He didn’t fire them, they quit

Aug 16th, 2017 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog
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CNBC tells the story of how the CEOs decided to say bye-bye to Trump.

After President Donald Trump’s incendiary comments last weekend about the violence in Charlottesville, the three female CEOs on his Strategic and Policy Forum helped get the ball rolling about appropriate responses.

The question, as they saw it, was whether it was better to remain on the Trump forum, with the ability to influence the White House? Or did it make more sense to back away to show disdain for the president’s seeming support of white nationalists?

It would be several days before the full forum ultimately made a decision. But by Monday the CEOs of Pepsi, IBM and GM – Indra Nooyi, Ginni Rometty and Mary Barra, respectively – had helped initiate a process that ultimately dissolved the high-profile panel of top chief executives and launched an embarrassing, public rebuke of Trump…

It is embarrassing, isn’t it. So embarrassing. Wouldn’t it be a good idea for him to resign now, to get over his embarrassment in private?

Starting late Sunday evening and early Monday, Pepsi CEO Nooyi made calls to see what others thought, said sources familiar with the matter. As the head of a consumer products company, she was particularly aware of the building public outcry.

Yeah we can boycott Pepsi. It’s not so easy to boycott, say, oil corporations.

(Well, actually, it’s not all that easy for me to boycott Pepsi, because I don’t drink it in the first place. But we as a people can boycott Pepsi.)

IBM CEO Rometty and GM CEO Barra joined her in actively surveying other members of the group to gauge their reaction to the president’s remarks. It was mostly “temperature taking,” according to a source.

It’s nice that it’s all women. Makes a good revenge. Take that, Pussygrabber.

“The thinking was it was important to do it as a group, as a panel, not as individuals because it would have more significant impact. It makes a central point that it’s not going to go forward. It’s done,” said a source who was a member of the panel.

So Trump was just lying when he said he decided to drop the panels.

“It’s a shame; it did some positive things. One of the most important [things] was to stop the currency war with China,” said the source who was a member of the panel. But on Wednesday, there was no debate about whether the panel should continue.

“There was such a firestorm. You don’t know what’s coming next or what he’s going to say or do next,” said the member. “It’s striking when the president loses the confidence of America’s CEOs.”

But but but he’s such a great businessman! He says so himself!

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