Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s latest appearance on CNBC did not go well. The White House Cabinet secretary has struggled throughout his tenure, routinely blurting out comments that have gotten him into trouble, but his Wednesday morning “Squawk Box” interview was especially cringeworthy, at times.

During the segment, Lutnick claimed, for example, that data centers “don’t use water,” adding that the very suggestion should be seen as “propaganda by our adversaries.” In reality, data centers rely heavily on water — as the commerce secretary himself has previously acknowledged.

As the interview went on, Lutnick talked up the idea of fracturing Canada, blamed Donald Trump’s latest trade war on Canada for having hurt the president’s feelings, and struggled with a question about corruption allegations.

And while each of these examples was notable in its own right, there was another quote of even greater importance.

As part of an exchange about the bond market, the commerce secretary assured the public that the administration is confident about imminent stabilization.

To justify this position, Lutnick said, “I think the way the president is playing Iran, right? There’s not, there haven’t been American deaths; it’s really just an economic choke-out, which the administration is now executing more broadly, and I think it’ll be very effective. So I’m very optimistic that the bond market will treat us very well.”

Putting aside Lutnick’s predictions for the bond market, there was one dramatic problem with his comments: 18 American service members have been killed as part of the ongoing war with Iran. When the secretary said “there haven’t been American deaths,” he turned a blind eye to these 18 service members who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Indeed, it’s difficult to imagine the scale of the political blowback if a member of a Democratic White House Cabinet had made such a mistake during a national television interview.

Nearly 24 hours after the CNBC appearance, Trump declared by way of his social media platform that Lutnick “had Venezuela on his mind when he said nobody was killed.” Nearly an hour later, the commerce secretary embraced the same talking point.

“While speaking yesterday at the G20 innovation summit about AI, I answered a question about the military actions in Iran, I misspoke,” Lutnick said by way of a written online statement. “18 members of our military have died, and to those families my heart breaks and I am so very sorry for their loss. I was thinking about the Venezuelan military operation where no service members died.”

Maybe. I obviously can’t read the secretary’s mind, and I’m not in a position to say definitively whether or not he was thinking about the operation in Venezuela.

But look again at the context: While discussing concerns about the bond market, which have literally nothing to do with the operation in Venezuela that ended eight months ago, Lutnick said, “I think the way the president is playing Iran, right? There’s not, there haven’t been American deaths; it’s really just an economic choke-out, which the administration is now executing.”

I understand why the Republican administration is trying to clean up Lutnick’s comments, but the explanation is literally unbelievable.

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