More panelists quit in disgust
PRESIDENT TRUMP on Tuesday ripped into business leaders abandoning his White House jobs panel over his subdued response to the violence that broke out at a white nationalist rally in Virginia.
“They’re not taking their job seriously as it pertains to this country,” Trump said during a press conference at Trump Tower.
Moments later, AFLCIO president Richard Trumka announced he and Thea Lee, the AFLCIO’s deputy chief of staff who also sat on the panel, had to step down.
“We cannot sit on a council for a President who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism,” Trumka said in a statement.
Earlier in the day, Scott Paul, President for the Alliance for American Manufacturing, said he too would depart the advisory group.
“I’m resigning from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative because it’s the right thing for me to do,” Paul wrote on Twitter.
Paul’s announcement came less than an hour after Trump all but taunted business leaders to leave the panel.
“For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing ONE PERSON was arrested during a second wave of protests at Trump Tower on Tuesday, police said.
Roughly 500 demonstrators gathered around the building and faced off with about 24 Trump supporters. At one point, a protester walked up to someone in the pro-Trump camp and punched him in the face as the victim chanted at the anti-Trump group. Cops quickly arrested the attacker.
Police Commissioner James O’Neill said cops Council, I have many to take their place,” the President wrote on Twitter. “Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!”
Executives with Merck, Under Armour and Intel abandoned the 28-member group on Monday.
It’s unclear how often the group has convened, or what it has accomplished since being formed in January.
A White House spokesperson did not respond Tuesday to a Daily News request regarding the group’s schedule.
At a February “listening session” at the White House, Trump boasted about job growth, commended his staff, and trashed the North American Free Trade Agreement.
“We’re going to figure out how to bring many, many millions of jobs more back to the United States, OK?” he said at the time.
The manufacturing council exodus was led by Ken Frazier, head of Merck and the council’s only African-American member
Frazier, whom Trump personally attacked on Monday, said he wanted to “take a stand against intolerance and extremism.” had “no major issues, no major problems” at Monday night’s anti-Trump protests, which drew thousands to Manhattan.
“We had a pretty large detail in place,” O’Neill said. “By and large, we only had a couple of arrests. It went well.”
Thousands of protestors rallied Monday outside Trump Tower, Grand Army Plaza and Columbus Circle, and three people were arrested.