Trump aide behind $5M gold card visa who doesn't care he's a 'villain' (2025)

It was just a month until what most pollsters had predicted would be one of the closest presidential elections in history.

In the heat of the final stages of the campaign, Donald Trump was deciding how to recognize the one-year anniversary of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.

So the then-Republican presidential nominee turned to his Wall Street friend, Howard Lutnick.

As they travelled to the Jewish Ohel tombs in Queens, New York, to mark the horrific Hamas assault, the billionaire former Cantor Fitzgerald CEO shared some of his grand plans for the U.S.

At the time the margins in the polls were razor-thin and the chances of a second Trump administration hung in the balance.

But Lutnick, adept in the art of negotiating after years as a successful and powerful financier, decided to take his chance.

His pitch included ambitious ideas of how to balance the federal government budget to a point where any American making less than $150,000 a year could have their income tax waived.

He was absolutely certain that 25 percent of the payments going out of the federal entitlements like Social Security and Medicare were fraudulent and had a plan to find them.

'I had an hour and a half, just he and me talking,' Lutnick revealed in an interview on the All-In podcast after the president took office.

Trump looked at him and and gave his ambitious master plan a seal of approval.

'Sure,' Lutnick recalled Trump saying, praising the president for empowering him to detail the his bold blueprint during the campaign.

Six weeks later, Trump announced that Lutnick would be his pick to lead the Department of Commerce - but the businessman was already putting his vision into place.

As time went on he added to his list of proposals aimed at increasing government revenue, including the introduction of a $5million gold card to get a visa.

His ultimate goal is 'no debt in America' - an audacious idea that has both bemused and enchanted investors.

The plans have raised eyebrows, even in MAGA circles. But a fearless Lutnick hasn't been daunted, and doesn't care about being branded a 'villain'.

To set his vision in motion, Lutnick got to work.

He moved to recruit Elon Musk during a trip to SpaceX Starbase launch site in Texas to witness his monumental 'rocket catch.'

After the successful event, Musk met with Lutnick to discuss leading a massive effort to cut $1 trillion of government spending.

Musk was delighted and gave him 'two thumbs up' to endorse the idea, he recalled.

Lutnick proposed the name DOGE, after spotting the meme-fueled idea floating around the internet and realizing it was a key inspiration to get Musk on board.

Snapping a selfie with Musk, Lutnick posted it on social media.

'We will rip the waste out of our $6.5 Trillion budget. Our goal: Balance the Budget of the USA,' he crowed.

'We gotta win, but, once we do, we can cut the millions of strings that, like Gulliver, hold back the giant that is America!' Musk agreed.

Like Trump, Lutnick is thrilled by the idea of fixing government problems that have vexed lawmakers in Washington, DC for decades.

He's spent a lot of time reading, he reveals, studying about how government works and finding ways to raise revenue.

Someone gave him the book 'The Gatekeepers' by author Chris Whipple, who explored the history of White House chiefs of staff and how they helped define every modern president.

As he read the book, Lutnick was horrified by what he learned, and realized the critical errors of the president's closest aides in Trump's first term.

Every one of the president's chiefs of staff, Reince Priebus, John Kelly, Mick Mulvaney, and Mark Meadows tried to control Trump.

He is a huge fan of Susie Wiles, because he believes she lets the president be who he wants, without too many parameters.

After Trump won the election, Lutnick turned his eyes to Washington, DC and purchased one of the most expensive homes on the market.

'We bought Bret Baier's house, so I have a nice house, big enough for my ego to expand,' he joked about the $25 million mansion.

On most weekends he escapes the Washington swamp and travels with the president to Mar-a-Lago to enjoy ice cream sundaes on the patio, Politico revealed.

But when Trump launched his dramatic tariff agenda on 'Liberation day,' Lutnick struggled with executing the delicate dance that followed to soothe markets and reassure business figures.

Lutnick was aggressive in the media but stepped on a few press landmines that frustrated supporters of the president's trade agenda.

