By 2019, it was as if Charlottesville had never happened at all, and a new business advisory group was formed, this one with the likes of Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple; Doug McMillon, the chief executive of Walmart; and Julie Sweet, the chief executive of Accenture.
At the first meeting, Mr. Cook sat next to Mr. Trump. When the president asked Mr. Cook to begin speaking with a pat on the wrist, the Apple chief said, “Thank you, Mr. President. It’s an honor to serve on this council.”
At the same meeting, Visa’s chief executive, Al Kelly, complimented Mr. Trump on his “very, very good leadership,” and Ginni Rometty, then the chief executive of IBM, fawned over the president for his “unwavering leadership.”
Some of those same chief executives had previously excoriated Mr. Trump for his behavior. Yet there they were in the White House. It was as if the worst moments of his presidency were a bad dream.
“The past four years have presented difficult challenges to C.E.O.s who must balance helping advance policies to move the country forward, while speaking strongly on issues that cut against their core beliefs,” said Rich Lesser, chief executive of the Boston Consulting Group, who was part of one of the first advisory councils.
Ultimately, however, the executives were reduced to the same sort of mental gymnastics and bouts of understatement that the president’s socially liberal supporters have had to perform in recent years, extolling Mr. Trump’s economic policies at opportune moments, while ignoring his fundamental flaws.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/business/corporate-america-trump-capitol-mob.html
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