U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick speaks next to U.S. President Donald Trump at Rockland Community College in Suffern, New York, U.S., May 22, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
At the height of the chaos amid President Donald Trump’s rollout of his controversial “Liberation Day” tariffs last year, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick reportedly expressed concern.
The president attacked Lutnick directly, according to Politico, using a vulgar epithet that is slang for a woman’s genitalia.
Politico reports it obtained a copy of the upcoming book, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.
“I remember when you were thirty-five, you were a killer,” Trump said to Lutnick, according to the book, Politico reports. “And now, you’ve got your beautiful wife, and your big house, and you’re just soft. And you’re a p——. You know what you are? You’re a p——.”
Politico notes that once billions of dollars in tariffs started to roll in and the global financial crisis concerns subsided, Lutnick changed his tune.
The commerce secretary would later tell the president that he had become Trump’s “twenty-five-billion-dollar-a-month p——.”
The White House did not directly deny the report. Instead, it issued a statement saying, “The President has always sought the best and brightest individuals for his Administration, and Secretary Lutnick and President Trump continue to work closely together to deliver trillions of dollars in investments for the American people.”
The Commerce Department declined to respond to Politico’s request for comment.
President Trump has a history of using vulgar epithets, even in public — something most previous presidents have refrained from doing.
In February 2016, Trump used that same offensive slur at a campaign rally in New Hampshire.
Trump’s “reiteration of a vulgarity shouted by a female supporter in the Verizon Center… was likely the first time in American history that a major presidential candidate used a phrase widely considered obscene in a televised rally, let alone used the word to refer to his nearest competitor for public office,” The Guardian reported.
The woman in the audience had reportedly shouted that U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Trump’s primary opponent, was a “p——.”
“You know what she just said?” Trump said. “Shout it out, because I don’t want to say it.”
“You’re not allowed to say that,” he continued. “I never expect to hear that from you again.”
Trump then told the audience, “She said he’s a p——.”
The Guardian called “the use of the phrase ‘p——’ on air and onstage” a “dramatic change.”
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