Former Wall Street executive Howard Lutnick was confirmed by the Senate Tuesday to lead the Department of Commerce under President Trump.
Lutnick’s nomination was approved by senators in a 51-45 party-line vote. Four Senators, Cory Booker (D-NJ), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), missed the vote.
With Lutnick’s confirmation in the books, Trump has now surpassed the confirmation pace of former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
The Democrat-led Senate under Obama in 2009 had confirmed 16 of his Cabinet nominees by this time 16 years ago, and only seven of Biden’s picks at this point in 2021, according to a Senate whip aide.
The figure for Obama does not include former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a holdover from the previous administration who didn’t require another Senate confirmation vote.
Counting Gates, Trump is expected to move ahead of Obama’s pace on Wednesday.
Lutnick, the former CEO of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, is the 17th member of Trump’s Cabinet to be confirmed.
Under Biden, it took the Democrat-led Senate 56 days to confirm 17 Cabinet secretaries. The Republican-led Senate under Trump achieved the feat in only 29 days.
“Howard Lutnick’s story is inspiring. It’s a lesson in resilience, in determination, in the American spirit,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said ahead of the confirmation vote.
Thune noted that Lutnick lost more than 650 employees – including his younger brother, Gary – in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that devastated Cantor Fitzgerald’s World Trade Center workforce.
“Howard Lutnick offered the surviving employees a choice: They could either go to 20 funerals a day for the next month, or they could work harder than ever to rebuild the company,” Thune said.
Under Lutnick’s leadership, Cantor Fitzgerald employees agreed to donate a quarter of their salaries to the 658 families of their colleagues.
“Over the next five years, the firm and its employees gave those families $180 million,” Thune continued. In 2008, Howard Lutnick made sure each employee got back double what they had given.”
The Senate leader said the gesture was indicative of “the type of person Howard Lutnick is and the type of public servant that he’ll be.”
Lutnick, who served as Trump transition team co-chair, will oversee a sprawling department with wide-ranging responsibilities.
The Census Bureau, the National Weather Service, the Patent and Trademark Office, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Minority Business Development Agency are all under the purview of the Commerce Department.
The department has nearly 47,000 employees and has requested an $11.4 billion budget for fiscal year 2025.
As commerce secretary, Lutnick will be 10th in line to the presidency.
