Calls for Resignation Intensify as Trump’s Billionaire Ally Faces Public Backlash Over Epstein Connections

Nearly half of Americans are calling for Howard Lutnick, Donald Trump’s billionaire Commerce Secretary, to step down due to his connections, albeit limited, with the notorious Jeffrey Epstein. This sentiment is reflected in a recent poll conducted by Daily Mail/JL Partners, where 49 percent of registered voters expressed the belief that Lutnick should resign, even though he has not been accused of any wrongdoing by Epstein’s victims.

This development poses a political challenge for Trump, who has elevated Lutnick to a key position within his economic team in his second term. Lutnick, the former CEO of the financial services giant Cantor Fitzgerald, has amassed a personal fortune estimated at $7.3 billion by Forbes. He has become a prominent advocate of Trump’s ‘America First’ policies, staunchly supporting tariffs, the reshoring of jobs, and the administration’s tough stance on international trade.

However, the release of new Epstein-related documents and Lutnick’s private testimony before the House Oversight Committee have reignited scrutiny over his past interactions with the disgraced financier. These revelations have fueled the debate on whether Lutnick should remain in his role, with opinions sharply divided along party lines.

The former boss of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, whose personal fortune is estimated by Forbes at $7.3 billion, has become one of the administration’s most vocal champions of the ‘America First’ agenda, defending tariffs, reshoring and the President’s hardline approach to trade. 

But newly released Epstein files and Lutnick’s own closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee have put fresh scrutiny on the Wall Street titan’s past dealings with the disgraced financier.

Opinions on whether he should leave office are split along party lines.

Two-thirds of Democrats – 67 percent – wished to see his ouster, while 46 percent of independents agreed.

Republicans were more forgiving, with only 30 percent of Republicans saying that Lutnick should resign.

But even among GOP-registered voters, support for him staying in post was hardly overwhelming: only 40 percent said he should keep his job, while 31 percent said they didn’t know.

Overall, the poll found that about a third of respondents were unsure about what should happen to him.

Lutnick, 64, is one of the most recognizable figures on Wall Street.

He ran Cantor for decades and became nationally known after the firm suffered the largest corporate loss of life on 9/11, when 658 of its employees were killed in the World Trade Center. Lutnick, who survived because he was taking his son to kindergarten that morning, later rebuilt the company.

His political journey has also been striking.

Once a Democratic donor to Hillary Clinton, he later became a major Trump fundraiser, hosting events for his 2020 and 2024 campaigns before being named Commerce Secretary.

Since then, he has emerged as one of the President’s loudest tariff evangelists.

Now he is facing pressure over a very different part of his past: his relationship with Epstein, who was his next-door neighbor in Manhattan.

Lutnick is in political hot water because he said he had cut off ties with the disgraced financier in 2005, though the Department of Justice document release revealed that he had visited Epstein’s Caribbean island in 2012.

Earlier this month, he voluntarily gave closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee as part of that panel’s investigation into Epstein.

He told lawmakers that he and his wife were invited to Epstein’s New York home in 2005 but left shortly after being shown his massage table and a comment made about the kinds of massages he enjoyed.

The episode, Lutnick said, was so ‘off-putting’ that he told his wife he no longer wanted to socialize with Epstein.

Epstein was later convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution from a minor.

In 2011, Lutnick briefly met Epstein, who wished to alert the CEO about scaffolding going up around his property.

He labeled that neighbor-to-neighbor meeting and a subsequent encounter in 2012 as ‘meaningless and inconsequential.’

While vacationing in the Caribbean with his family that year, Lutnick recounted how he was contacted by Epstein’s staff, who knew he was staying nearby and extended an invitation for lunch on the now-notorious private island of Little Saint James.

Lutnik has repeatedly denied having any meaningful personal or professional relationship with Epstein

The Trump official said he took along his wife, children, another couple and their children, as well as staff.

‘We sat outside, had lunch. It was boring. We left,’ he told the committee.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are continuing to call for Lutnick’s resignation, arguing that his testimony to the panel did not clear up why he claimed to have cut ties with Epstein years before he actually did.

‘Given your opportunity to come clean, you instead offered implausible distinctions and semantic games,’ Ranking Member, Representative Robert Garcia, wrote in a letter last week.

Lutnick argued the claim that he stopped seeing Epstein after 2005 was ‘not misleading’ because the 2012 island excursion took place with his wife.

‘I, Howard Lutnick, one person, was never in a situation,’ the Commerce Secretary said. ‘I’m saying I wouldn’t go and put myself in a situation where I was unaccompanied with him because he’s disgusting.’

He has repeatedly denied having any meaningful personal or professional relationship with Epstein.

But the political pressure has not gone away.

Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who helped push for the release of the Epstein files and lost his Kentucky primary on Tuesday to a Trump-backed challenger, has also pushed Lutnick to resign.

The Daily Mail/JL Partners poll suggests that the issue has broken through with voters, too – including many who are not yet sure what to make of the Commerce Secretary’s explanations.