President Trump’s Commerce Secretary, billionaire Howard Lutnick, was asked on Squawk Box about recent economic data from ADP which revealed that the U.S. private sector is losing jobs. In particular, the data, according to host Sara Eisen, showed small business is “getting hit really hard.” (ADP defines small businesses as having 50 or fewer employees.)
[Note: The recent ADP data revealed that in November 2025 total private payrolls fell by 32,000. Eisen noted that ADP cited tariffs as a major factor in what she called the “economic fallout.”]
Lutnick told Eisen: “No, no, it’s not tariffs,” and placed blamed on the Democratic Party whom he says was responsible for the federal government shutdown in October. According to Lutnick, small businesses that do business with the government knew they weren’t getting paid during the shutdown, “so they sort of slowed down their projects.”
EISEN: Today we learned that the private sector is losing jobs and small business is getting hit really hard, and one of the reasons the ADP cites is tariffs. Do you worry about the economic fallout as tariffs really take hold?
LUTNICK: No no — it’s not tariffs. The Democrat… pic.twitter.com/P7kXRouKoQ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 3, 2025
Lutnick also added, by way of explaining the diminished payroll number: “Remember, as you deport people, that’s gonna suppress private job numbers of small businesses.”
Lutnick continued to downplay the “economic fallout” by saying he believes small businesses will “rebalance and regrow” in the early months of 2026 and calling the current situation a “year end event.”
Yet besides deflecting on tariffs, which the ADP report specifically cites as a factor, commenters point out that Lutnick’s optimism about growth appears hard to square with his concurrent claim about how deportations are negatively impacting small business payrolls — especially if the Trump administration continues its massive deportation efforts.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its industry standard nonfarm payrolls data on Tuesday, December 16, a date delayed because of the government shutdown.