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At an annual gathering of the world's most powerful thinkers and trendsetters in Beverly Hills this week, business leaders and major investors said they have gotten used to dismissing most things that President Donald Trump says or tweets .

On panels at the Milken Institute Global Conference, CEOs and billionaires were generally enthusiastic about Trump's mission to reform health care, cut taxes, reduce regulations, and stimulate the economy. Panelists including JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon and hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin offered positive remarks about the president and urged attendees to give him more time to accomplish such sizeable goals.

But in interviews on the sidelines, the Wall Street set was far more dubious that Trump can get anything done.

"I don't take Trump seriously," said a senior executive at one of the country's six largest banks. "I'm listening less and less."

Like most who wanted to share their more candid views privately, the executive spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering the president, his employer or business associates. But his comments were echoed by at least a dozen institutional investors and bank executives who spoke to Reuters.

While they remain hopeful Trump will be able to get reforms through Congress , the lack of progress combined with conflicting messages coming out of the administration make it hard to put faith in anything, they said.

Several cited comments on Monday from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who joked on a panel that bank investors should thank him for boosting share prices. Hours later, Bloomberg News published an interview with Trump, in which said he was considering breaking up the country's biggest banks an idea that is an anathema to shareholders of lenders like JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp or Citigroup Inc.

However, few people at the event in the Beverly Hilton Hotel appeared to take the comment seriously.

"Until it's signed into law, you can't bank on it," said Aaron Cutler, a regulatory lawyer at Hogan Lovells who lobbies Congress on behalf of banks and hedge funds and was milling about on a sunny terrace. He said his clients are not yet acting on anything the administration says.

A report last week by PwC's financial services regulatory practice echoed that view. Despite Trump's talk of quick action, PwC predicts his executive orders will "yield few results," that plans to repeal a package of financial regulations called Dodd-Frank will not happen, and that any change in Washington will be slow due to a lack of consensus, a slothy appointments process and upcoming midterm elections.

A spokeswoman for Trump did not return a request for comment for this article by publication time.

Even as Wall Street honchos privately disregard the administration's mixed messages, they were rubbing shoulders with top White House officials around the event and afterwards at swanky parties. Among the guests at one evening soire was a cheetah from the San Diego Zoo.

In addition to Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos were all featured speakers at the Milken conference. Each has a background in business or finance, something other conference-goers found encouraging.

Ultimately, some said, they have to consider whether Trump is making a statement to win political points or because he truly wants to accomplish a goal. If the former, his remarks can be more easily dismissed, they said. The head of a multi-billion-dollar hedge fund firm said the situation has become "a Rorschach test" where people celebrate or shrug off Trump's comments depending on what they want to see.

Sir Michael Hintze, founder of $12.5 billion investment firm CQS, said people are being too hard on the president. Trump may have a different style because he is not a politician by nature, but has his heart in the right place, Hintze said.

"I'm pretty constructive about the whole thing," he said. "Everyone was there to hate him, (but) Trump's a decent man."

The rest is here:
Why Wall Street Has Stopped Listening to Donald Trump - Fortune

"The reason for the plan negotiated between the Republicans and Democrats is that we need 60 votes in the Senate which are not there! We ... either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good 'shutdown' in September to fix mess!" Trump said Tuesday in two consecutive tweets.

Congressional leaders announced Sunday that they'd reached a deal to avert a government shutdown until September. The deal did not include several Trump campaign promises -- including money for a border wall -- in part because GOP leaders needed Democratic votes to pass the deal in the Senate.

Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney on Tuesday took to the White House briefing room to slam Democrats' claims of victory in the budget deal, arguing that Trump secured a large increase in defense spending and pushed border wall funding to its highest level in a decade.

Mulvaney also responded to Trump's tweet Tuesday morning about a potential September shutdown.

"A shutdown is not a goal," Mulvaney said, but rather a "negotiating tool to an extent."

He added a shutdown would show American voters that Washington "really was as broken as they thought it was when they voted for (Trump) for president."

The President's suggestion that we "change the rules now to 51%" is a variation of the so-called "nuclear option" that Republicans deployed during the Gorsuch Supreme Court fight -- when they lowered the number of votes needed to break a filibuster of a judicial nominee. In this case, Trump is proposing a rule change that would also lower the number of votes needed to break a legislative filibuster, something Republicans left untouched when they changed Senate rules for Gorsuch.

While Republicans do have majorities in both the House and Senate, their 52-seat Senate majority is too thin to break a filibuster unless eight Democrats side with the GOP.

A CNN/ORC poll from March found that 72% of Americans want to see Trump to reach bipartisan compromises rather than try to pass laws he thinks are right for the country, even if they aren't supported by Democrats. That includes a majority of Republicans (57%) who said Trump ought to be compromising with Democrats.

And that cuts both ways -- in the same poll, 69% said Democrats ought to be trying to compromise with Trump and not just resist the president's agenda.

