Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump delivers a speech to the press at the National Republican Senatorial Committee building in Washington on June 13, 2024.
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Donald Trump gathered in Washington on Thursday with at least 80 CEOs with a clear point of view: If he is re-elected president in November, CEOs will see tax cuts and a cut in business regulations, participants at the meeting say.
CNBC spoke with people who attended the Business Roundtable’s quarterly meeting and others familiar with the events there. All were granted anonymity so they could speak freely about a private meeting.
Trump said that when he returns to the White House, he will cut taxes, including the income tax, and reinstate the same economic policies he pursued during his first term, according to those at the meeting.
“We’re going to give you more of the same in the next four years,” one person in the room described Trump’s message to business leaders.
Trump said he would cut the federal corporate tax rate from 21% to 20% if he became president, according to a person familiar with his comments.
Trump also mentioned to the CEOs a recent proposal in Nevada to eliminate taxes on employee tips, those in attendance said. Trump then told the CEOs a story about how excited the tipped workers were about his proposal, prompting laughter from company leaders, according to several people.
Trump spoke at the meeting for about an hour, those present said. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser and Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan were among those in the audience, according to spokespeople for their companies.
Apple CEO Tim Cook was also there, said two people who were in the room. A spokesman for Cook declined to comment on whether he attended the meeting.
Jeff Zients, President Joe Biden’s chief of staff, addressed the group earlier in the day, one attendee said.
Representatives for the Trump campaign and the Business Roundtable did not respond to requests for comment before publication.
For Trump and the CEOs in attendance, the meeting represented an attempt to mend relations after some distanced themselves from the former president.
In 2017, the Trump administration’s key business advisory groups were disbanded after their members began resigning in response to Trump’s attempt to equate “both sides” of the Charlottesville, Virginia, protests, one side of which included white nationalists. During the January 6, 2021 riots on Capitol Hill, business leaders, including members of the Business Roundtable, called on Trump to stop the violence.
At the meeting on Thursday, Trump also took a swipe at Biden. “We need a president who is at his best, and let’s face it, this president is not at his best,” Trump said, according to a person in the room.
Earlier in the day, Trump told a meeting full of Republicans in the House of Representatives about the idea of pushing through an “all-tariff policy” that he said would allow the U.S. to eliminate the income tax, according to participants who were granted anonymity to discuss to speak to a private meeting.
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2024-06-13 22:09:10
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