Walmarts Ceo Had Plenty To Say About Trump So Did His Customers
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Every week, 140 million Americans shop at 4,692 Walmart stores in 50 states. There is arguably no other company in the United States that so tangibly touches more Americans of every political, racial and cultural stripe.
So when the companys chief executive, Doug McMillon, on Monday forcefully criticized President Trumps response to the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va., he risked alienating as many customers as he might win over.
Mr. McMillons remarks came during a week when many corporate titans publicly distanced themselves from the president by stepping down from his advisory councils. On Wednesday, a day after the president equated white nationalist hate groups with the demonstrators opposing them, the main council of chief executives, the Strategic and Policy Forum, agreed to disband.
Since the violence in Charlottesville, chief executives across corporate America have had to weigh the risks of taking a stand against the administration. Mr. McMillon himself, while harshly rebuking the president, initially opted not to step down from the Strategic and Policy Forum before it disbanded an example of the delicate balance that corporate leaders try to strike when dealing with Mr. Trump.
This is what they had to say about Walmart chief executives decision to weigh into the political fray this week.
How Companies Have Broken Promises And Funded Seditionists
Here’s what you need to know:
Since the insurrection, 717 corporations and industry groups have funneled over $18 million to the re-election of members of Congress who objected to the 2020 presidential election results and the party committees supporting them. As calls for insurrection accountability reach the one year mark, one thing is for certain: our democracy cannot recover from the insurrection while Corporate America continues to spend millions of dollars bankrolling seditionist members of Congress.
On January 6, an armed and violent mob stormed the Capitol. It was the first time the building had been breached since the War of 1812. At the end of the day, the death toll stood at five. The attackers assaulted nearly 140 police officers. Four more officers would die by suicide in the following months. Lawmakers came within seconds of tragedy at the hands of the rioters. The crowd constructed a gallows on the Capitol steps to chants of Hang Mike Pence!
The campaign to subvert democracy also included congressional votes. Many Republicans in Congress pledged to object during the certification process, fanning the flames that drove Trump supporters to attack the Capitol. Even after the violent attack forced lawmakers to evacuate for fear of their lives, 147 Republican members of Congress still voted against certifying the election results.
China Not Yet On Board
The proposed deal to unite Walmart, Oracle and TikTok could still collapse. Mr. Trump, who has authority to approve or reject the deal on national security grounds, has indicated he is for the deal. But the Chinese government has yet to give its blessing. An op-ed in Global Times, a daily newspaper seen as a mouthpiece for Beijing, said Chinese leaders were unlikely to approve it, bashing the transaction as “extortion” and an “unpalatable gambit.”
Oracle has said that ByteDance’s 80% stake would be split between the Chinese company and its current U.S. investors. By contrast, ByteDance has said it will own the entire 80%.
Walmart declined to comment for this story. Oracle and ByteDance did not respond to requests for comment.
If a deal is clinched, a five-person board at TikTok Global set to include Walmart’s CEO, three U.S.-based ByteDance investors, and ByteDance founder and CEO Zhang Yiming would vote on the direction and size of the education fund. Earlier this year, TikTok launched an effort to add education videos to the platform, paying universities and educators, like Bill Nye, to develop content.
But the education fund would be separate from TikTok’s previous education efforts, and would involve a donation to a non-profit that will manage the fund.
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Walmart Pac Walton Family Political Contributions Favor Conservatives: Report
Walmart’s PAC and the heirs to the company’s fortune are spending millions to influence the political process — and their money is often going to boost conservative candidates and causes, according to claims by a union-backed coalition pushing for more rights for Walmart workers.
The Walmart Political Action Committee spent more than $2 million influencing federal elections in three of the last five federal election cycles, according to a report released Tuesday by Making Change at Walmart, a group of advocates, Walmart workers and others aimed at transforming the company. The report also said that members of the Walton family, the billionaire heirs to the Walmart fortune who own over half of Walmart common stock and hold three seats on the company’s board, spent more than $1.3 million on federal elections last year, along with hundreds of thousands more at the state and local level.
The report comes as Walmart is facing backlash from some within its workforce and as companies are experiencing increased scrutiny over donations in the wake of a Supreme Court decision that opened up their spending power to influence elections. It cited figures from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research group that tracks money in politics.
Brooke Buchanan, a Walmart spokesperson, emphasized that the Walton family and Walmart’s PAC are different. She noted that 49 percent of the PAC’s contributions went to Democrats in the 2011-2012 election cycle.
The Latest List Of Pacs And Individuals Who Have Donated To Them
Donald Trump announced his reelection bid as soon as he took office four years ago and raised more than $1 billion in the 2020 cycle, according to OpenSecrets. This amount includes donations to his official campaign committee and outside groups such as single-candidate super PACs and hybrid PACs or Carey committees.