CNN's Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

Read more:
Donald Trump: Our country needs a good 'shutdown,' suggests Senate rule change - CNN

Forbes

In Response To President Donald Trump, Silicon Valley Creates 'Tech Pledge' Forbes A small working group of entrepreneurs with deep Silicon Valley roots is about to ask every major tech company a simple question: Are you with us? "The Tech Pledge," as it's called now, is a list of core values that the group hopes will elicit a 'Yes ... and more »

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In Response To President Donald Trump, Silicon Valley Creates 'Tech Pledge' - Forbes

New York Times

The 'Surreal Disarray' of Donald Trump New York Times Donald Trump's vision of American history, in this case his strange analysis of Andrew Jackson's settling the problem of the Civil War, strikes me as the perfect window into his political worldview. He puts outsize individuals at the center (Andrew ... What's up with Donald Trump and Andrew Jackson?PolitiFact Conan O'Brien Imagines a Donald Trump-Produced Civil War DocumentaryVanity Fair Maybe Donald Trump Can't Read?The Root CNN -Salon -USA TODAY -Washington Examiner all 386 news articles »

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The 'Surreal Disarray' of Donald Trump - New York Times

Theres a corollary to President Trumps now-infamous habit of claiming that many people are saying or feeling things that support his political positions. Trump also will frequently mention friends he uses as case studies, individuals or small groups that, he assures us, he knows personally and from whom he can relay a pertinent anecdote.

He did this twice during a recent interview with Bloomberg News, which prompted us to build out a full Rolodex of anonymous-but-politically-useful friends of Trump. Without further ado, that list.

Interview with Bloomberg, April 2017. (This friend was also mentioned in Baton Rouge in December.)

I have very good relationships with the truckers. I have one friend whos a big trucker and hes hes like said, Ive never seen anything like it, you know, with the roads youve heard this story with the roads, and his trucks are all being destroyed, and hes going to start buying cheap equipment now. Yeah, the roads are in bad shape.

Interview with CBS News, April 2017.

I mean, I have been under audit, Ill bet you 12 or 13 or 14 years in a row. Now, I have friends that are wealthy people. Theyve never been audited.

Speech in New York, April 2016.

I have a friend, hes a smart guy. He said, How could a certain politician have made that deal? I didnt think he was that stupid. I said, Its not stupid at all. Hes doing it because his lobbyist is demanding that he do it.

Speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, February 2017.

I have a friend, hes a very, very substantial guy. He loves the City of Lights, he loves Paris. For years, every year during the summer, he would go to Paris, was automatic with his wife and his family. Hadnt seen him in a while. And I said, Jim, let me ask you a question: Hows Paris doing? Paris? I dont go there anymore, Paris is no longer Paris. That was four years four or five years, hasnt gone there. He wouldnt miss it for anything. Now he doesnt even think in terms of going there.

Speech in De Pere, Wis., March 2016.

I have a friend whos a guy who was born to a very, very successful Wall Street baron. And the Wall Street baron is a vicious, ruthless, horrible human being. You would not like him for dinner. Youd respect him, but you wouldnt like him, and most of the people in the room would know who he is. One of the big barons of Wall Street.

This friend eventually helped manage the redevelopment of an unnamed golf club in Westchester, N.Y.

Speech in Millington, Tenn., February 2016.

I have a friend whos a great, great manufacturer. He deals with China. He says its a virtual impossibility.

Speech in Kinston, N.C., October 2016.

I have a friend who builds plants. He is, I believe, the biggest in the world. And I said, How are we doing? He said, Donald, were doing fine. Hows your company? Unbelievable. I said, Hows this country, our country, the country we love? and he loves this country, hes an American Hows it doing? Not good. I said, Well, how are you doing well? He said, I am building the greatest plants anywhere in the world in Mexico.

Speech in Walterboro, S.C., February 2016.

I have a friend who actually bought an airplane and he cant get it into China because the tax is so massive. Hes going to sell it now at a big loss.

Speech in Knoxville, Tenn., November 2015.

I have a friend, hes a doctor. Hes going to quit. Hes not an old guy. I say, Why? He said, Because its impossible. We need so much accounting. He said he has more accountants than he has nurses.

Speech in Keene, N.H., September 2015.

The Afghanistanian people, great fighters, always have been known. I have a friend of mine, hes a big war historian. Among the best fighters, Afghanistan.

Speech in Columbus, Ohio, August 2016.

I have a friend, hes very wealthy. He doesnt own a hedge fund.

Interview with The Post, March 2016.

You look at our inner cities, our inner cities are a horrible mess. I watched Baltimore, I have many, many friends in Baltimore, we watched what happened. St. Louis, Ferguson, Oakland, it could have been much worse over the summer.

Bloomberg.

I have many, many friends from the Philippines. Theyre great people.

A statement after his remarks about Judge Gonzalo Curiel, June 2016.

I am friends with and employ thousands of people of Mexican and Hispanic descent

Comment to a reporter, February 2016.

Asked who his best Muslim friend is, Trump replied:

I could give you about 20 of them.

For what its worth, Trump also has a lot of friends whose names hes happy to relay.

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Exploring Donald Trump's network of unnamed friends - Washington Post