Trump publicly attacks and threatens American companies he doesn't like

June 13: On This Day In 2020

Made with AI. Similar to how Trump sent out a video of himself pummeling CNN.

It used to be that U.S. presidents served as Cheerleader-in-Chief for the great companies which boost our quality of life and help our country maintain its global edge. That common-sense concept may have held during the Trump years…but only for firms which praised him in return. Others, he viciously attacked, actively hoping to degrade their businesses and hurt their profits. (This from a man who brags how pro-business he is.)

He personally attacked at least 21 companies in just his first two years. He threatened them with boycotts, with tax hikes, and with governmental investigations. He directly tried to crush their revenues. He mocked their performance records. A starter list of Top Tier companies includes Boeing, Merck, T-Mobile, Toyota, Apple, Disney, etc...

A sample of some of his pearls, while president or on the campaign trail:

• “Don’t buy GOODYEAR TIRES - They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS. Get better tires for far less!

• “Pfizer & others should be ashamed…”

• "Macy’s stores suck and they are bad for U.S.A."

• “My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly” by Nordstrom

• "What was Nike thinking?"

• “It is very sad that Johnson & Johnson have let down their employees…”

• The Walt Disney Company is “a Woke and Disgusting shadow of its former self.”

He even went after the universally-beloved musical “Hamilton,” saying (without a shred of merit) “I hear (it’s) highly overrated, (and they should) should immediately apologize… for their terrible behavior.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, he saves some of his worst for the press. You know, the fourth branch of our democracy:

• "CBS is fake news and they should be ashamed of themselves for what they’re doing to this country."

• “The failing New York Times…”

• "Twitter has…seemingly done something that makes it much harder to join - they have stifled growth to a point where it is obvious to all."

• "The Washington Post is far more fiction than fact. Story after story is made up garbage - more like a poorly written novel than good reporting."

• In June 2019 he proposed a boycott of CNN’s then-parent company AT&T (whose stock surged after the tweet)

• And never mind that NBC turned him into a celebrity via “The Apprentice.” OTDI 2020 he hissed that his followers should stop buying service from their parent company.
  

Btw, this was one of at least 15 times Trump called them "Concast." Gosh he's clever.

Amplifying the problem is that Trump's wannabes started mimicking his invective, helping – yet again – to drag down the level of discourse in this nation. It wasn’t just Gov. Huckabee. Gov. Ron DeSantis, for example, attacked the Walt Disney Company and the Tampa Bay Rays because they adopted policies which he perceived as being too friendly to the LGBTQIA+ community.

Can we imagine George W Bush, during his 2004 campaign, telling Americans to boycott Heinz ketchup because John Kerry is related to that family? No. He was a better man that that. It’s easy to forget that presidents just didn’t DO this sort of thing before Trump came along.

Surely even Putin didn't expect Trump would help tear apart this country to this extent.

Dive Deeper  

• Business Insider compiled an early list of victimized firms

• CNN writes about Trump’s attack on their rival Comcast  

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Summary: Trump attacks companies he doesn't like