To sabotage a fellow Cabinet secretary, Howard Lutnick dug up a decade-old comment critical of Donald Trump made by Sean Duffy to sink his chances of being named secretary of transportation, according to a new book about the 2024 election.
The attempt ultimately failed, but the incident was one of many instances of sabotage and infighting between potential Cabinet officials that came to define Trump’s presidential transition, ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl reports in his upcoming book “Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign that Changed America.”
The new details about the transition were first reported in an excerpt of the book published Thursday in Vanity Fair.
The book details the frenzied process when billionaires, politicians and television stars flocked to Trump’s Florida club and residence, Mar-a-Lago, to rub shoulders with future leaders of government and increase their chances of being tapped by Trump. According to Karl, Trump entered his second administration with renewed confidence, compared to his first, which he said was undercut by disloyal Cabinet officials.
“This is completely false. Completely,” a Department of Commerce spokesperson told ABC News in a statement overnight.
“Retribution,” a new book by Jonathan Karl.
Penguin Random House
“The difference between now and before is I know everybody now, and when I first came I knew nobody,” Trump told Karl in an October 2024 phone call. “We had a lot of great people. But I didn’t know people. Had to rely on recommendations. Now I know people.”
Despite the confidence, Trump refused to seriously consider how he would staff his transition until after his victory was secured, worried that planning an administration without winning the election could jinx his chances.
“I don’t like to talk about transition until I win,” Trump said, according to Karl. “When we win, you and I will talk about it. But until you win, I don’t like talking about transition.”
Spearheaded by Lutnick, the process of selecting officials was tailored to judge the characteristics Trump valued most, according to Karl. He reports:
Lutnick had a conference table installed in the Tea Room, as well as several large television screens that he used for presentations to Trump about potential nominees. One monitor would display bullet points — no more than five — describing a candidate’s qualifications, while a second screen would be loaded up with video clips of his or her recent TV appearances. A third monitor would feature a large photograph of the candidate — a headshot — so that Trump could visualize whether he or she looked the part; whether they were, in Trump’s mind, out of “central casting.”
The infighting began early in the transition, according to Karl. When word spread that Susie Wiles was meeting with Trump two days after the election to be offered the role of White House chief of staff, two other contenders — Linda McMahon and Brooke Rollins — rushed to Mar-a-Lago to derail the pick, according to Karl. When they arrived, Trump aides who worked for Wiles held up the aspiring Cabinet officials, going as far as to orchestrate a phone call with Vice President-elect JD Vance to prevent them from seeing Trump in time, according to Karl. McMahon and Rollins arrived too late, eventually landing jobs leading the departments of Education and Agriculture, respectively.
Lutnick, now the secretary of commerce, specifically lobbied for a former Uber executive to run the Department of Transportation. When he learned that Trump was considering Duffy — a former Fox Business host and reality TV star from MTV’s “The Real World” — Lutnick dug up a 2015 interview when Duffy was critical of Trump to sink his chances of being picked.
Karl reports:
As weak as Lutnick’s effort to dig up dirt turned out to be, that one stray comment from almost ten years earlier nearly cost Duffy the job. Trump, reconsidering the pick, called Duffy and his wife, Rachel, and they were able to convince the president‑elect that Sean had long since changed his views on Trump’s conservative bona fides. On November 18, Trump made his decision final: “The husband of a wonderful woman, Rachel Campos‑Duffy, a STAR on Fox News, and the father of nine incredible children, Sean knows how important it is for families to be able to travel safely, and with peace of mind.”
“Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign that Changed America,” by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl is being published Oct. 28 and is available for preorder at Penguin Random House.
