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More CEOs are turning the back on President Trump following his delayed condemnation of white supremacists after the violent rally in Charlottesville. Buzz60

US President Donald J. Trump, left, listens to CEO of Merck Kenneth Frazier speak during the announcement of a pharmaceutical glass packaging initiative, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 20 July 2017. As part of 'Made in America' week, Trump announced a partnership of Merck, Pfizer, and Corning to produce glass medical containers in the United States.(Photo: MICHAEL REYNOLDS, EPA)

President Trumpis losing important friends in the corner offices of Corporate America and that could be hazardous to the health of his economic ambitions.

The Trump agenda, already reeling from political infighting in Washington, D.C., scandal and turmoil in his administrationand missteps by the tweet-driven president himself,has a new roadblock to confront: CEOs that are distancing themselves from himafter the deadly violence this weekend in Virginia during a white supremacist protest.

The president has come under fire for not quickly and forcibly denouncing the racist groups involved in the chaos in Charlottesville, Va.

"The business community peeling back support doesn't make (Trump's challenge) any easier," says Brian Nick, chief investment strategist at TIAA Investments.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich speaks during a meeting with President Trump at the White House on Feb. 8, 2017, where Intel announced an investment of $7 billion to build a factory in Chandler, Ariz. to create advanced semi-conductor chips(Photo: Chris Kleponis, Pool/European Pressphoto Agency)

Trump's diminished stature in the eyes of some CEOs -- including Kenneth Frazier at drugmaker Merck, Brian Krzanich at tech giantIntel and Kevin Plank ofathletic-apparelmaker Under Armour, all who have resignedfrom the president's manufacturing advisory council --is the latest challenge to the president's ability to push his agenda of tax cuts and infrastructure through Congress.

The obstacle around the corner

The public rebuke of Trump from even a small handful oftop U.S. executivescould have negative repercussions for the economy andfinancial markets if it causes business and investor confidence to take a hit. And if it leads more Republicans to break ranks with the president.

The most immediate worry, however, is how Trump's latest setback will impact his ability this fall to get a new budget passed and negotiate with Congress to raise the nation's debt ceiling the amount of money the country can borrow to help pay its bills.

"The Trump agenda will hit an enormous obstacle in September because of budget issues, and he doesn't seem to have the political capital to prevail," says Greg Valliere, chief global strategist at Horizon Investments. "Charlottesville was the last straw for some Republicans, who are sick of defending Trump. So they will essentially ignore the White House."

Under Armour's CEO Kevin Plank.-- Photo by Maxine Park, USA TODAY staff [Via MerlinFTP Drop](Photo: USAT)

The biggest risk is a fresh bout of uncertainty that will result in businesses turning more cautious, which could slow down the economy and the hiring of workers.

"When businesses are dealing with a chaotic government and a series of unknowns, the natural instinct of decision makers like CEOs is to defer decisions and wait for clarity," says David Kotok, chief investment officer at Cumberland Advisors, a money-management firm based in Sarasota, Fla.

Other Wall Street pros say the latest Trump controversy is "political noise" andnot likely to derail financial markets. "What is the feedback loop into the real economy? Unless it does work its way into the economy (in a negative way) it is unlikely to have a long-lasting impact on the market,"says Katie Nixon, chief investment officer at Northern Trust Wealth Management.

The risk of staying and the risk of going

Sydney Finkelstein, author of Why Smart Executives Fail and director of the Center for Leadership at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, says it is too early to say whether this is the "tipping point" for lawmakers when deciding whether to stick with Trump or risk political backlash from constituents.

Finkelstein says business leaders must also weigh the risks of either denouncing Trump or steering clear of controversy by avoiding the issue.

Many CEOs, he says, are reluctant to refute or take on the president publicly for fear of getting in Trump's line of fire. But Finkelstein says there is a business risk of doing nothing, as employees and people that buy a company's products are watching.

"By not speaking up," says Finkelstein, "you are explicitly in agreement with how the administration has handled this. But you can't just sit on the sidelines if you are a leader, if you have hundreds of thousands of employees and millions of customers. That is an abdication of your responsibility as a leader."