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Walmart Is More Popular Among Republicans While More Democrats See Target In A Favorable Light
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Walmarts net favorability leans GOP 69% among Republicans versus 55% among Democrats.
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For Target, net favorability is 71% among Democrats and 53% among Republicans.
When it comes to consumer preferences between Wal-mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp., party doesnt matter: Most people choose Walmart, regardless of their political leanings. But Walmart is more popular among Republican shoppers, while Target does better with Democrats, according to Morning Consults Most Polarizing Brands in America data.
The data, which is based on more than 17,000 U.S. consumer surveys about each company from October through December, shows Walmarts favorability leans Republican by 14 points, with a 69 percent net favorability, compared to 55 among Democrats.
Targets favorability, on the other hand, leans Democratic, by 18 points, with 71 percent net favorability compared to 53 percent among Republicans.
The differences between the two groups of consumers are attributable to the locations of the companies stores and the demographics of their headquarters locations, according to Neil Howe, managing director of demography at the risk management firm Hedgeye and president of Saeculum Research, a trend forecaster.
Walmart has a certain clientele: Their center of gravity compared to Target is a bit lower income, a bit more rural, a bit more red zone culturally, and a bit older and that demographic tends to vote Republican, Howe said in a Jan. 17 interview.
Walmart And Oracle Support Trump’s Idea For Tiktok Education Fund
Walmart has agreed to back an education fund as part of a deal between the retailer and Oracle to partner with Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The financial contribution will come from the new company, which is to be called TikTok Global, that emerges from the unusual transaction. The arrangement will allow the app to continue operating in the U.S. after the Trump administration threatened to ban it over national security concerns. Yet to be decided is how large of a contribution Walmart and Oracle would sign off on to the fund and how it would be used.
Walmart and Oracle are looking to take a stake of up to 20% of TikTok Global. TikTok’s current owner, Beijing-based ByteDance, and possibly its investors, would get 80% of the newly formed U.S.-based entity that will be the new official owner of the popular video platform.
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Walmart Joins Companies Suspending Donations To Lawmakers Who Voted Against Certifying The Election
Walmart on Tuesday said it would indefinitely suspend contributions to members of Congress who voted against certifying the results of the presidential election, as businesses come under pressure to respond after a mob stormed the Capitol last week.
On Sunday, when asked about the Walmarts corporate donations, including those to the Republican Attorneys General Association, a spokesman told the Times that Walmart examines and adjusts its political giving strategy at the end of every election cycle.
As we conduct our review over the coming months, we will certainly factor last weeks events into our process, the spokesman, Randy Hargove, said at the time.
Mr. Hargove on Tuesday said Walmart is indefinitely suspending contributions to those members of Congress who voted against the lawful certification of state Electoral College votes, even as the company continues to review its donation strategy.
Many companies, including Google, Goldman Sachs and Coca-Cola, opted to pause donations to both parties following the violence at the Capitol.
Fewer companies specified they will halt funding to only the 147 Republican members of Congress who objected to certifying the election results, as Walmart did on Tuesday. That group includes Marriott International, Dow, Airbnb and Morgan Stanley.
Here Are The Ceos And Companies That Support Trumpand Biden
As we take a breather between the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention , I thought it would be a good time to look into big business and the candidates, which executives and companies were supporting and donating to Trump, which to Biden and why.
First, when it comes to money, Trump is outraising Biden, says Sarah Bryner, research director at the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks and analyzes money in politics. Primarily his lead is in getting money from small donors. Biden is outraising Trump in money from the financial sector, and collecting a great deal of money from other businesses as well.
Which is unusual, because generally speaking CEOs and their ilk are favorably inclined to support Republican candidates, . According to a recent research paper put out by the National Bureau of Economic Research, 57.7% of large company CEOs consistently donated to Republicans, while only 18.6% donated to Democrats, with the rest leaning toward neither party.
However, Trump is no ordinary Republican, these are not ordinary times, plus Biden is hardly a Molotov-cocktail-throwing socialist.
The president isnt going to get nothing, Thornell says. But when it comes to executives, he could have had more.
Having said that, lets take a look at some of the presidents business supporters:
All of us have our reasons for supporting one politician or the other. Billionaires too.
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Warren To Powell: Don’t Drive This Economy Off A Cliff
New York Walmart CEO Doug McMillon lamented Tuesday that the baseless claims of a stolen election pushed by President Donald Trump and his allies have further inflamed America at a time of peril.
How Corporate America Responded To The Siege
“Cutting funding hits these politicians where it hurts,” Penn State’s Hambrick told Insider, describing it as the most “profound” action companies could take against lawmakers.
But pulling PACs isn’t the only way corporate America has responded to the siege.
The e-scooter startup Lime has vowed never to give money to businesses connected to Trump or Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and has scratched Trump’s properties from its list of approved corporate-travel hotels for its 600 employees. The PGA, meanwhile, pulled its 2022 Championship tournament from Trump’s New Jersey golf course, and Simon & Schuster canceled the scheduled publication of Hawley’s coming book, “The Tyranny of Big Tech” .
