Steve Bannon has slammed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick for botching the Trump administration’s announcement of a new fee for H-1B visas.
Bannon was bewildered that Lutnick incorrectly stated from the Oval Office that a $100,000 fee would be required annually for H-1B visas, forcing White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to clarify that the fee is actually a one-time expense.
“These are not tiny details in the document,” Bannon said on his show. “These are not in the footnotes. This is the deal. You’re supposed to be a deal guy. You’ve got to understand your own deal that you put before the president.”
Bannon, a White House strategist during Trump’s first term, has called for the H-1B visa program to be scrapped entirely. He has argued that the visa, awarded to highly-skilled foreigners to work in America, takes high-paying jobs away from Americans.
Bannon indicated that he supports the administration’s decision to make H-1B visas more costly to obtain. However, after Lutnick incorrectly stated that the fee would be annual, he wondered why the program should even be around at all.
“All I’m saying is the Secretary Commerce sat up there and gave not just erroneous information, but patently false information,” He said. “During the show, in a hot take, I can sit and go, ‘that makes no sense,’ because, if that’s true, then, hey, we kind of won—the whole program, just shut the program down.”
The H-1B program offers 65,000 visas each year to employers who hire foreign workers in specialized fields. It provides an additional 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees—many of whom work in tech and healthcare, Reuters reports.
The White House’s announcement of a $100,000 fee sent shockwaves across Silicon Valley, which relies heavily on scientists and engineers from India and China. Adding to the stress was Lutnick’s statement that companies would have to pony up each year.
“It is $100,000 per year,” Lutnick said as he stood next to the president. “No more will these tech companies or other big companies train foreign workers. They have to pay the government $100,000, then they have to pay the employee, it’s just not economic.”
He continued, “If you’re going to train somebody, you’re going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land, train Americans, stop bringing in people in to take our jobs, that’s the policy here—$100,000 a year for H-1B visas, and all of the big companies are on board.”
Leavitt had to walk back Lutnick’s remark on Saturday.
To be clear:1.) This is NOT an annual fee. It’s a one-time fee that applies only to the petition.2.) Those who already hold H-1B visas and are currently outside of the country right now will NOT be charged $100,000 to re-enter. H-1B visa holders can leave and re-enter the…
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) September 20, 2025
“Those who already hold H-1B visas and are currently outside of the country right now will NOT be charged $100,000 to re-enter,” Leavitt said in a statement. “This applies only to new visas, not renewals, and not current visa holders.”
Bannon said the gaffe was an indictment of Lutnick’s competence as an adviser to the president.
“That’s the heart of the deal,” Bannon said. “When you make a deal… This is the basic architecture. These are the key points. Those are the key points. You didn’t even know them. Either didn’t understand it or patently lied about it. You pick.”
He continued, “Don’t take it from me. See it with your own lying eyes. So if that’s the Secretary of Commerce, what information is the President of the United States going to get?”
Lutnick has become best-known for his egregious flattery of and praise for Trump, both in the Oval Office to the president’s face and on television. Among his cringe-inducing encomia have been saying in the Oval in May, “if you got to sit next to him, I have the best dealmaker to my left,” and using a Cabinet meeting to praise, “the greatest Cabinet working for the greatest president.”
The New York billionaire is also known for buying the multi-million townhouse next door to Jeffrey Epstein’s and suggesting that his elderly mother-in-law, who public records show live with him and his wife, would be relaxed if her Social Security check did not turn up.
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