CEOs that do speak out against injustice do so for business reasons.

"They're finding the cost of alignment with Trump is too high," says Bill Klepper, professor of management at Columbia Business School. "They have a social contract with stakeholders. Here's what we stand for. These are our core values. Here's how we're going to contribute and win as a business in society. And we're going to do it through ethical principles."

The CEO of retail giant Walmart, Doug McMillon, weighed in Tuesday on what critics say wasTrump's delayed denunciation of white supremacists and other hate groups.

The president "missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together by unequivocally rejecting the appalling actions of white supremacists," McMillonwrote in a memo to employees. "I will," he added, "continue to strongly advocate on behalf of our associates and customers, and urge our elected officials to do their part to promote a more just, tolerant and diverse society."

Wall Street is overlooking Trump's missteps for now

For now, Trump's missteps have been overlooked by Wall Street. Not until the economy slows down, or corporate earnings are adversely impacted, or companies stop hiring, will investors view the latest political crisis for Trump as a big negative.

And today's Tuesday's reports on July retail sales and August homebuilder confidence continue the narrative of a stock market and economy being fueled by better performance.

"People have been willing to look past the slow start to Trump's policy agenda because the economy seems to be doing OK on its own," says TIAA's Nick.

Trump's pro-business mentality andpush to reduce red tape and regulations on businesses havealready resulted in improved confidence levels for consumers, small businesses and CEOs. And even though expectations are low for Trump's tax cuts and other agenda items getting enactedsoon, the market and economy will likely get a boost if Trump and Congress can get something done by early next year, says Nixon of Northern Trust.

Adds Brad McMillan, chief investment officer at Commonwealth Financial Network: "I don't see the resignations of the CEOs from the advisory council as being any sort of a game changer. Business has always had an arms-length relationship with politics."

Related:

Who's on and off Trump's manufacturing council? Here's the list.

Was Merck CEO Ken Frazier's decision to leave Trump council the right move?

Under Armour, Intel CEOs quit Trump's job council over Charlottesville rally response

Trump blasts CEOs as 'grandstanders' for departing his manufacturing council

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Who may lose amid the CEO backlash and Trump? Americans. - USA TODAY

"Racism is evil -- and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans," Trump said. "Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America."

Which is good and right. But, let's be wary of giving Trump too much credit for saying, essentially, racism is bad. In fact, a closer look at Trump's words reveal three mistakes he made even in trying to clean up his comments from Saturday.

With scenes of Nazi flags waving and a car driven by a white supremacist allegedly being plowed on purpose into a group of counter-protesters, Trump delivered a speech in which he blamed "many sides" for the violence in Charlottesville. He also pre-emptively absolved himself of blame by insisting these sorts of incidents happened when Barack Obama was president, too.

Then, for the next 36 hours, he -- the most talkative (or tweet-ative) politician in the country -- went silent. His White House released a statement from an anonymous official insisting that of course Trump meant to condemn white supremacists. Even if he didn't, you know, say it.

But, that's the point. He didn't say it. It matters how you act in moments when the whole country -- and the whole world -- are watching. Do-overs aren't really a thing in politics -- particularly in a situation so fraught as the one in Charlottesville and with a politician with as spotty a record as Trump on condemning intolerance.

That Trump's instincts -- and those of his White House -- were so off at the start of all of this speaks to a deep misunderstanding of what the role of president is and should be. Leaders lead in moments when the country turns to them. That moment was Saturday. Today feels like a half-hearted attempt to step into the leadership void Trump himself created.

When Trump spoke about Charlottesville on Saturday, it was clear that he had shoe-horned a few paragraphs about it into a speech he was already planning to give about all of the great things that were happening in the country under his leadership. It felt off for the moment. What was required was a simple formula: Sympathy for the victims, condemnation for the attackers, the end.

And yet, Trump repeated that mistake Monday. He opened his remarks with this:

"Our economy is now strong. The stock market continues to hit record highs, unemployment is at a 16-year low and businesses are more optimistic than ever before. Companies are moving back to the United States and bringing many thousands of jobs with them. We have already created over one million jobs since I took office."

