WHEN: Today, Tuesday, August 26, 2025
WHERE: CNBC’s “Squawk Box”
Following are excerpts from the unofficial transcript of a CNBC interview with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” (M-F, 6AM-9AM ET) today, Tuesday, August 26. Following are links to video on CNBC.com: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/08/26/commerce-sec-lutnick-trump-pentagon-is-thinking-about-taking-stakes-in-defense-contractors.html, https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/08/26/commerce-sec-lutnick-on-firing-of-fed-gov-cook-the-crook-always-says-im-not-going-anywhere.html and https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/08/26/watch-cnbcs-full-interview-with-commerce-secretary-howard-lutnick.html.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
LUTNICK ON TSMC CEO
HOWARD LUTNICK: As soon as the I took this office, I called C.C. Wei. He’s the CEO. We sat down and negotiated and I said, look, this is ridiculous. I’m going to take back the $6.5 billion. This is just a corporate giveaway. You’ve got to do better for us. And if you remember, he came to the White House and announced $165 billion of investment. That’s what I’m talking about. At least let’s make sure Americans gets the benefit of the bargain.
LUTNICK ON BIDEN ADMINISTRATION
LUTNICK: You’ve got tariffs and you’ve got a real businessman, both as the secretary of commerce and as the president of the United States pushing these people. Micron was getting a $2.5 billion grant to build 25 billion. They now upped it to 200 billion. Texas Instruments from 23 billion to 60 billion. I mean, let’s get the benefit of the bargain. You’ve got to push these people. You can’t be a pushover. The Biden administration was just a pushover. That’s all it was. It was just a giveaway of money and the Trump administration is just not that.
LUTNICK ON GETTING A STAKE
LUTNICK: I think the Intel deal was a great example. The Biden administration gave, gave, gave Intel, an American company, $11 billion grant at in exchange for nothing to help them build semiconductors in America, which would be a really good thing. But why would you have I mean, talk about corporate welfare. So Donald Trump sits in the room with me and Lip-Bu, the CEO of Intel, and says, come on, we’ve got to make it fair for America. And we agree, we get 10% of the company which brilliantly equals $11 billion.
LUTNICK ON LOCKHEED MARTIN
LUTNICK: Lockheed Martin makes 97% of their revenue from the US government. They are basically an arm of the US government. They make exquisite munitions. I mean, amazing things that can knock a missile out of the air when it’s coming towards you. But what’s the economics of that? I’m going to leave that to my secretary of defense and the deputy secretary of Defense. These guys are on it and they’re thinking about it.
LUTNICK ON NO SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUND
LUTNICK: We’re not starting a sovereign wealth fund. What you’re going to see is you’re going to be you’re going to see a national and economic security fund built with the Japanese money, the Korean money and other countries’ money. They’re going to give us money to build our infrastructure out in America. Those are the deals that Donald Trump made using his tariffs, not using the money from the tariffs, but using the commitment of these countries that fundamentally understand a strong and powerful America is necessary for the world to be successful.
LUTNICK ON CHANGING THE RULES
LUTNICK: Okay, so if a company comes to the United States of American government and says, we need your help, we want to change everything, right? You know, Nvidia goes to President Trump and says, I’d like to sell a new kind of chip to the Chinese. I know it’s not allowed. I’d like to do that. Will you work with me to do that? I think that’s a question between the CEO and the president of United States, of whether he will listen to them and change the rules, and if he’s willing to change the rules and he wants something for it for the American people, then that sounds like a good idea to me.
LUTNICK ON LISA COOK
LUTNICK: But the issue is a federal government, a governor of the Federal Reserve literally signs her name and commits mortgage fraud. Right. It’s alleged that she’s committed mortgage fraud. And she says, I’m not going anywhere. Well, the crook always says I’m not going anywhere. And why would anybody defend that? The real question should be, did she commit mortgage fraud, yes or no? And if you did commit mortgage fraud, please get out of the federal government. Get out of the seat of the governor of the Federal Reserve and go away. You don’t deserve to be there if you’ve committed mortgage fraud.
LUTNICK ON STOCK MARKET AND INTEREST RATE
LUTNICK: Stock market is at their highs virtually every day. Bond market is steady and it should be lower. We all agree interest rates are lower. I mean, if the Federal Reserve actually cared about the United States of America, they’d understand that they could cut interest rates, cost the United States of American taxpayer less money. Remember, each 1% of interest rate cut is worth $360 billion a year to the American taxpayers over time.
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CNBC
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CNBC
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