Facing an exodus of private-sector leaders who no longer wanted to be associated with him, Donald Trump this week disbanded his American Manufacturing Council and Strategy and Policy Forum, both of which featured some of the nation’s most prominent CEOs. It was the latest embarrassment for a president who’s increasingly isolated, even from ostensible allies from corporate America.
Yesterday, the White House pulled the plug on yet another panel.
President Donald Trump has scrapped plans for an infrastructure advisory council after two similar panels dissolved this week amid backlash to Trump from corporate America.
“The President’s Advisory Council on Infrastructure, which was still being formed, will not move forward,” a White House official told CNBC.
Unlike the other panels that were disbanded, the infrastructure advisory council didn’t really exist in any meaningful sense. While a variety of high-profile private-sector leaders were already serving on the American Manufacturing Council and Strategy and Policy Forum, the infrastructure council had no roster of CEOs — it was instead run by a couple of Manhattan real estate developers, Richard LeFrak and Steven Roth, whom Trump tapped in January.
The advisory panel has never met and had no firm plans in place to do any real work.
But its demise is nevertheless yet another embarrassment for the White House. A New York Times reporter added late yesterday that the infrastructure panel was disbanded because Trump was worried about its members quitting. America’s Businessman in Chief has discovered he’s a little too toxic for other business leaders.
Wait, it gets worse.
The Washington Post published a report this morning on another White House panel facing related problems.
The remaining members of a presidential arts and humanities panel are resigning on Friday in yet another sign of growing national protest of President Trump’s recent comments on the violence in Charlottesville. Members of the President’s Committee are drawn from Broadway, Hollywood, and the broader arts and entertainment community and plan to release a letter later Friday explaining their decision, according to two people familiar with the decision who asked for anonymity to speak frankly about the plans. Anybody else? The American Technology Council, a Trump project featuring leaders from the tech industry, still exists, and it remains to be seen if any of this council’s members intend to disassociate themselves from the White House. Of course, there’s also the president’s Evangelical Council, featuring a variety of far-right social conservatives, none of whom appears likely to distance themselves from Trump in the wake of Charlottesville. Update: One more: “Members of a Department of Commerce committee called the Digital Economy Board of Advisors have turned in their resignations after President Trump’s defense of white supremacists in Charlottesville.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past." Recommended
