Panels dump Trump, who then ‘disbands’ ’em
YOU’RE ALL FIRED.
Rather than endure the embarrassment of corporate leaders jumping ship one by one, President Trump pulled the plug Wednesday on a pair of executive councils.
The disbanding of the advisory panels is the latest fallout from Trump’s controversial comments on racially charged violence that enveloped Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend.
“Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
The social media announcement came after one of the councils had already agreed to disband earlier in the day.
Members of the President’s manufacturing group were expected to speak Wednesday afternoon.
Several members of the group announced their departures after Trump laid the blame for violence at a racist white nationalist rally on “both sides.”
Before Trump’s tweet, Denise Morrison, chief executive of Campbell Soup, became the latest executive to issue a statement explaining her decision to leave Trump’s Manufacturing Council, saying, “The President should have been — and still needs to be — unambiguous” in denouncing white supremacists.
As Trump disbanded the council, two more members — Johnson & Johnson Chairman and CEO Alex Gorsky and United Technologies Chairman & CEO Greg Hayes — both issued statements that they were ready to resign. Trump’s tweet appeared timed to make it look like the disbanding was his idea. Members of his Strategy and Policy Forum, led by Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, decided in their morning call that they were ready to end the panel and were set to make an announcement, sources told The Associated Press. “There was such a firestorm,” one member told CNBC. “You don’t know what’s coming next, what he’s going to say or do next.” Trump has faced intense criticism for comments he made during an impromptu press conference held at his Fifth Ave. skyscraper on Tuesday. While he condemned several of the hate groups involved in the weekend rally a day earlier, he was more tepid on Tuesday, saying there “were very fine people, on both sides.”
Organizers behind the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville clearly stated that their intentions are to promote white supremacy. Many in the crowd shouted racist and anti-Semitic slogans, hoisted Confederate and Nazi flags, carried semiautomatic weapons and dressed in combat gear.
Trump remained defiant about his soft stance on Wednesday, according to several reports.
The President viewed his combative news conference as a victory and is moving forward “without regret,” one source told CNN.
According to The Associated Press, Trump told associates he believed he had effectively stood up to the media.
But Trump’s National Economic Council director, Gary Cohn, who was standing next to Trump as he made his comments, was reportedly dismayed by his remarks.
He told people was offended as a Jew and an American, The New York Times reported — but had not threatened to quit.
Trump adviser Stephen Bannon was reportedly thrilled by Trump’s remarks. He considered it a “defining moment” where Trump sided with “his people.”
“Steve was proud of how (Trump) stood up to the braying mob of reporters,” the website Axios reported.
Trump, who did not make any public appearances on Wednesday, left Trump Tower midday to return to his New Jersey golf resort.