Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / After ICE Violence, CEOs Face The Risks Of Speaking Out Against Trump
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: In the wake of violent confrontations between federal agents and
- 0:05Speaker 1: protesters over President Donald Trump's immigration policy, corporate leaders are
- 0:09Speaker 1: now starting to do something they've rarely done in the
- 0:11Speaker 1: first year of Trump two point zero disagree with the president.
- 0:14Speaker 2: I think they should change your post immigration. I've said it.
- 0:17Speaker 1: JP Morgan CEO Jamie Diamond publicly criticized Trump's immigration policy,
- 0:21Speaker 1: making an apparent reference to videos of confrontations between ice
- 0:24Speaker 1: agents hu targets.
- 0:26Speaker 2: Of course, I don't like what I'm seeing, you know,
- 0:28Speaker 2: with you five grown men beaten up little women. I'm
- 0:31Speaker 2: a fanatic about detail. Show me who's been rounded up?
- 0:34Speaker 2: Are they here legally? Are they criminals? Did they do
- 0:37Speaker 2: some law? Did they break American law? But I don't
- 0:40Speaker 2: like what I'm seeing.
- 0:41Speaker 1: Well, Trump had warned he would suit JP Morgan days
- 0:43Speaker 1: before Diamond's commented Davas, the implication was clear. Companies faced
- 0:47Speaker 1: retribution for perceived slights against the president.
- 0:50Speaker 3: President Trump has filed a lawsuit against JP Morgan, Chase
- 0:54Speaker 3: and Jamie Diamond personally over allegations of de banking of
- 0:59Speaker 3: Trump related bank accounts during the period of time that
- 1:03Speaker 3: the president was out of office. This is a suit
- 1:05Speaker 3: for as much as five billion dollars filed by the
- 1:08Speaker 3: President of the United States and a number of Trump entities,
- 1:12Speaker 3: And so this is a flashpoint of tension now between
- 1:15Speaker 3: the President of the United States and one of the
- 1:17Speaker 3: most powerful bankers on Wall streets.
- 1:29Speaker 1: Immigrant workers made up nineteen point two percent of the
- 1:32Speaker 1: US were enforced in twenty twenty four. That means that
- 1:34Speaker 1: about nineteen out of every one hundred workers in the
- 1:37Speaker 1: US labor force are foreign born. These workers have made
- 1:40Speaker 1: important contributions to American companies, which is why citte l
- 1:43Speaker 1: COEO Ken Griffin doesn't appear to support Trump's immigration policies either.
- 1:47Speaker 4: The bigger problem for the United States is we're potentially
- 1:51Speaker 4: losing access to the best and brightest minds from around
- 1:54Speaker 4: the world who have immigrated to America, who have created
- 1:58Speaker 4: just a tremendous number of jobs in the United States
- 2:02Speaker 4: on the back of their creativity and ambition.
- 2:04Speaker 1: Jamie Diamond and Ken Griffin among the only CEOs of
- 2:07Speaker 1: major corporations who have publicly expressed doubts about Trump's immigration policy.
- 2:11Speaker 5: They don't want to speak out alone because they are afraid.
- 2:14Speaker 5: For good reason. It's not paranoia. They know that they
- 2:18Speaker 5: will be shaken down and coerced, intimidated and retaliatory gestures
- 2:22Speaker 5: are quite severe.
- 2:23Speaker 1: But after nurse Alex Pretty was killed by federal agents
- 2:26Speaker 1: in Minneapolis, the second death of an American decitizen there
- 2:29Speaker 1: in recent weeks, more than sixty business leaders from major
- 2:32Speaker 1: state based companies, including Target, the Healthcareup and three M
- 2:36Speaker 1: signed a letter on jan twenty five urging immediate de
- 2:39Speaker 1: escalation of tensions. Notably, the letter avoided any direct criticism
- 2:43Speaker 1: of President Trump and this.
- 2:44Speaker 5: Warning shot they don't have to have the strongest possible statement.
- 2:47Speaker 5: What they've said already already shows the White House. We're
- 2:50Speaker 5: talking to each other. You can't take us down individually
- 2:53Speaker 5: when we're working as a group. That's why we see
- 2:55Speaker 5: Trump retreat.
- 2:57Speaker 6: You tweeted yesterday the word just fear.
