Trump dissolves collapsing councils
Tweets his thanks to fleeing business leaders as fallout from Charlottesville comments grows
NEW YORK— With corporate chieftains fleeing, U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly abolished two of his White House business councils on Wednesday — the latest fallout 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 fallout from Trump’s defiant remarks a day earlier. Presidential advisers hunkered down, offering no public defence 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.
Three Democrats on Wednesday announced plans to introduce a House resolution censuring Trump for his remarks, which included the suggestion made Tuesday that some “very fine people” were among those who participated in the racist Unite the Right march and that “both sides” were to blame for violence that killed a Charlottesville woman and injured many others.
“We’re at a very significant juncture here,” said Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, one of the measure’s co-sponsors. “We can either have peace, or we can have this president fuel and fan the fires of violence, and that is scary. He needs to be held accountable.”
The move to censure the president — which has been accompanied by parallel efforts to increase scrutiny of white-supremacist groups and to remove symbols of the Confederacy from federal property, including the U.S. Capitol — reflects a growing frustration among Democratic lawmakers and activists with the seemingly never-ending cycle of Trump controversies.
There is no indication, however, that Republican leaders will be inclined to take action on a censure resolution, a step that has not been invoked against a president by the House since 1848.
Trump himself stayed out of sight, tweeting occasionally about a primary in Alabama, the stock market and, once, his campaign slogan. Midday, he travelled 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 on Tuesday went, saying he believed he had effectively stood up to the media, according to three peo- ple familiar with the conversations but 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 preempt 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 groups is sometimes questionable, simply meeting with Trump with TV cameras going is valuable face-time for the executives — and for the president.
On a trip through South America, Vice-President Mike Pence skirted questions about whether he agreed with Trump’s assessment that some “fine people” participated in the Charlottesville rally. However, he said he stands by the president. With files from the Washington Post