WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump It failed to impress everyone in a room full of top CEOs Thursday at the Business Roundtable’s quarterly meeting, multiple attendees told CNBC.
“Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said one executive in the room, according to a person who heard the executive speak. The director general also said Trump has not said how he plans to do this Any of his policy proposals, he said.
Several CEOs “said that [Trump] he was amazingly meandering, unable to keep a straight line of thought [and] It was all over the map,” CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin reported on “Squawk Box” Friday.
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the CEOs’ statements.
Among the topics Trump offered few details on were how he would cut taxes and reduce business regulations, according to two other people in the room who spoke to CNBC.
Meeting participants and the people who spoke with them were granted anonymity to speak freely about the private event.
Sorkin said the same CEOs who were appalled by Trump’s indiscretions “went into the meeting thinking they might be pro-Trump or leaning in that direction.”
“These were people who, I think, might actually be prone to it [Trump, but] actually left the room less inclined to it,” Sorkin said.
According to two people in the room, Trump’s energy at the meeting also noticeably decreased. Two participants told CNBC that at no time during his speeches was there any noticeable applause for Trump.
It was different from Trump He met with Republicans in the House of Representatives on Capitol Hill. Those who attended that meeting told CNBC that the former president was animated and engaged, and Trump received several standing ovations Thursday in separate meetings with Republicans in both the House and Senate.
One attendee told CNBC that Trump’s low-key energy at the Business Roundtable event may have been intentional. There was Trump He asked for a meeting with the CEO “More like a business meeting than a speech,” he said.
“At one point he discussed his plan to lower the corporate tax rate from 21% to 20% … and he was asked why he chose 20%,” Sorkin said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “And he said, ‘It’s a round number.’
“That alone made a number of CEOs shake their heads,” Sorkin said.
Corporate income tax in 2023 contributed about $420 billion to federal revenues, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Wall Street has been abuzz with President Joe Biden’s aggressiveness for the past three years antitrust protectionpharmacy price limits and progressive tax policy.