Unfortunately, Fox decided to run another on-air interview with Donald Trump on Thursday, this time featuring diversity pick Harris Faulkner, filling in for former CNBC “Money Honey”-turned sycophant Maria Bartiromo.
As you can probably imagine, Trump’s “very large brain” had a lot of incoherent rambling it wanted to do and at one point, the conversation (if that’s what you want to call it) turned to GM.
Trump has a kind of Fatal Attraction-type relationship with GM and other iconic American brands which have been forced by his insane trade policies to take steps to mitigate the deleterious effects of the tariffs, sometimes to the detriment of American workers.
GM’s controversial decision to cut thousands of jobs and shutter plants as part of a broader strategic rethink embarrassed Trump last month and he is not in a forgiving mood.
Read more
‘They Better Damn Well Open A New Plant’: General Motors As Public Enemy No. 1
Man Who Bankrupted Six Businesses Threatens To Cut Subsidies To General Motors On Twitter
One thing worth noting about GM’s November announcement is that it wasn’t necessarily related to blowback from the tariffs, but rather was couched in terms of positioning the company for decelerating U.S. economic growth and shifting consumer preferences. In other words, it was the kind of decision that shareholders trust corporate management teams to make in a capitalist economy.
Trump was having none of it, though, and he’s variously threatened the company as documented extensively in the linked posts above.
What’s perhaps most surprising about the President’s Thursday broadside against GM is that it’s actually not as irrational as you might expect. In fact, if you listen to the clip below, it almost (almost) sounds like a reasonably coherent assessment from one businessperson (Trump) to another (Barra). That is of course until he uses the power of the presidency to threaten Mary.
You’ve got to love Phil LeBeau’s question: “Did the President say anything here that would make an investor in General Motors say ‘hmmm, this is not good news for the company’?”
The answer, Phil, is “yes”, yes he did. The President of the United States is on TV acting like a scorned lover and threatening to intentionally undermine an American icon because the CEO embarrassed him.
We don’t have any kind of special insight to offer on this, other than to (again) note the obvious, which is that it isn’t up to Trump to decide what’s “acceptable” and/or “unacceptable” for GM and it is wildly inappropriate for him to say that the company is “not going to be treated well”, an overt, if largely empty, threat of government intervention.
The shares sank to day lows on Trump’s comments.
(Bloomberg)
Atlas shrugged
Remember when Repubs where rightly upset at Pres Obama picking winners and losers and talking negatively about some companies???? Where are they now???????
This is unacceptable from any leader. A leader supports, encourages, builds, etc and does not do what T does.
Banana republic is too generous.