BUSINESS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Two of President Donald Trump’s councils of top business leaders are disbanding, following controversial remarks made by Mr. Trump on Tuesday [8-15-17].
Mr. Trump tweeted Wednesday that he was ending the White House council on manufacturing and the Strategic and Policy Forum.
One of the councils had planned to disband after a conference call of its executives on Wednesday morning, a person familiar with the matter said. Mr. Trump’s tweet came after reports that council was disbanding.
The disbanding of the councils marks a setback for Mr. Trump, who campaigned as a business-friendly candidate. Executives at many of the biggest companies in the U.S. have over the past months denounced various actions and statements he has made.
‘As our members have expressed individually over the past several days, intolerance, racism and violence have absolutely no place in this country and are an affront to core American values,’ the Strategic and Policy Forum said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
Mr. Trump remains under fire from all sides after his combative Tuesday press conference at Trump Tower where he undermined his more forceful condemnation of ‘the KKK, neo-Nazis [and] white supremacist groups’ by again leveling blame on the antifascist protesters who confronted the white nationalist gathering in Virginia, aligning himself behind their stated cause and questioning the removal of Confederate statutes and noting that there were ‘many fine people’ on both sides.
Blackstone Group LP Chief Executive Stephen A. Schwarzman, who leads the Strategic and Policy Forum, organized the Wednesday morning conference call for its members, the person familiar with the matter said.”
-Emily Glazer and Sarah Krouse, “Trump’s Business Councils Disband After CEOs Defect,” The Wall Street Journal online, Aug. 16, 2017 02:23pm