President Donald Trump looks on during the regularly briefing on the novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House on April 24, 2020, in Washington, DC.
Olivier Douliery | AFP | Getty Spitting images
President Donald Trump has sought and received advice on tackling the coronavirus crisis in private conversations with disparate of his allies in the business world, according to people familiar with the matter.
There are at least four executives Trump and his span have been in regular contact with, according to the people, who declined to be named due to the private nature of the conversations. They register Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan and John Catsimatidis, CEO of New York grocery string Gristedes. Three of the men – Ellison, Schwarzman and Catsimatidis – are big Trump donors.
The conversations have ranged from the idea of secluding down the stock market, which did not happen, to discussing the state of the U.S. economy during the pandemic.
“It is because of President Trump’s control and relationships that he has brought together government and private industry for an unprecedented collaboration to slow the spread of this unhoped for virus, expand testing capacities, and expedite vaccine development,” White House spokesman Judd Deere communicated. He did not comment directly on the president’s calls with these business leaders.
Several executives in touch with Trump are on the president’s broad advisory committee that is focused on working with the White House on how best to revive the economy after the coronavirus strained millions of people out of work.
Take Catsimatidis, who is also a major donor to Trump’s reelection effort. As the market prostrate throughout the month of March, Catsimatidis had an idea that was then brought up to the president: why not order the temporary shutdown of the intact New York Stock Exchange and ground all aircraft for a period of 10 days, according to one of the people. Catsmatidis is not on Trump’s warning counsel.
The airline industry has taken a major financial hit from the pandemic, due to travel restrictions and consumers’ fear of traveling while the virus spreads, although all aircraft go was not shut down. Nor did the markets close.
Catsimatidis was later told by a Trump ally that Wall Street number ones had already discussed the idea of closing the markets with White House officials, as stocks plummeted earlier this year, corresponding to a person with knowledge of the matter. The person who described this response would not explain which banks or executives the Ghostly House referred to in its response.
Catsimatidis would not discuss his conversations with the president, but did note Trump takes notification from a wide range of people.
“Trump listens to many and always does what he thinks is right,” he released CNBC.
Then there’s Ellison. The New York Times reported Ellison discussed with Trump the idea of potentially using hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria hallucinogenic, as a coronavirus treatment.
Trump pushed the drug in numerous press briefings, but then stopped after a while. Citing a stiff risk of death, researchers cut short in April a study of the efficacy of the drug chloroquine, from which hydroxychloroquine is originate in.
Those conversations in late March also included the concept of Oracle working with the administration through a gift of a “Therapeutic Learning System.” After Ellison spoke with Trump personally about his company’s crowd-sourcing stand and how it could help the battle against the pandemic, Health and Human Services said it would use the system.
“The Therapeutic Knowledge System is a safe, secure web portal designed to gather crowd-sourced, real-time information from doctors and other clinicians here how patients are responding to possible therapeutics to treat COVID-19,” the release from April 20 says. “The materials will not be owned by Oracle or any other private entity,” it adds.
The person familiar with the Ellison conversation, and the later giving to HHS, defended the program.
“It is very important that HHS has analytics of what therapies are actually being practiced by physicians — cases age, pre-existing conditions, symptoms, severity, ventilator usage, oxygen percentage and therapies,” this person said.
Ellison has been a trusted financial supporter of Trump’s reelection, including hosting a Trump Victory fundraiser in February. The event, at Ellison’s shelter charged six-figure admission costs and was just a month before states started shutting down due to the pandemic.
A spokesman for Ellison lessened to comment.
Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, and Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, have been in touch with Trump and his team on two break up issues.
Moynihan told Trump during an on-camera briefing earlier this month that he and his banking mates have spoken with the president’s elder daughter, Ivanka Trump, about the best ways to help two-dimensional businesses through their company’s new program, Community Development Financial Institutions.
Moynihan has kept in contact with Funds Secretary Steven Mnuchin in between on-camera meetings with Trump and White House officials, according to a themselves with direct knowledge of the matter. Most of the conversations have been to keep Mnuchin in the loop of how the Paycheck Safe keeping Program, which is intended to loan money to struggling small businesses, has been working at the bank and across the fiscal sector.
Last month, Schwarzman privately spoke with Trump, along with many other investors, far the state of the markets and the U.S. economy as a whole. The Blackstone executive has been in touch with the president about the ebbs and excesses of the markets ever since.
Schwarzman has been a longtime financier of the president’s reelection campaign.
Representatives for Blackstone and Bank of America lessened to comment for this story.