The president has taken a preemptive approach to the implosion of his advisory groups. Over the last few days, as an accelerating number of CEOs and labor leaders resigned from the American Manufacturing Council and the Strategic and Policy Forum, both groups looked like they were headed for collapse. There were reports that the the Strategic and Policy Forum would dissolve itself today.
On Tuesday, Trump was still trying to bluster his way through the crisis:
For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2017
But on Wednesday afternoon, Trump took another approach:
Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 16, 2017
By dissolving the groups before they could disband themselves, Trump is trying to take control of the narrative, to make himself the one who fires people rather than the one whom CEOs don’t want to associate with. But this transparent move won’t help Trump. The disbanding of these two groups marks the end of one of Trump’s major promises: that he would be a different type of political leader, a CEO president who knows how to negotiate. But Trump has shown he can’t even hold an advisory board together, let alone make better deals of any sort.