Why? Because it's against Trump's nature to acknowledge -- even without acknowledging it -- that he may have done something less than perfectly the first time around. So, he touts his unrelated accomplishments before he gets to what he should have said two days earlier. It's his little way of asserting himself amid what he undoubtedly believes is trumped-up overreaction to his initial remarks on Saturday.

Per No. 2, Trump almost certainly didn't feel like he needed to give the follow-up remarks that he gave Monday because he had already said it just fine on Saturday. This phrase captures that frustration. I already said all of this, Trump is saying, but I will say it again because, well, someone(s) told me I have to.

It suggests that Trump doesn't really understand the shortcomings of his first statement on Charlottesville and believes this is all just a bow to the news cycle rather than a moral imperative to speak out clearly against hate and evil.

Which bodes poorly for his ability to handle the next incident -- and, sadly, we know there will be a next incident -- any better.

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3 big mistakes Donald Trump made in his 2nd speech on Charlottesville - CNN

The African-American chief executive of pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. Inc. resigned from President Donald Trumps American Manufacturing Council Monday after the commander-in-chief failed to condemn white nationalists for deadly violence at a weekend rally in Charlottesville, Va.

Our countrys strength stems from its diversity and the contributions made by men and women of different faiths, faces, sexual orientations and political beliefs. Americas leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal, Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier said in a statement announcing his departure from the council.

As CEO of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism, Frazier added.

Less than an hour after Merck released Frazier's statement, Trump slammed the exec in a tweet.

Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES! Trump posted.

Fraziers resignation came after Trump sparked a national backlash Saturday by suggesting that many sides were to blame for violence during a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.

One person was killed and more than 19 others were injured during protests at the rally after a car plowed through a group of counter-protesters who were demonstrating against racism.

Trump, in Saturday remarks from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, said, We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides."

He added that hate and division in the country must stop, but that it is not linked to his presidency because it has "been going on for a long, long time."

"No matter our color, creed, religion, our political party, we are all Americans first," he said, adding that he'd like for his administration to "study" why such violence is occurring. He didn't take questions from reporters.

Asked for clarification, a White House official later said: "The President was condemning hatred, bigotry and violence from all sources and all sides. There was violence between protesters and counter protesters today." Vice President Mike Pence told NBC News that the president "stated clearly that he condemns hate and violence in all of its forms."

After Trump's statement Saturday, many Republicans and Democrats criticized Trump for failing to single out white nationalists for the violence, and on Monday, the president addressed the situation with stronger language.

Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans, Trump said in a brief statement from the White House.

Shares of Merck were unfazed by Frazier's announcement to leave the manufacturing council and actually rose 0.7 percent to $62.80 Monday their best day since July 27.

Frazier, however, was not the first to quit the panel. In June, Tesla CEO Elon Musk quit Trump's manufacturing council and Trump's business advisory council after the president withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement. Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger also resigned in June from Trump's business advisory council after the president announced his Paris accord decision.

Meanwhile, pressure from social media users mounted on the remaining members of Trump's manufacturing council a body that includes CEOs from more than two dozen corporate giants like Ford Motor Co., Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Under Armour to respond to Trump's comments about Charlottesville.

But at least one other member of Trump's manufacturing council said he would remain on the panel.

"GE has no tolerance for hate, bigotry or racism, and we strongly condemn the violent extremism in Charlottesville over the weekend. GE is a proudly inclusive company with employees who represent all religions, nationalities, sexual orientations and races," GE, whose Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt is on Trump's manufacturing council, said in a statement. "With more than 100,000 employees in the United States, it is important for GE to participate in the discussion on how to drive growth and productivity in the U.S., therefore, Jeff Immelt will remain on the Presidential Committee on American Manufacturing."

Dow Chemcial CEO Andrew Liveris said in his own statement that, "I condemn the violence this weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, and my thoughts and prayers are with those who lost loved ones and with the people of Virginia."

"In Dow there is no room for hatred, racism, or bigotry. Dow will continue to work to strengthen the social and economic fabric of the communities where it operates including supporting policies that help create employment opportunities in manufacturing and rebuild the American workforce," Liveris added.

