Levin Report

Jamie Dimon Wants Everyone to Cut Trump Some Slack

Expecting things to go smoothly “would be silly.”
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By David A.Grogan/CNBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images.

Eighty-five days into his presidential term, Donald Trump is struggling to live up to expectations. The same man who once promised voters, “You’re going to win so much, you may even get tired of winning and you’ll say please, please it’s too much winning, we can’t take it anymore,” has, in fact, racked up a remarkable number of amateur-hour screw-ups. Trump’s travel ban was suspended; his plan to repeal Obamacare went down in flames; his campaign is under investigation by the F.B.I. for its communications with Russia; and the U.S. is on the brink of war with North Korea. In the span of 12 weeks, it’s not clear whether the administration has gotten better or worse as it ricochets from shilling for Ivanka Trump’s clothing line to walking back ill-informed opinions on Hitler. Short of Trump undergoing a personality transplant, and replacing the bumbling idiots of the West Wing over the weekend, his first 100 days are shaping up to be a historic failure. But according to JP Morgan C.E.O. Jamie Dimon, these sorts of blunders are totally typical for a new administration and it is ridiculous to have expected things to have gone more smoothly so far.

“You all should expect as a given that, when you have a new president and they get going, that the nine months after the first 100 days are a sausage-making period,” Dimon said Thursday during a conference call with analysts to discuss JP Morgan’s first quarter earnings. “To expect there to be smooth sailing, that would be silly,” he added.

After reportedly turning down an offer to serve as Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Dimon, a lifelong Democrat who once enjoyed a bromance with Barack Obama before their relationship cooled, has shown nothing but unbridled optimism for the Donald and the gang that couldn’t shoot straight in Washington. The banker, who is a member of Trump’s policy forum and heads the Business Roundtable, a group that advises the president, has said that the former beauty-pageant owner is doing a bang-up job and to “forget about the tweets.”

Trump himself is apparently even more optimistic about his own prospects, telling Fox Business this week that he “doesn’t think there is a presidential period of time in the first 100 days where anyone has done nearly what we’ve been able to do.” His record low approval ratings prove him right, although perhaps not in the way he meant.

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Other bankers are a bit more skeptical

While Trump is enjoying the confidence of Jamie Dimon, other C.E.O.s aren’t convinced he’ll turn out to be the pro-growth president the corporate world is praying for. Per Dealbook:

Some of the nation’s top bankers said on Thursday that businesses were feeling less certain that Mr. Trump can pull off his ambitious agenda to deregulate and cut taxes. Many industries, the bank executives said, are increasingly cautious about taking on too much new debt, particularly after efforts to replace the Affordable Care Act failed last month, raising doubts about whether the president can get pro-business measures like tax cuts through Congress. And such political uncertainty comes at a time when the Federal Reserve has embarked on raising interest rates, which will make borrowing costlier.

“They all want to believe that there is more growth ahead, but they need to see something out there before they act,” John Shrewsberry, the chief financial officer of Wells Fargo, said in an interview. Wells Fargo, a leading lender to American consumers and businesses, said its outstanding loans in the first quarter had increased just 1 percent from a year earlier. Citigroup, which has a large global presence operating in dozens of countries, said its lending growth wasn’t that much larger, with overall loans rising 2 percent.

United Airlines continues its apology tour

On the heels of the news that the passenger dragged from a United flight Sunday night suffered a broken nose, a concussion, and lost two teeth—and, naturally, will be suing—the airline’s chairman has issued his own memo to employees expressing remorse for the incident, following three earlier statements from C.E.O. Oscar Munoz (the first two, which used the phrase “re-accomodate the passenger” doesn’t count). Per the Wall Street Journal:

Robert Milton, chairman of the 15-member board, said directors have been meeting and talking this week and working with Chief Executive Oscar Munoz. “We are supporting Oscar and his team as they work to assure that something like this does not happen again,” Mr. Milton said in the memo. Mr. Milton also apologized to Dr. David Dao, the passenger who police from Chicago’s Aviation Department dragged off Flight 3411 on Sunday.

Mr. