The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Trump faces mounting backlash
President disbands two business advisory councils after criticism of his Virginia remarks from CEOs.
With corporate chief
NEW YORK — tains fleeing, President Donald Trump abruptly abolished two of his White House business councils Wednesday the latest fall
— out from his combative comments on racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump announced the action via tweet, although only after one of the panels had already
agreed to disband earlier in the day. A growing number of business leaders on the councils had openly criticized his remarks laying blame for the violence at a white supremacists rally on “both sides.”
“Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!” Trump tweeted from New York.
The decision came as the White House tried to manage the repercussions from Trump’s defiant remarks a day earlier. Presidential advisers hunkered down, offering no public defense while privately expressing frustration with his comments.
Some Republicans and scores of Democrats denounced Trump’s statements as putting white supremacists on equal moral
footing with counter-protesters in Charlottesville and called for an apology. Most of those Republicans, including congressional leaders, did not specifically criticize the president.
Trump himself stayed out of sight, tweeting occasionally about a primary in Alabama, the stock market and, once, his campaign slogan. Midday, he traveled from New York to his golf club in New Jersey for the night.
The president told associates he was pleased with how his press conference went, saying he believed he had effectively stood up to the media, according to three people familiar with the conversations who demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about them.
Business leaders felt differently.
Denise Morrison, chief executive of Campbell Soup, declared she was leaving Trump’s manufacturing council, saying, “The president should have been — and still needs to be — unambiguous” in denouncing white supremacists.
CEOs had begun tendering their resignations from White House panels after Trump’s initial comments following the Saturday violence. The first to step down, Kenneth Frazier of Merck, drew a Twitter tongue-lashing from the president. Later, Trump called those who were leaving “grandstanders” and insisted many others were eager to take their places.
On Wednesday, he appeared to be pre-empting the CEOs own decision to disband.
Members of the Strategy and Policy group, led by Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, concluded after a 45-minute conference call in the morning that they would end the council and announce their decision in a statement, according to two people familiar with the discussions. They insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations.
In a subsequent call with Trump, the president agreed it was the right course of action. He tweeted before they could announce the decision they’d reached — making it appear it was his choice.
Publicly criticizing the president and resigning from his councils is a significant step for big-name corporate leaders. Though the policy influence of such advisory groups is sometimes questionable, simply meeting with Trump with TV cameras going is valuable facetime for the executives — and for the president.
Though not as outspoken as the business leaders, some fellow Republican leaders are going after Trump forcefully, too.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Wednesday the president “took a step backward by again suggesting there is moral equivalency” between the marching white supremacists and the people who had been demonstrating against them.
Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney tweeted a similar slap shortly after the president’s explosive press conference on Tuesday: “No, not the same. One side is racist, bigoted, Nazi. The other opposes racism and bigotry. Morally different universes.”
Other leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan, made forceful anti-racism statements — but steered clear of mentioning Trump and his comments.
Under pressure, Trump made his condemnation of the Charlottesville violence more specific on Monday, naming white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis. But he returned to his defiant self on Tuesday, effectively erasing the statement he’d read a day earlier. In an impromptu press conference in the lobby of his skyscraper, he said there were “some very bad people” among those who gathered to protest Saturday. But he added: “You also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”
Several White House aides told colleagues they were dismayed with Trump’s return to the Charlottesville episode on Tuesday. But no one moved to leave the administration. Chief strategist Steve Bannon told associates he thought Trump’s performance would electrify his conservative base, according to a person who spoke to Bannon and insisted on anonymity. Bannon’s job has been in question, with Trump refusing Tuesday to say he had confidence in him.