President Donald Trump tweeted that he is disbanding two business advisory group after a several members of the group, mostly top CEOs, resigned one by one after Trump’s weak initial response to the Charlottesville white nationalism march and his subsequent press conference insisting that there were two sides to the conflict.
Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 16, 2017
The New York Times reported the business leaders serving on the manufacturing council, as well as the Strategy and Policy Forum — an economic advisory group — were planning to hold a call today to discuss disbanding the group. It’s unclear whether that happened, or whether Trump just shut down the group after the resignations.
The departures from the manufacturing council started with Merck CEO Ken Frazier, who resigned on Monday:
— Merck (@Merck) August 14, 2017
Subsequently, the CEOs of Under Armour, Intel, 3M, and Campbell Soup resigned, as well as both representatives from the AFL-CIO and the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.
Trump initially called out Frazier by bringing up an issue from this campaign:
Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council,he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2017
When more CEOs began to resign, he said he had many others to replace the departing members:
For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2017
Still, more people left, including Campbell Soup CEO Denise Morrison, who had this scathing statement to go with her resignation:
#CEODenise resigns from president’s manufacturing jobs initiative https://t.co/3R62gBOemD pic.twitter.com/B2FAmcCNyF
— Campbell Soup Co (@CampbellSoupCo) August 16, 2017
But by the time Trump disbanded the council with a tweet, nine members had resigned, and two others were no longer with their company. This means of the original 28 people who were in the group, nearly 40 percent were no longer a part of the council by Wednesday afternoon.
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