Trump disbands advisory councils after protest resignations

WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (KUNA) -- US President Donald Trump has abolished executive business and jobs councils formed to advise and work with him on his economic agenda after a series of resignations over the president's remarks over the recently deadly protests in Virginia.
Wednesday morning, Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of the Blackstone Group and one of Trump's closest advisers in the business community, organized a conference call for members of the President's Strategic and Policy Forum.
After a discussion among a dozen prominent chief executive officers (CEOs), a decision was made to abandon the group, people with knowledge of the call told US news media.
Last December, President-elect Trump established the Forum and announced an initial round of 16 members. The Forum, composed of some of America's most highly respected and successful business leaders, was supposed to meet with the President frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the President implemented his economic agenda.
On Wednesday, Trump said on Twitter that "rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!" The Forum included Laurence Fink of BlackRock, Ginni Rometty of IBM, Rich Lesser of the Boston Consulting Group and Toby Cosgrove of the Cleveland Clinic, among others.
Earlier in the day, the CEO of Campbell Soup announced she was resigning from a separate White House jobs panel over comments about racism made by Trump.
Campbell CEO Denise Morrison said in a company press release: "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." Morrison was referring to the violence that left one woman dead and at least 19 injured during confrontations over the weekend between white nationalist demonstrators in Virginia and counter-protesters opposed to their agenda.
Morrison was the seventh person to resign from the two major advisory panels this week following Trump's comments.
Shortly after taking office in January, Trump invited some two dozen CEOs to form the American Manufacturing Council when he launched the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative as part of his effort to create American jobs, his top domestic priority.
Also on Wednesday, former presidents George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, said in a joint statement that "America must always reject racial bigotry, anti-Semitism and hatred in all forms." Both Bushes are, like Trump, members of the Republican Party. (end) rm.ibi