Trump Ends Business Councils After CEO Exodus

President Donald Trump shuttered two presidential business councils after several members resigned saying they disagreed with the president’s messaging after the Charlottesville tragedy.

President Trump announced Wednesday afternoon that he was disbanding the groups as the tally of CEO resignees rose to seven.

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

Three CEO’s had resigned from the Manufacturing Council in the two days after a woman was killed by a white nationalist in Charlottesville, Virginia.

On Monday, the CEO’s of Merck, Under Armour and Intel had left the American Manufacturing Council.

“I resigned from the council to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues,” Intel Chief Executive Brian Krzanich said in a blog post.

On Tuesday, an infrastructure announcement turned into a heated impromptu press conference that quickly devolved into an attack by the press on the president for how he spoke about Charlottesville. Four additional CEO’s announced their resignations after the press conference citing Trump’s messaging as the reason.

The media, American politicians, and foreign leaders are taking issue with Trump’s comments at the heated news conference on Tuesday where he said that “there is blame on both sides” of the violence in Charlottesville, and that there were “very fine people” on both sides.