- 3:00Speaker 7: It because I talked to all the CEOs that I
- 3:02Speaker 7: mentioned here. But something like that they might let slip
- 3:08Speaker 7: a criticism, that they might let slip it anywhere, could
- 3:11Speaker 7: make it so that their shareholders would feel like, why
- 3:14Speaker 7: did you send your stock down? It's fear of the
- 3:16Speaker 7: president and fear of the shareholders saying, how could you
- 3:19Speaker 7: not realize that the president can.
- 3:21Speaker 1: Do what every seer asymmetric risk except for sure. A
- 3:26Speaker 1: comparison between Trump's first and second terms reveals a stark
- 3:30Speaker 1: shift in the political climate. During Trump's first term, despite
- 3:33Speaker 1: his criticism of corporate support for the Black Lives Matter
- 3:36Speaker 1: we written, many companies, including Meta, Walmart, Amazon, Nike, Target,
- 3:41Speaker 1: publicly aligned themselves with racial justice efforts in twenty twenty.
- 3:44Speaker 1: In contrast, American CEOs have largely avoided publicly criticizing his
- 3:48Speaker 1: policies this time, possibly out of feed on retribution.
- 3:51Speaker 8: Target is a good example of how local companies are
- 3:54Speaker 8: responding very differently than they did in the past. Years ago,
- 3:57Speaker 8: during Black Lives Matter, when George Bloyd was killed, Target
- 4:00Speaker 8: was quick to put out a statement and make specific commitments,
- 4:04Speaker 8: things like donating to local nonprofits and stepping up its
- 4:07Speaker 8: diversity commitments. This time around, Target was much slower to
- 4:11Speaker 8: put out a statement. It signed a letter with a
- 4:13Speaker 8: group of corporations rather than standing alone. It also sent
- 4:17Speaker 8: a video message to employees, but the language it used
- 4:19Speaker 8: was much vaguer than in the past.
- 4:21Speaker 9: When we ended up having a conversation on Thursday about
- 4:24Speaker 9: the reluctance of corporate America to speak and interestingly, Jim
- 4:28Speaker 9: You shared some thoughts, and I did as well, because
- 4:30Speaker 9: it's not even publicly, it's even privately. There is a
- 4:33Speaker 9: fear amongst executives to criticize this administration in any real way.
- 4:39Speaker 6: If in fact, you speak out against the administration and
- 4:42Speaker 6: their efforts, it is possible that there will be retribution.
- 4:47Speaker 6: And so you have a lot of zero work part
- 4:49Speaker 6: of it who do not want to stay anything.
- 4:53Speaker 7: That is all the more reason to speak out.
- 4:56Speaker 8: There are really two things that can move the needle
- 4:58Speaker 8: with more corporate leaders speaking out, and one of them, unfortunately,
- 5:01Speaker 8: it could be an escalation in Minneapolis or elsewhere where
- 5:04Speaker 8: there's more tragedy unfolding and a feeling that corporate leaders
- 5:09Speaker 8: need to speak out and how their voice is heard.
- 5:11Speaker 8: The second thing is that they're watching public opinion. They
- 5:14Speaker 8: want to be in line with what their customers want,
- 5:16Speaker 8: and if more people are shifting towards feeling uncomfortable with
- 5:20Speaker 8: ISIS tactics or immigration policy or the administration, it may
- 5:24Speaker 8: come to a point where corporate leaders feel like they
- 5:26Speaker 8: need to say and do something.
- 5:28Speaker 10: Consumers have a lot of power here. They may not
- 5:31Speaker 10: realize it, but they actually have a lot of economic
- 5:34Speaker 10: power here. And so if there was a multi pronged,
- 5:38Speaker 10: multi coordinated effort to pull back on consumption, even just
- 5:41Speaker 10: a little bit in mass. These companies would react to
- 5:45Speaker 10: that because that's a specific sort of impact on their
- 5:48Speaker 10: bottom line. But right now I think they're looking and
- 5:51Speaker 10: serving the landscape and they're saying, hey, you know, we
- 5:54Speaker 10: just need to sort of stay out of these crosshairs
- 5:56Speaker 10: for now. We have to be careful and wait this
- 5:58Speaker 10: storm out and not make critical errors where we might
- 6:02Speaker 10: put ourselves in harms way in the short run.