On CBS's Face the Nation, he said 'the army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones' was coming to America.

The idea of American workers doing such menial labor kicked off widespread mockery from his critics, but they missed Lutnick's ultimate point.

'It's going to be automated and great Americans - the tradecraft of America, is going to fix them, is going to work on them,' he said.

The idea of automation enraged economic nationalists like Steve Bannon, who lambasted Lutnick on his War Room show.

'Let me be blunt ... I think he's close to being an unmitigated disaster. We should see a lot less of Lutnick on TV,' he said.

Wall Street was furious too.

The Wall Street Journal lamented Lutnick's 'supersize role' in Trump's administration.

They states that the billionaire 'exasperated' people in the White House and confused and frustrated executives.

Lutnick started sharing details of conversations he was having with the president.

Trump ultimately relied on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to help land the tariff plane and sooth investors.

Behind the scenes, however, Lutnick is still very involved and a key player.

'Secretary Lutnick is an invaluable addition to President Trump's all-star team of trade and economic advisors, each of whom is leveraging unique insights from the private sector, academia, and government to deliver on the President's vision.,' White House spokesman Kush Desai told the Daily Mail.

To Trump, Lutnick remains one of the Wall Street 'killers' who can help him negotiate better deals for the president.

His ideas keep coming.

He suggested that in the long line of people trying to get green card visas, why not give tech companies the option of paying a significant fee for a 'gold card'?

Pay $5 million up front, get a welcome into the United States to work and have a path to citizenship in exchange for your investment.

If 200,000 Gold Cards are sold at $5 million each, the resulting $1 trillion would help raise more investment

The idea enchanted Trump.

If the United States sold a million green cards, they could raise $5 trillion in revenue.

Trump immediately started promoting the idea in the Oval Office as a smiling Lutnick appeared alongside him.

It would be enacted in a 'couple of weeks' he said, but many of the president's allies were horrified by the idea.

At a time when Trump was trying to pressure tech companies to 'hire American,' Lutnick was offering to sell them a golden ticket out of their problems.

Lutnick drafted Elon Musk's DOGE team to build and develop a website to streamline a system to open the pipeline of foreign workers into the United States.

The idea of 'selling citizenship' to foreign workers was anathema to Trump's America First allies who immediately targeted Lutnick for the 'stupid' idea.

Lutnick was a 'r*****' who had 'no idea' what he was doing to the president's political movement, an ally of the president told the Daily Mail.

As implementation of the idea stalled in the administration, Lutnick had an actual 'gold card' made and gave it to Trump.

The laminated card featuring the president's face, the Statue of Liberty and a bald eagle captured the president's imagination once again.

Trump was thrilled. It was the perfect distraction from the brutal week of a punishing news cycle sparked by his global tariffs.

'For $5 million dollars this could be yours,' he said, showing it off to reporters on Air Force One.

Lutnick is still full of big ideas: The Trump card, tariffs, cuts in fraud and waste, and investigating international tax scams.

Remaking the government to raise trillions in revenue, cut spending, cut taxes, create the External Revenue Service is all part of his 'so awesome' plan to fix the litany of underlying issues.

It's the ultimate challenge that lawmakers have given up on for decades.

Lutnick is delighted andhaving the 'most fun ever,' he says, noting that he's pitching new ideas to the president every day.

They are the dreams big New York business figures like Trump have tried to sell to Washington, DC for years.

Some Wall Street rivals have tried to smear him for decades, just as many tried to do the same to Trump.

The campaign was fun, winning was awesome, and leading the government transition was the kind of challenge that Lutnick enjoyed.

But as Lutnick and allies like Musk have discovered, governing is much more difficult as the shifting currency of politics threatens to exile them from public support.

Now matter what happens, however, Lutnick will always have the friendship of the president of the United States - even if their great ideas do not make it off the ground.

Maybe someday they'll talk about what could have been over ice cream at Mar-a-Lago.