Business leaders don't have confidence in Trump's plan to 're-open America': report

According to a report from Politico, Donald Trump's plan to get America back to work is hitting some bumps because White House officials are uncertain how to approach it and business leaders are unsure if they want to be a part of the president's efforts.

In her report, Nancy Cook wrote, "Senior administration officials are engaged in an earnest yet scattershot effort to support President Donald Trump’s long-expressed desire to revive the downward-spiraling economy and stabilize the volatile financial markets in the middle of an election year," before pointing out, "Like the majority of policy decisions within this White House, the nascent moves to restart the economy have been plagued by different factions of staffers vying for power — or simply not communicating with one another. Some officials are looking at data from states to make their recommendations, while economic officials are weighing moves to change tax policy to boost growth once again."

According to one Republican familiar with the deliberations, the White House is walking into a minefield if they decide to push businesses to re-open too soon at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is still working its way across the country.

“If it is based off of data or metrics or some type of threshold, then the White House will have to put that out there and start building the case because the president has said he will do it in a way that is safe,” the insider stated. "If he lays out the case, then I think he will have the public with him. If it is just by his gut, that is where he will get beaten up politically. In the absence of that road map, there will be a lot of political criticism."

With the president set to announce a new task force that he has alternately referred to as either the "Opening Our Country Task Force” or the “Opening Our Country Council,” Politico's Cook reports that not everyone in the business community is eager to sign on, fearing the president's wrath if things don't go his way.

"That second council will include top administration officials, doctors and representatives from companies and the private sector; the White House sought suggestions for names of those potential company representatives last week," the report notes. "Officials scrambled over the weekend to finalize the list but not all companies wanted to participate, said a handful of lobbyists, because some wanted to keep a low profile after Trump got into public spats with corporate giants like 3M over the production and sale of medical masks."

Cook adds, "The president, administration economic officials and business leaders — many of whom offer the opposite advice of top health officials — want the certainty of knowing the economy will open on a specific date, regardless of whether the White House arrives at that date through Trump’s own instincts, political imperatives or the advice of health officials."

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