Former Wall Road govt Howard Lutnick was confirmed by the Senate Tuesday to guide the Division of Commerce underneath President Trump.
Lutnick’s nomination was accredited by senators in a 51-45 party-line vote. 4 Senators, Cory Booker (D-NJ), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), missed the vote.
With Lutnick’s affirmation within the books, Trump has now surpassed the affirmation tempo of former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
The Democrat-led Senate underneath Obama in 2009 had confirmed 16 of his Cupboard nominees by this time 16 years in the past, and solely seven of Biden’s picks at this level in 2021, in accordance with a Senate whip aide.
The determine for Obama doesn’t embody former Protection Secretary Robert Gates, a holdover from the earlier administration who didn’t require one other Senate affirmation vote.
Counting Gates, Trump is anticipated to maneuver forward of Obama’s tempo on Wednesday.
Lutnick, the previous CEO of monetary companies agency Cantor Fitzgerald, is the seventeenth member of Trump’s Cupboard to be confirmed.
Below Biden, it took the Democrat-led Senate 56 days to verify 17 Cupboard secretaries. The Republican-led Senate underneath Trump achieved the feat in solely 29 days.
“Howard Lutnick’s story is inspiring. It’s a lesson in resilience, in willpower, within the American spirit,” Senate Majority Chief John Thune (R-SD) mentioned forward of the affirmation vote.
Thune famous that Lutnick misplaced greater than 650 workers – together with his youthful brother, Gary – within the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults that devastated Cantor Fitzgerald’s World Commerce Heart workforce.
“Howard Lutnick provided the surviving workers a selection: They may both go to twenty funerals a day for the subsequent month, or they might work more durable than ever to rebuild the corporate,” Thune mentioned.
Below Lutnick’s management, Cantor Fitzgerald workers agreed to donate 1 / 4 of their salaries to the 658 households of their colleagues.
“Over the subsequent 5 years, the agency and its workers gave these households $180 million,” Thune continued. In 2008, Howard Lutnick made certain every worker received again double what they’d given.”
The Senate chief mentioned the gesture was indicative of “the kind of individual Howard Lutnick is and the kind of public servant that he’ll be.”
Lutnick, who served as Trump transition workforce co-chair, will oversee a sprawling division with wide-ranging obligations.
The Census Bureau, the Nationwide Climate Service, the Patent and Trademark Workplace, the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Bureau of Financial Evaluation and the Minority Enterprise Growth Company are all underneath the purview of the Commerce Division.
The division has almost 47,000 workers and has requested an $11.4 billion finances for fiscal yr 2025.
As commerce secretary, Lutnick might be tenth in line to the presidency.
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