'You're Fired!' Trump Dissolves 2 Advisory Councils as Isolation Deepens

U.S. President Donald Trump has axed his business advisory council after corporate CEOs resigned in protest of his remarks assigning equal blame for white supremacist riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, to anti-racist counter-protesters.

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The move comes following a raucous press conference where Trump described the white nationalist demonstrators as “very nice people.” The statement drew sharp criticism from allies including Republican officials, conservative media personalities and U.K. Prime Minister Teresa May, enveloping his seven-month-old presidency in controversy and leaving him increasingly isolated.

Trump announced the dissolution of the American Manufacturing Council and Strategic and Policy Forum after a series of chief executives, including Campbell Soup Co's Denise Morrison and 3M Co's Inge Thulin, abandoned the panels. The two councils — which have been plagued by controversy and boycott calls directed at council members' firms — were moving to disband when Trump made his announcement on Twitter.

The Strategic and Policy Forum was headed by Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman, a close ally of Trump in the business world. Schwarzman organized a call on Wednesday for member executives to voice concerns after Trump's comments, and an overwhelming majority backed disbanding the council, two sources said. Schwarzman then called Trump to tell him about the decision to disband, and the president subsequently announced he was the one pulling the plug on the panels.

Trump said on Twitter, "Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both."

On Wednesday, AFL-CIO president, Richard Trumka, and deputy chief of staff Thea Lee quit the council, blasting the former real estate mogul as a figure “who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism” whose comments “repudiate his forced remarks” delivered earlier denouncing the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis.

“It's clear that President Trump's Manufacturing Council was never an effective means for delivering real policy that lifts working families and his remarks today were the last straw,” the labor chief said in a statement on behalf of himself and Lee.

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“We joined this council with the intent to be a voice for working people and real hope that it would result in positive economic policy, but it has become yet another broken promise on the president's record. From hollow councils to bad policy and embracing bigotry, the actions of this administration have are consistently failed working people.”

Prominent business leaders and investors, a pillar of support for the president, likewise expressed their concern over the state of affairs in Washington and Trump's ability to advance their interests.

JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon, a member of one of the panels, said he strongly disagreed with Trump's reaction to the events in Charlottesville, adding in a statement that "racism, intolerance and violence are always wrong" and "fanning divisiveness is not the answer."

"This calls into question the ability of the Trump administration to get anything done in terms of tax and infrastructure reforms,” said John Doyle, director of markets at Tempus Consulting. “It's another piece of evidence of the administration's mounting problems."

"Mike Pence is coming back from an overseas trip early. The White House just seems to be in chaos and Trump is losing support right and left from Republicans and Democrats alike and his one core area, the business community, are all abandoning him, too, which certainly calls into question the ability to get anything accomplished whatsoever in this term unless he takes actions to right the ship,” said Mary Ann Hurley, vice president in fixed income trading at D.A. Davidson in Seattle, Washington.

In Saturday's melee, white supremacists and so-called “alt-right” neo-fascists from across the country attacked anti-racist demonstrators and community members. Charlottesville resident Heather Heyer, 32, was killed when a car belonging to neo-Nazi 20-year-old James Alex Fields from Ohio plowed into the anti-racists while driving full-speed.

Among the very few public figures to have publicly voiced support for Trump over his response were Vice President Mike Pence — who had expressed condolences for Heyer days ahead of Trump — as well as former KKK leader David Duke and Richard Spencer, the head of a white supremacist group.