‘Lots of leaders on Wall Street’ privately supporting Trump, transition team co-chair says

EXCLUSIVE: Howard Lutnick, the co-chair of the Trump transition team and the CEO of financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald, told Fox News Digital that Wall Street leaders have privately expressed their intent to vote for former President Donald Trump and his “pro-growth” policies. 

Lutnick sat for an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital on the sidelines of Trump’s historic rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. 

Lutnick is running the Trump-Vance transition team alongside its co-chair, former Trump administration Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon.

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“I have the amazing opportunity to talk to everybody about the new government and what we are going to do,” Lutnick told Fox News Digital.

“It is unbelievable the reception we receive because lots of leaders on Wall Street, they don’t want to go out there and speak about it, because, correctly, they have clients on both sides — that makes perfect sense,” Lutnick said. “But privately, they say, ‘We’ve got to elect Donald Trump president. We’ve got to put his policies in place. We need pro-growth policies.’”

Lutnick added: “Donald Trump wants to make America great again. Kamala Harris wants to make America Europe — a regulated, regulated, regulated ‘you can’t do anything’ world.” 

Lutnick told Fox News Digital that Trump, and those who support him, including on Wall Street, want to “embrace greatness.” 

“When Donald Trump says, ‘Let’s make America great again,’ we want to embrace greatness. We want to embrace our great companies. We want to embrace our great economy. We want to embrace our great workers. We want to stop sending manufacturing overseas or to Mexico,” Lutnick told Fox News Digital. “Let’s employ our people here. Let’s build great manufacturing here. And let’s totally lean on our economy to make America the greatest it can ever be.” 

Howard Lutnick, chairman and chief executive officer of Cantor Fitzgerald LP, during a Bloomberg Television interview on the opening day of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024.  (Getty Images / Getty Images)

Meanwhile, Lutnick told Fox News Digital he had a “long discussion” with Trump, where the two “figured out how we can the budget in the United States of America.” 

Lutnick said he flew down to Brownsville, Texas, to meet with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, where the two discussed the creation of a government efficiency commission. 

“We spent time on the Department of Government Efficiency — DOGE,” Lutnick told Fox News Digital. “Together, he and I are going to rip all of the excess waste from our $6.5 trillion budget.” 

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“DOGE” would be tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms. 

Donald Trump at a town hall event in Georgia. (The Faulkner Focus / Fox News)

Lutnick said that before Trump, “no one has ever worried about waste. No one has ever taken a look at how much money we spend.” 

“We think we can save $1 trillion off of our budget,” Lutnick said. “There is so much waste. The way we buy things in the government is outrageous. We just decide we want it, and we just buy it. There is no bidding process. They just buy it from the same people again and again and again, and it doesn’t make any sense at all.” 

He added: “That is just not the way to do it.”

Lutnick pointed to the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying the U.S. military “left $80 billion worth of equipment behind.” 

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“Why? If you left your house, and I told you to leave all of the furniture behind, and then you went to your new house, what would be the first thing you’d need to buy? Gotta buy new furniture,” Lutnick said. “So, if you just left your enemy $80 billion worth of equipment, how much do you need to buy? We need to buy like $150 billion to fight those bad guys.” 

Elon Musk shakes hands with Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump backstage during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show grounds on October 5, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania.  (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images / Getty Images)

But Lutnick said this is “the military industrial complex having their way with us, having us spend our money in all these wars and all these different events.” 

“And that’s why Dick Cheney and Donald J. Trump don’t get along, because Donald Trump doesn’t want wars,” Lutnick said. “He doesn’t want to spend this money. And the military industrial complex, they love those wars and say, ‘Let’s buy some more missiles.’”

Lutnick added: “So, we’re going to end the wars, we’re going to end the spending, and we’re going to start to save the government money.” 

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At Trump’s massive, sold-out rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday, Lutnick rallied supporters in support of the former president, as did Musk. 

“Your money is being wasted, and the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that,” Musk said. “We’re going to get the government off of your back and out of your pocketbook. And America is not just going to be great. America is going to reach heights it has never seen before. The future is going to be amazing.”