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Merck CEO Quits Advisory Council Over Trump's Charlottesville Remarks - NBCNews.com

A few weeks ago, I noted President Trumps shaky command of the presidential levers of power, including the bully pulpit: among other things, Trump cannot give a speech without his hosts distancing themselves fromhis rhetoric. Things have actually worsened over the past week, something I didnt think possible.

Consider Trumps three biggest rhetorical own-goals over the past week. His fire and fury statement on North Korea forced Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to try to talk the United States off a ledge. This in turn led to Sebastian Gorka denigrating Tillersonand Trump saying he had perhaps been too soft in his rhetoric. Which, in turn, caused Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to try to talk the nation off a ledgeagain. The point is, professional diplomats are pretty freaked outabout the presidents hyperbolic rhetoric.

Trumps belated response to Russian President Vladimir Putins ejection of U.S. diplomats was even worse:

The public calumny from that reaction was so bad that White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had to claim that Trump was being sarcastic.

Finally, to cap off a week of rhetorical miscues, Trump attempted to address the violence triggered by white nationalists in Charlottesville with a namby-pamby statement that blamed many sides for the violence. It is odd that a president who claimed to despise political correctness with respect to Islamic terrorists suddenly chose to be circumspect in describing homegrown neo-Nazi terrorists.

It is safe to say that Trumps response did not go down well at all with the commentariat. As my Post colleague Michael Gerson noted, Trumps reaction toevents in Charlottesvillewas alternately trite (come together as one), infantile (very, very sad) and meaningless (we want to study it).

SoundingPresidential 101 is not complicated:

Trump has failed and failed spectacularly at rudimentary rhetoric. Why?

To understand Trumps own-goals, you have to remember that there really is an art to being a politician. Say what you will about politicians as a group, but it is striking how all of them, from Bernie Sanders to Ted Cruz, knew the right thing to say in response to Charlottesville. Running for office repeatedly tends to hone ones rhetorical instincts. At a minimum, most professional politicians learn the dos and donts of political rhetoric.

Trumps political education hasdifferent roots. He has learned the art of political rhetoric from three sources: reality television, Twitter and the shows. His miscues this past week can be traced to the pathologies inherent in each of these arenas.

I have not watched muchreality television, but I have seen just enough of the Real Housewives franchise to know that this genre thrives on next-level drama. No one wants to watch conflicts being resolved; they want to watch conflicts spiral out of control. So it is with Trump and North Korea. He never sees the value in de-escalating anything, and North Korea is no exception. Calm resolution is not in the grammar of reality television. No wonder Trump never speaks that way; it is a register he cannot comprehend.

I am pretty familiar with Twitter,and the thing about that medium is that it is drenched insarcasm. It is a necessary rhetorical ticto thrive in that place. The problem is that while sarcasm might work on political Twitter, it rarely works in politics off Twitter. Sarcasm requires that observers be able to discern the hidden meaning behind a persons words. When it comes to politics, most people miss the text; expecting them to catch the subtext is insane. So it is not surprising that some of Trumps worstrhetorical misstepscome during lame attempts at sarcasm.

Finally, there are the political talk shows.If there is one thing Trump has learned from that genre, it is the both sides hot take. Pundits are so adept at blaming a political conflict on both sides that the #bothsides hashtag is omnipresent on political Twitter.

Of course, the #bothsides trope is commonly used when discussing Democrats and Republicans, or Congress and the presidency. As a general rule, any conflict in which one side is dominated by neo-Nazis is not a #bothsides moment. Even CNNs Chris Cillizza, the king of the Savvy Washington Take, knows this:

Both sides dont scream racist and anti-Semitic things at people with whom they disagree. They dont base a belief system on the superiority of one race over others. They dont get into fistfights with people who dont see things their way. They dont create chaos and leave a trail of injured behind them.

Arguing that both sides do it deeply misunderstands the hate and intolerance at the core of this Unite the Right rally. These people are bigots. They are hate-filled. This is not just a protest where things, unfortunately, got violent. Violence sits at the heart of their warped belief system.

