Washington – Former President Donald Trump failed to impress everyone in a room full of top CEOs on Thursday at the Business Roundtable’s quarterly meeting, multiple attendees told CNBC.
“Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said one CEO in the room, according to a person who heard the executive speak. The CEO also said Trump did not explain how he planned to do it that person says any of his policy proposals.
Some CEOs “think [Trump] very crooked, unable to keep straight thoughts [and] is all over the map,” CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin reported Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Among the topics on which Trump offered little detail were how he would lower taxes and cut business regulations, according to two other people in the room who spoke to CNBC.
Meeting attendees and those who spoke to them remained anonymous so they could freely talk about the private event.
The same CEOs who were impressed by Trump’s lack of focus “entered the meeting as Trump supporters or thought they might lean that way,” Sorkin reported.
“These are people who I think might actually be predisposed to it [Trump but] actually walking out of the room had less impact” on him, Sorkin said.
“President Trump was well received by everyone in the room and praised for his policy proposals on deregulation,” said Steven Cheung, communications director for Trump’s presidential campaign. and tax cuts.”
According to two people present in the room, Trump’s energy during the meeting also decreased significantly. Two attendees told CNBC that at no point during his speech was there any notable applause for Trump.
This is contrary to Trump’s view meeting earlier in the day with House Republicans on Capitol Hill. Those who attended that meeting told CNBC that the former president was animated and engaged and that Trump received plenty of applause in private meetings Thursday with both House and Senate Republicans .
Cheung said there was applause for Trump during the question-and-answer portion of the meeting, “where participants praised President Trump for his deregulatory and tax-cutting agenda.”
One attendee told CNBC that Trump’s quiet energy at the Business Roundtable event may have been intentional. Trump has want to have a meeting with the CEO “More like a business meeting than a speech,” this person said.
“At one point, he discussed a plan to reduce the corporate tax rate from 21% to 20%… and was asked why he chose 20%,” Sorkin said Friday on “Morning Joe.” of MSNBC. “And he said, ‘Oh, that’s a round number.'”
“That in itself has some CEOs shaking their heads,” Sorkin reports.
In 2023, corporate income tax contributing about 420 billion USD to federal revenue, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Wall Street has been roiled over the past three years under President Joe Biden’s aggression antitrust enforcementmedicine price limit and progress policy of tax.
