Trump ends business councils after slew of CEOs drop out

President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that he was ending his two business councils after numerous CEOs dropped out in recent weeks.

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

Trump’s decision came just days after he ripped into other business leaders who had resigned.

“They’re not taking their job seriously as it pertains to this country,” the president said at an impromptu news conference at Trump Tower in New York City.

Seven people resigned from Trump’s panels this week alone in the wake of his comments about racial violence in Charlottesville, Va.

Trump suggested in remarks Tuesday that white supremacists and counter-protesters both blameworthy for violence during a protest that saw people march with Nazi flags and shout anti-Semitic rhetoric. One counter-protester was killed.

Campbell Soup CEO Denise Morrison, the latest to resign, 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.”

Among those who left were the chief executives for Merck, Under Armour and Intel and the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

Alliance president Scott Paul, in a tweet, said simply, “I’m resigning from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative because it’s the right thing for me to do.”

Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon joined the chorus, saying in a note Monday to employees, “(We) too felt that he missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together by unequivocally rejecting the appalling actions of white supremacists.”

Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, one of only four African-Americans leading a Fortune 500 company, was the first to tender his resignation Monday.

Trump criticized Frazier almost immediately Monday over drug prices, and again Tuesday for having factories overseas. Merck has 25,000 U.S. employees in all 50 states and has invested $50 billion in research and development since 2010, primarily in the United States.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk resigned from the manufacturing council in June, and two other advisory groups to the president, after the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. Walt Disney Co. Chairman and CEO Bob Iger resigned for the same reason from the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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