WASHINGTON (AP) — Billionaire financier Howard Lutnick, President Donald Trump's choice to lead the Commerce Department, said Wednesday that he would sell all of his business holdings within 90 days.
“I will divest, I will sell all of my interests, my business interests, all of my assets, everything,'' Lutnick said in a confirmation hearing Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. ”I made the decision I've made enough money in my life.''
Lutnick, head of the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, has complicated business dealings. His financial disclosure statement showed that he had positions in more than 800 businesses and other private organizations.
Lutnick was introduced by Vice President JD Vance, who called him "just a good dude.''
Lutnick, who was head of the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, has emerged as an outspoken supporter of Trump's hardline trade policies.
Trump has threatened new tariffs on China and an across-the-board levy on everything imported into the United States.
He is also planning to impose 25% import taxes — tariffs — Saturday on America's two biggest trading partners, Canada and Mexico. Lutnick suggested Wednesday that the tariffs on Canada and Mexico could be avoided if they complied with Trump's demand to stop the flow of undocumented immigrants and fentanyl into the United States.
Lutnick expressed support Wednesday for using across-the-board import taxes “country by country'' to strong-arm trade partners into lowering their tariffs on U.S. exports. ”Tariffs are a way to create reciprocity,'' he said.
Lutnick also dismissed as ”nonsense'' the view of many economists that tariffs cause inflation, arguing that China and India have high import taxes but low inflation. (The International Monetary Fund forecasts 1.7% inflation in China, 4.1% in India and 1.9% in the United States this year.)
Lutnick was in the running to be Treasury secretary, but Trump decided to go with someone viewed as more palatable to Wall Street: wealthy investor Scott Bessent, who was confirmed by the Senate Monday. Elon Musk had backed Lutnick, publicly dismissing Bessent as "a business-as-usual'' choice.
The Commerce Department is a sprawling bureaucracy with nearly 50,000 employees. A voice for business in the federal government, it administers trade policy, collects economic statistics, oversees government funding of new computer chip factories, runs the census, grants patents and issues weather reports, among other things.
As Commerce Secretary, Lutnick will work with Trump's nominee to be U.S. trade representative, Jamieson Greer, to lead the president's promised tariff onslaught.
Lutnick was CEO at Cantor Fitzgerald when its offices were hit in the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. The firm lost two-thirds of its employees — 658 people — that day, including Lutnick's brother, Gary Lutnick. Lutnick is a member of the Board of Directors of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.
Speaking about 9/11 Wednesday, Lutnick choked up. "I still can't say it without getting emotional,'' he said.
Lutnick, who once appeared on Trump's reality television show "The Apprentice,'' is a big supporter of cryptocurrencies, digital money that can be traded over the internet outside the highly regulated banking system. Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency. Lutnick last year launched a cryptocurrency platform called World Liberty Financial with members of his family.
Howard Lutnick watches as President Donald Trump attends an indoor Presidential Inauguration parade event at Capital One Arena, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
The National Transportation Safety Board on Sunday said it is gathering information about the evacuation of a Frontier Airlines plane after it hit and killed a person on the runway at Denver International Airport during takeoff.
The plane, on route from Denver to Los Angeles International Airport, “reported striking a pedestrian during takeoff at DEN at approximately 11:19 p.m. on Friday,” according to a post on the airport’s official X account.
Passengers were evacuated via slides, and the emergency crew bused them to the terminal. An airport spokesperson said 12 passengers suffered minor injuries and five were taken to hospitals.
Some people on board expressed concern about the evacuation, including being stuck in the plane for several minutes as smoke filled the cabin and left on the tarmac in the cold once they were out. Video also showed some passengers coming down the slide with what looked to be their carry-on bags.
“We are gathering information about the emergency evacuation to determine if it meets criteria for a safety investigation,” NTSB spokesperson Sarah Taylor Sulick said early Sunday, adding that the agency might have more details in a few hours.
Frontier Airlines didn’t respond early Sunday to a request for information about the evacuation.
A spokesman for the Denver Police Departmet said Sunday the investigation into the incident was ongoing and that the identification of the person on the runway will be confirmed and released by the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner.
The person was hit two minutes after jumping the fence and crossing the runway. The person is not believed to be an airport employee.
“We’re stopping on the runway,” the pilot tells the control tower according to the site ATC.com. “We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire.”
The pilot tells the air traffic controller they have “231 souls” on board and that an “individual was walking across the runway.”
The air traffic controller responds that they are “rolling the trucks now” before the pilot tells the tower they “have smoke in the aircraft. We are going to evacuate on the runway.”
Frontier Airlines said in a statement that flight 4345 was the one involved in the collision and that “smoke was reported in the cabin and the pilots aborted takeoff.” It was not clear whether the smoke was linked to the collision.
The airline said the plane was carrying 224 passengers and seven crew members.
“We are investigating this incident and gathering more information in coordination with the airport and other safety authorities,” the airline said.
Passengers said panic took hold on the flight after an engine caught fire and the cabin began filling with smoke.
“Honestly, I thought I was going to die,” passenger Mohamed Hassan told Colorado’s 9NEWS.
“A lot of people next to me were screaming and crying. I just closed my eyes,” he said. "At that time, you’re not really thinking of anything, you know? Because we were just about to take off and I heard that boom, so I wasn’t sure what happened. I just thought something really, really bad happened.”
Passenger Nikil Thalanki told local media outlets that he felt “this jerk” as the plane was about to take off, adding that it felt like the wheels had left the ground but then came back down.
“There was fire on the engine. There was lots of sparks that are happening. Immediately came to a stop,” Thalanki said. "As soon as we saw the sparks on the flight, smoke filled the cabin completely. It was super hard to breathe.”
Kimberly Randle said passengers were panicking and desperate to get off the aircraft.
“In a few minutes, they finally opened the door. People were running to get out of the plane," he said. "It was chaos everywhere.”
The NTSB has for years expressed concerned about evacuations, especially passengers leaving with their carry-ons. In an April report on the evacuation aboard a United Airlines flight at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, the NTSB described a troubling scene.
Passengers were evacuated via slides and stairs last year from the jetliner after an engine problem during takeoff caused smoke and fire on the right wing.
Despite the flight attendant telling passengers to remain seated, several began shouting, “fire on the engine, let me get out!” That trigged “widespread panic" and prompted many passengers to get up and start retrieving their belongings. Some climbed over seats and began obstructing the aisle.
Three large men insisted the evacuation occur, pushing past a flight attendant and going down a slide before it had fully deployed – causing it to deflate and become unusable.
“Cabin crew training emphasizes assertive command presence and passenger control during evacuations; however, this event demonstrates how rapidly escalating passenger behavior can affect evacuation dynamics even in the absence of confirmed fire or smoke conditions,” according to the report.
The incident in Denver came a day after a Delta Air Lines employee was killed while on the job at the Orlando International Airport. In a statement, the airline said the employee was killed Thursday night without providing details of the incident or the name of the employee.
“We are focused on extending our full support to family and taking care of our Orlando team during this difficult time,” the airline said. “We are working with local authorities as a full investigation gets underway to determine what occurred.”
AP reporter John Raby contributed from Charleston, West Virginia.
Frontier Airlines jetliner number n646fr sits outside the airlines technical operations center with other jetliners in for service north of Denver International Airport Saturday, May 9, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Frontier Airlines jetliner number n646fr sits outside the airlines technical operations center with other jetliners in for service north of Denver International Airport Saturday, May 9, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Frontier Airlines jetliner number n646fr sits outside the airlines technical operations center with other jetliners in for service north of Denver International Airport Saturday, May 9, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
