{"id":32464,"date":"2026-08-08T12:46:02","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T07:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=32464"},"modified":"2026-08-08T12:46:02","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T07:46:02","slug":"howard-lutnick-hypes-don-jr-backed-magnet-firm-as-trump-declares-you-gotta-go-with-magnets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=32464","title":{"rendered":"Howard Lutnick Hypes Don Jr-Backed Magnet Firm as Trump Declares, \u2018You Gotta Go With Magnets!\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5703863\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5703863\" class=\"wp-image-5703863 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/02\/TrumpLutnick-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1825\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5703863\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Francis Chung\/POLITICO via AP Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>President <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong> offered an enthusiastic endorsement of magnets during a Friday State Department event, proclaiming, &#8220;You gotta go with magnets,&#8221; as Commerce Secretary <strong>Howard Lutnick<\/strong> plugged Vulcan Elements, a company backed by <strong>Donald Trump Jr.&#8217;s<\/strong> venture capital firm.<\/p>\n<p>Appearing before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/bulletin\/news\/trump-mining-ceos-iran-war-weapons-stockpiles-b3029571.html\">executives from top mining companies<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/trump-declares-im-an-environmental-person-in-round-table-boosting-the-mining-industry\/\">promote<\/a> &#8220;a series of historic mining projects,&#8221; Trump told the audience, &#8220;Magnets. You gotta go with magnets. That&#8217;s a good one. Everybody should go for magnets. We really badly need it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><video id=\"FIitDFKy\" poster=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/thumbs\/FIitDFKy-720.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><\/video><\/p>\n<p>Lutnick went on to boast, &#8220;Vulcan Elements \u2014 $1.4 billion, also to build right here in the United States.&#8221; Here, the commerce secretary is referring to a 2025 <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/vulcan-reelement-rare-earths-us-government-investment-17647d7219ab8b8098fce5fc66975fdd\">deal<\/a> between the Trump administration and the rare-earth magnet startup, which, in Lutnick&#8217;s words at the time, was meant to &#8220;ensur[e] America\u2019s supply chain is strong, secure and perfectly reliable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><video id=\"KIBJYGQh\" poster=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/thumbs\/KIBJYGQh-720.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><\/video><\/p>\n<p>As the<em> Associated Press\u00a0<\/em>noted, &#8220;The deal includes a $620 million loan from the Department of Defense, $50 million of federal incentives from the Department of Commerce and $550 million in private capital.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Three months before that deal was announced, according to a May <em>ProPublica<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/donald-trump-jr-vulcan-deal-white-house\">investigation<\/a>, Trump Jr.\u2019s firm, 1789 Capital, invested in Vulcan. The outlet further reported that White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing <strong>Peter Navarro<\/strong> personally requested that the Pentagon approve the $620 million loan. Defense officials told the outlet they were instructed to move unusually quickly after receiving the request, with one official recalling, \u201cThe call came from the White House: We have to get this done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And not to mention, Trump has mentioned magnets before. In July, he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/trump-hypes-magnets-after-sons-firm-takes-stake-in-rare-earth-magnet-company\/\">urged<\/a> defense contractors to \u201cdo magnets&#8221; during an appearance at the Pennsylvania Defense &amp; Innovation Summit, emphasizing, &#8220;I hope you\u2019re gonna do magnets. Somebody out there, I hope \u2014 you\u2019re all brilliant people \u2014 magnets. Do magnets, ok? I\u2019ll tell you how to make money. Do magnets.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Trump&#8217;s latest push for mining projects also comes as a recent <em>New York Times<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/06\/28\/world\/europe\/trump-lutnick-sons-kazakhstan.html\">investigation<\/a> found that Trump Jr. and <strong>Eric<\/strong> <strong>Trump<\/strong> secured a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/ny-times-bombshell-details-how-trumps-sons-stand-to-gain-from-1-6b-kazakhstan-mining-deal\/\">financial stake<\/a> in a U.S.-backed tungsten mining venture in Kazakhstan as Trump and Lutnick helped advance the project and pursued billions of dollars in federal support. The White House denied any conflict of interest, and both Trump brothers said they were not involved in negotiating the deal.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the clips above via Fox News.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/howard-lutnick-hypes-don-jr-backed-magnet-firm-as-trump-declares-you-gotta-go-with-magnets\/\">Howard Lutnick Hypes Don Jr-Backed Magnet Firm as Trump Declares, \u2018You Gotta Go With Magnets!\u2019<\/a> first appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\">Mediaite<\/a>.<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Francis Chung\/POLITICO via AP Images President Donald Trump offered an enthusiastic endorsement of magnets during a Friday State Department event, proclaiming, &#8220;You gotta go with magnets,&#8221; as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick plugged Vulcan Elements, a company backed by Donald Trump Jr.&#8217;s venture capital firm. Appearing before executives from top mining companies to promote &#8220;a series&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/02\/TrumpLutnick-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}