Trying to fit these hatemongers into the political/ideological spectrum which appears to be what Trump is doing speaks to his failure to grasp whats at play here. This is not a conservatives say this, liberals say that sort of situation. We all should stand against this sort of violent intolerance and work to eradicate it from our society whether Democrat, Republican, Independent or not political in the least.

Deep down, there are substantive problems with Trumps reaction to each of these three crises. He seems overly eager to escalate tensions with North Korea and steadfastly does not want to call out Vladimir Putin or white nationalists by name.

What makes Trumps presidency worse, however, is his limited grasp of the bully pulpit. He ad-libbed all these rhetorical miscues. In doing so, he relied on tropes he had learned from reality television, social media and political talk shows.

Those tropes might work for a reality-show hack desperate to engage in self-promotion. They do not work for the president of the United States.

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Why is Donald Trump so bad at the bully pulpit? - Washington Post

In the coming days and weeks, Trump will undoubtedly take pains to clean up the mess he left on Saturday. He will get on script and echo the sentiment belatedly tweeted by his daughter, Ivanka, on Sunday: There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-nazis. He may even symbolically purge his administration of some of its leading white supremacists: Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Sebastian Gorka, Kris Kobach. And a lot of people will be fooled. Some will continue to maintain, as Samantha Bloom did on Saturday, that Trumps not a supremacist.

But Trumps foot soldiers will know better. When he veered from his prepared remarks on Saturday, he spoke his real truth. It is no coincidence, as NBCs Benjy Sarlin observed, that Trump tends to interpret any request to condemn hate as a personal attack. Of course he does: It is personal for Trump, just as surely as it is for Spencer or Duke or Bannon. The president is the most powerful hate-monger in America. He is the imperial wizard of the new white supremacy. He is GEOTUS to his followers on 4chan and Daily Stormer: God Emperor of the United States. Its hard to conceive of an acronym that would please this president more.

Before this weekend, the chief form of terror practiced by Trumps white nationalists was online. As Angela Nagle writes in her indispensable book about the alt-right, Kill All Normies:

Multiple journalists and citizens have described in horrifying detail the attacks and threats against those who criticize Trump or figures of the online Trumpian right, especially if the critic is female, black or Jewish, but also if theyre a cuckservative. They now have the ability to send thousands of the most obsessed, unhinged and angry people on the Internet after someone if they dare to speak against the president or his prominent alt-light and alt-right fans.

Trump has long endorsed that form of terror, too, with equally unmistakable signalingnamely, retweeting some of the worst. Hes also sent clear wavelengths not only through his anti-Hispanic hate speech, but with (among other things) his failure to denounce David Duke after his campaign endorsement; his drumbeat of degradation of women like bleeding Megyn Kelly; and, more tangibly, his reorienting the federal governments counter-domestic-terrorism efforts to focus only on Islamic extremism, not white supremacists.

Trump does not merely play footsie with the new white-supremacist movement in America, as Jennifer Rubin wrote in an otherwise blistering condemnation of his moral idiocy at The Washington Post on Sunday. He embodies the movementin his rhetoric, in his actions, and in his person. Just as white people created America and made it great, in the view of the white nationalists, Trump built his business empire all on his own, with no help from his real-estate mogul father. And just like the neo-Naziswho spent Sunday spreading Alex Joness message that Charlottesville was a George Soros conspiracyTrump is always blameless. And if you challenge his paranoid version of truth, he will not engage with you, he will not try to persuade youany more than Spencer or Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin will. He will mock you, and intimidate you. Rhetorical violence is his stock-in-trade.

Perhaps most important, Trumps vision of the world is identical to the apocalyptic fantasies of white genocide peddled by his followers. What, after all, is white supremacy in America in 2017? It is, first and foremost, an expression of delusional self-regard and white male entitlement run riot. It is the insistence that some peoplewhite American malesare inherently better than others, and deserve preferential treatment. To his supporters, and to himself, Donald Trump is the living embodiment of Hitlers concept of Aryan Herrenvolk (Aryan Master Race). He is our first neo-Nazi president. And until we acknowledge that unthinkable truth, and treat Trumps presidency as the anti-democratic crisis that it is, he will not be the last.

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Donald Trump, Neo-Nazi Recruiter-in-Chief - New Republic