News Reporter: Fact Checker: The Commerce secretary won’t stop saying economic nonsense

Friday, 9 May 2025

Fact Checker: The Commerce secretary won’t stop saying economic nonsense

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The truth behind the rhetoric.

By Glenn Kessler

You can hardly turn on the television without catching an interview with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a billionaire and former Wall Street executive. But much of what he says is economically incoherent and contradictory. We wrote a guide to Lutnick's talking points — and what's wrong about them, including:

"A 10 percent tariff is not going to change virtually any price. The only price it would change would be a product that we don't make here, like a mango." (This flies in the face of basic economics.)
"We invent the iPhone, which is awesome. Why do we let everyone else build it? Why can't we build it here? … We need hundreds of thousands of Americans who work in those factories. (The high-value parts of the iPhone — such as the design — already are created in the United States. The hourly wage for Chinese workers during the iPhone 16 launch last year was 26 yuan, or $3.63, or half the U.S. minimum wage.)
"You're going to see robotic production of iPhones. And the jobs that are going to be created — the people who build those factories, the mechanics who work on those robots." (When challenged about the wage disparity, Lutnik says this. But iPhones already are made by robots, overseen by Chinese workers.)

Please click this link to read the full fact check.

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Trump envoy praises fraudulent Russian referendums as real

The emerging Trump proposal to end the war caused by Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine calls for de jure (legal) recognition of Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and de facto recognition of the Russian occupation of parts of four other Ukrainian regions during the conflict. The plan was largely developed by Steve Witkoff, a close friend of President Donald Trump with no prior experience in diplomacy.

In an interview with Tucker Carlson and in other statements, Witkoff has suggested that the people in these regions want to be part of Russia. For instance, he told Carlson: "They're Russian speaking. There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule."

We examined what actually happened. The referendums were conducted under martial law, with dubious or coercive election procedures, and offered no real choices.

To read the full report and find out the Pinocchio rating, please click this link.

Read the full fact check

We're always looking for fact-check suggestions.

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About the cats: It's a Friday and sometimes our fact checks deal with heavy or depressing subjects. So we hope to bring a smile to your face.

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