Pres. Trump disbands White House business councils after more CEOs leave
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he’s ending a pair of White House advisory councils that were staffed by corporate chief executives.
CEOs have been resigning since Saturday, when Trump blamed both sides for the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, between white supremacists and counterprotesters. The resignation accelerated after Trump on Tuesday again blamed “both sides.”
Trump says on Twitter that “rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!”
Campbell CEO Denise Morrison said in a company release Wednesday, “Racism and murder are unequivocally reprehensible and are not morally equivalent to anything else that happened in Charlottesville. I believe the President should have been – and still needs to be – unambiguous on that point.”
Trump suggested in remarks Tuesday that the white supremacists and counter-protesters both blameworthy for violence that erupted this weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Morrison said the president’s comments triggered her resignation from the manufacturing jobs panel.
Morrison is the seventh person to resign from two major advisory panels this week following Trump’s comments.