# How 9/11 shaped the man behind Trump's tariffs

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/if-you-re-listening-232515/how-9-11-shaped-the-man-behind-trump-s-tariffs
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/if-you-re-listening-232515/how-9-11-shaped-the-man-behind-trump-s-tariffs.md
Podcast: [If You're Listening](https://stenobird.com/podcast/if-you-re-listening-232515)
Published: 2026-09-11T15:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/if-youre-listening/how-9-11-shaped-the-man-behind-trump-s-tariffs/107143956
Audio file: https://mediacore-live-production.akamaized.net/audio/02/od/Z/ge.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/if-you-re-listening-232515/episodes/how-9-11-shaped-the-man-behind-trump-s-tariffs
Duration seconds: 1500

## Resource

On September 11, 2001, Howard Lutnick's firm Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 employees, including his brother and best friend, when the World Trade Center collapsed. Days later, he became a national pariah for cutting off their salaries, a gamble to keep the company alive long enough to eventually give their families a quarter of its future profits. It worked. Twenty five years on, that same billionaire is Donald Trump's Commerce Secretary, and the man driving his global tariff war. Lutnick's business thrives on chaos rather than growth, and having survived and profited from the worst days of his life, he seems entirely unafraid of the economic wreckage his tariffs are causing. So what happens when a man built to bet everything on volatility gets his hands on the entire US economy? This episode was originally broadcast May 2025. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app . Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/if-you-re-listening-232515/episodes/how-9-11-shaped-the-man-behind-trump-s-tariffs/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/if-you-re-listening-232515/how-9-11-shaped-the-man-behind-trump-s-tariffs.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.