, because they have to protect and defend that. And they fine people.
And they also control the auto tariffs, the steel tariffs, pharmaceuticals, which we can talk about a bunch because it's been insanely successful driving down the price of pharmaceuticals in America. And so that's the Bureau of Industry. and security, BIS. Then you have ITA, which basically is the advocate for business, right? I'm the secretary of commerce. So that's like a fun job.
Like you're in charge of commerce. So we help companies sell things around the world That's our job. And we help states sort of bring in business to build and grow here. So we're sort of the import-export-assist model, right? So we're always helping Boeing.
So the guys, the senior executives of Boeing follow me around like a puppy, because every time I do a deal, and if you look at my big deals, at the end it says they buy 50 Boeing planes, they buy 100 Boeing planes. So we're always helping American companies sell overseas, and we're helping companies invest in America.
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