President Trump disbands 2 White House business councils after more CEOs quit

Luther Vandross was outed as gay after his death.

As CEOs walk away from President Donald Trump’s advisory councils, Trump has opted to disband them.

“Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!” Trump announced in a tweet on Wednesday.

This move came after eight members of the manufacturing council quit this week and after the second council, the Strategic and Policy Forum, released a statement saying: “intolerance, racism and violence have absolutely no place in this country and are an affront to core American values.”

“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 group said.

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Several members of the councils were sure to make it clear that they left long before Trump dissolved the councils. For example, Johnson & Johnson put out a statement that read: “Alex Gorsky had made his decision to resign from the council earlier today before the president’s tweet. As we said in our previous statement, the president’s remarks yesterday equating those who are motivated by race-based hate with those who stand up against hatred were unacceptable.”

The CEO resignations began with Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, who on Monday declared that “America’s leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy.”

The resignations were announced after Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend. Trump first blamed the violence on “many sides” before reading a prepared statement on Monday condemning white supremacy. However, on Tuesday, during a press conference, Trump appeared to draw moral equivalency between the white supremacists in Virginia and the counter protesters, many of whom had been injured when a white supremacist drove a car into the group of counter protesters, killing one woman and injuring about 20 others.

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