Trump gets high praise from ex-GE exec Welch
Retired General Electric CEO Jack Welch says his two-hour White House meeting with President Trump and other business executives “far exceeded my expectations” and covered issues ranging from immigration to financial regulations to women in the workplace.
“I’m telling you it was one of the best meetings I’ve ever been to in my life in terms of real stuff, real issues being discussed,” Welch told the Herald by phone last night. “No phony baloney. Nothing like that.”
Welch said he has met with nearly every president since 1981, and found Trump surprisingly well-versed on topics, engaged and genuinely focused on the task of creating jobs.
“Real guy and really concerned about every worker in the country,” said Welch. “Solid, down-to-earth, on top of the issues. The guys at the GE plant in Lynn would love him.”
Welch publicly supported Trump for president, but pulled it in October after the “Access Hollywood” tape emerged of Trump making lewd comments about women.
Trump met with Welch and a panel of CEOs from corporations including Tesla, JPMorgan Chase, General Motors and Wal-Mart and even assigned them tasks to perform before they meet again. Welch said the economic advisory panel will reconvene monthly at first, then quarterly.
Trump broached a variety of subjects with the CEOs — a border tax, the travel ban, limitations on lending — but didn’t submit firm proposals, said Welch.
“It was as intense as a GE staff meeting or a Herald staff meeting — guys with their shirtsleeves rolled up going at it,” said Welch. “There wasn’t one iota of negativity. The people in the room want to go to work for him and bring him the best suggestions possible, and he wants to get them done fast.”
Trump’s huddle with corporate brass, however, drew criticism from Wall Street watchdogs, including Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who chided him for taking his first swings at easing financial regulations later in the day.
“Donald Trump talked a big game about Wall Street during his campaign, but as president, we’re finding out whose side he’s really on,” Warren said in a statement.
She blasted Trump for “literally standing alongside big bank and hedge fund CEOs,” and then signing two executive orders she claimed will benefit only Wall Street.
The first Trump directive orders the Treasury secretary to review elements of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that was signed — or rushed, critics argue — into law in 2010 amid the Great Recession.
“Today we’re signing core principles for regulating the United States financial system. It doesn’t get much bigger than that, right?” Trump asked as he scratched his signature on two executives orders from the Oval Office.
The second orders the Labor Department to push back an April start date for an Obama-era rule requiring that retirement advisers put the best interests of their clients first.
Supporters of the Obama provision contend it will keep advisers honest and stop them from steering their clients toward funds with the highest commissions.
Critics argue it will limit retirees’ investment choices and could force them into unwanted low-risk funds.
The orders continue Trump’s steady dismantling of President Obama’s legacy. Trump has already moved to strike down Obamacare, scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership and restart the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Trump’s pause on immigration from seven Muslimmajority nations also drew Obama out of retirement to publicly encourage nationwide protests against the president’s actions.