Trump Just Outed the Entire Military Industry Complex
"There's a monstrous discussion about defense; Lockheed Martin makes 97% of its revenue from the U.S. government—they are basically an arm of the U.S. govt," commerce secretary Howard Lutnick boasted
Well, you gotta hand it to Trump and co…they have no shame and are proud and loud about the corruption that has hijacked the U.S. government for the last 50 years—the kind they’re gleefully accelerating.
Speaking with his pals on CNBC Tuesday, Trump’s billionaire commerce secretary Howard Lutnick—the slick-haired, Gordon Gekko-wannabe who infamously boasted that his 94-year-old mother-in-law wouldn’t complain if she got stiffed on her Social Security check—exclaimed that defense contractors like Lockheed Martin are so fat off from free government money that it may be time to nationalize them.
While pressed on whether the Trump administration, who recently purchased a 10 percent ownership stake in Intel, would expand its quasi-nationalization efforts into other companies and industries, Lutnick shamelessly farted out loud the 70-year military industrial complex game the elites have been playing at the expense of the working class.
“Oh there’s a monstrous discussion about defense,” he said before pointing out that Lockheed Martin draws 97 percent of its revenue from contracts with the U.S. government.
TRUMP TRANSLATED: the perennial war machine for which politicians on both sides of the aisle continually drum up—through the manufacturing of mostly unnecessary tanks, fighter jets, drones, and the rest of our Call of Duty capitalism assembly lines—exists not to actually defend U.S. citizens but, instead, to grease the skids of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and the rest of em.
When Lutnick—a longtime pal of Trump’s from his days dodging taxes, stiffing contractors, and money laundering in NYC real estate—speaks, it’s essentially Trump speaking.
So that’s why the next part of what he said was so telling (and kind of refreshing if you appreciate politicians dropping the veil and being open about the corrupt, and murderous, military industrial complex.
Lockheed is “basically an arm of the U.S. government,” Lutnick deadpanned. They make “exquisite” ammunitions, he added, before concluding that the current financial dynamic between the U.S. government and companies like Lockheed is basically a corporate giveaway.
TRUMP TRANSLATED: If we, the government by, of, and for the corporations, are going to illegally invade two to three sovereign nations every 10-20 years, permanently occupy countries via our near-1,000 military bases around the world, and murder millions of innocent foreigners in the process…the defense contractors will either have to offer us bigger political bribes or we, the government, are gonna take a bigger cut (i.e. equity) of the deadly profits.
I mean, you have to hand it to Trump and co…they truly embrace the shamelessness of it all.
Besides the stunning hypocrisy and inconsistency of Trump, his enablers, and their MAGA minions essentially embracing quasi-communism—while screeching “communists!” when Obama and Biden pushed milque-toast neoliberal policies—on the merits, I’m for the U.S. government nationalizing defense contractors in order to largely dismantle them.
Or to borrow from Cornel West’s ill-fated 2024 presidential campaign, ”to be head of the empire to help dismantle it.”
But, of course, if the Trump administration actually purchased equity stakes in Lockheed Martin, it would not be to dismantle the defense industry.
It would be to expand it.
All at the behest of the real masters of the universe, and government…Wall Street.
Or, as the late, great anti-war leftist Senator Mike Gravel put it in a 2019 interview with yours truly (watch above):
“All of these defense contractors are on Wall Street, they’re publicly traded, and Wall Street of course not only controls the marketing of these companies, but it’s beyond that, it’s the control to protect banking by the lobbying interests in Washington, and of course, by the lobbying interests of the military industrial complex, which is just as powerful as the banking interests, and then of course the representatives who are controlled Lock, stock, and barrel by Wall Street and the military industrial complex and, also influenced by the communications of the mainstream media.”
If Trump leverages the government to buy ownership of defense contractors, you can expect a more severe expansion of the dynamic Gravel explained—not a scaling back.
Meanwhile, as Trump and his billionaire buddies treat government like one big real estate deal, the working class continues to sink further into the economic quicksand.
The bottom 60% of U.S. households don't make enough money to afford a "minimal quality of life," according to a new analysis in May.
U.S. homelessness hit a record high last year (and the number is likely an undercount).
A U.S. household now needs to earn $114,000 annually to afford a median-priced home.
U.S. foreclosures are rising, up 14 percent in May from the same period the year before.
Billionaire wealth surged three times faster in 2024; the world is now on pace for at least five trillionaires within a decade.
AI is replacing entry-level jobs and top AI executives warn of 10-20 percent overall unemployment in the next five years.
With the economic hunger games and new Gilded Age in full swing—and apparently a potential Trump-infused nationalization of defense contractors—the inevitable result will be more war.
Ones not fought by Trump, Lutnick, and their kids; no, our growing war machine will be built on the backs of a growing army of economically desperate Americans who, with dwindling options in our capitalist “free market,” are left with no other choice but to risk their lives in exchange for decent pay, benefits, and a pension.
Indeed, war is a racket.
I firmly believe most people in America—across political lines—are not lacking compassion…most people have no fu*king idea what the hell is going on all around them. Let’s wake up the masses and do real justice journalism.