Commerce's Lutnick receives a timely reminder: 'We cannot build bananas in America' [View all]

[LetMyPeopleVote]

While trying to defend tariffs, the commerce secretary was asked about the rising price of bananas. His response didn’t do him any favors.

What a nincompoop;

Commerce’s Lutnick receives a timely reminder: ‘We cannot build bananas in America’

#tariffs #TrumpTariffs #tariffsaretaxes #food #costofliving #shopping’

flip.it/Eh0WIk

— 🪖 🇺🇸 🌎 🇺🇦 (@rjmrim.bsky.social) 2025-06-07T00:59:55.594Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/commerces-lutnick-receives-timely-reminder-cannot-build-bananas-americ-rcna211501

Those efforts ultimately fell short, and Trump tapped Lutnick to serve as commerce secretary. As for why, exactly, he didn’t get a more prominent position, The Bulwark reported two weeks after Election Day that Lutnick kept “shooting himself in the foot” with foolish rhetoric. The report quoted a Trump adviser who said Lutnick needed to learn how to “shut the f--- up.”

And yet, he keeps finding microphones and making things worse for himself.

This week, for example, Lutnick appeared on Capitol Hill, where he seemed eager to defend the president’s policies on trade tariffs.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3lqurvhnffc2v

Link to tweet

As part of one especially memorable exchange, Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania asked the Cabinet secretary, “What’s the tariff on bananas?” He responded, “The tariff on bananas would be representative of the countries that produce them,” before ultimately acknowledging that the rate would be 10%.

The congresswoman reminded the witness that Walmart has already increased the cost of bananas by 8%. After pointing to the possibility of increasingly unlikely trade deals, Lutnick eventually declared: “If you build in America, and you produce your product in America, there will be no tariff.”

It was at that point that Dean lowered the boom. “We cannot build bananas in America,” she explained.....

In one especially glaring incident, Lutnick suggested that only criminals would complain about missing a Social Security check. A month later, the secretary pitched a “new model” of American employment that sounded an awful lot like the factory jobs that existed in the 19th century....

And don’t even get me started on his “little screws to make iPhones” comments.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Lutnick’s rhetorical record was proving to be so “challenging” to the White House that officials asked him to start saying less. He might need a reminder.