Some of Trump’s staunchest supporters also distanced themselves after the riot. Blackstone’s chairman, CEO, and cofounder, Stephen Schwarzman – a longtime Trump ally who previously defended the president’s election-related lawsuits during a call with top American CEOs – said he was “shocked and horrified.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
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Biggest Companies That Support Trump
The 10 biggest companies that support Trump are mostly composed of giant retail stores based in the U.S. This is because despite the U.S Presidents conglomerate being mostly focused on real estate development and property management, both Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka Trump also produce and sell items such as menswear, womens fashion, home items, and even wines.
Several billionaires expressed support for Trump while he was still running for President. Those bigwigs included Peter Thiel, co-founder of Paypal Holdings Inc activist investor Carl Icahn and T. Boone Pickens, chairman of hedge fund BP Capital Management. But the biggest companies that support Trump are mostly retailers, since they carry many of the familys brand-name goods.
pespo/Shutterstock.com
While President Trump adamantly advocates American-made products to put America First, a number of his and Ivankas products were actually manufactured overseas. Some of their apparel has been shown to have been made in China, Bangladesh and Vietnam, while home items were made in China, Turkey and India. Trump Vodka was created in the Netherlands.
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Companies Overlooking Racial Justice Commitments
Dozens of companies publicly opposed the restrictive voting bills passed in the wake of the election and released statements speaking out against any discriminatory legislation. Many others condemned systemic racism during the racial justice protests in the summer of 2020, which followed a series of murders of Black Americans by police and armed vigilantes. But these same companies have continued to fund officials officials both directly and through GOP party committees who have questioned election integrity in order to limit voting rights and claimed that vote totals from cities with significant Black populations and turnout were fraudulent, in order to justify contesting the election results.
Home Depot, JP Morgan, Delta Airlines, UPS and many others spoke out against new voting laws in Georgia as racist, while hundreds of other companies including American Airlines, Ford, General Motors and Johnson & Johnson signed a full page New York Times ad condemning discriminatory voting legislation being passed nationwide. Despite taking these pro-democracy stances in public, many of these companies have continued to fund members of Congress who voted against a free and fair election and the Republican party committees supporting them. The pharmaceutical company Merck, whose CEO co-organized the Times ad, has given $68,000 to the Sedition Caucus and the party committees through its PAC.
New York Times ad via New York TimesDavid Gelles/CREW illustration
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Members Who Continue To Spread Disinformation
Photo by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license/CREW illustration
As if voting to subvert democracy were not enough, some members of the Sedition Caucus have gone even further to promote the Big Lie. From downplaying the events of January 6 to creating false narratives out of whole cloth, these members have obstructed the search for truth and whitewashed history. Complicit in these anti-democratic actions are the corporations and trade associations that have continued to bankroll the most incendiary members.
Madison Cawthorn, who urged January 6 rioters to fight in Washington and falsely claimed the violence was instigated by those paid by the Democratic machine, has continued to peddle lies about the election and the insurrection. In August, he made headlines for calling January 6 defendants political prisoners and insinuating that rigged and stolen elections will inevitably lead to bloodshed. Cawthorn has received $2,000 in donations from the National Association of Insurance & Financial Advisors and the Farmers Rice Cooperative Fund.
Timothy Mellon Pan Am Systems $10 Million
An heir to the Mellon banking fortune and the grandson of former U.S. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, his is among the biggest donations this election cycle. He owns the largest regional railroad in North America, Pan Am Railways, which went up for sale in July. Hes been notably reclusive and absent from politics. Republican operatives reportedly had to look his name up on Google when he came forward to help.
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The Countrys Largest Retailer Joins Defense Contractors Northrop Grumman And Raytheon To Take Action Following Capitol Hill Violence
Walmart, the countrys largest retailer, is halting donations from its political action committee to the campaigns of congressional Republicans who opposed certifying President-elect Joseph Bidens election, joining defense giant Northrop Grumman and other major corporations taking a stand against violent riots many believe were sparked by President Trump in an effort to overturn the November election.
In light of last weeks attack on the U.S. Capitol, Walmarts political action committee is indefinitely suspending contributions to those members of Congress who voted against the lawful certification of state electoral college votes,” the company said in a statement Tuesday.
On Monday evening Northrop Grumman became the first defense manufacturer to halt all donations from its political action committee, joining a growing corporate backlash against the Capitol violence Wednesday. Several other large government contractors, including Raytheon Technologies and BAE Systems, later followed suit.
In the days since Trump supporters temporarily halted the certification of Bidens election win in attacks that left a police officer and four others dead, many well-known brands have rebuked the president and members of Congress seen as enabling him.
Last year, Northrop Grummans PAC also contributed roughly equally to Democrats and Republicans.
