President Donald Trump’s business advisory council, which was hemorrhaging members following Trump’s series of responses to a white nationalist rally over the weekend, disbanded itself on Wednesday.
Three prominent business leaders resigned from the council on Monday and Tuesday, but the rest pledged they would continue to advise the president. But after Trump gave a press conference on Tuesday in which he defended the “very fine people” among the white nationalist protestors who had been “treated very unfairly,” the council decided that the time had come to separate themselves from the White House.
“Intolerance, racism, and violence have absolutely no place in this country and are an affront to core American values,” the council said in a statement. “We believe the debate over forum participation has become a distraction from our well-intentioned and sincere desire to aid vital policy discussions on how to improve the lives of everyday Americans. As such, the president and we are disbanding the forum.”
The move comes less than a day after Trump blasted the CEOs who pulled out of the forum as “grandstanders” and promised that “For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place.”
Minutes after it became clear the council was disbanding, Trump took to Twitter to claim that it was his idea:
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01.19.2025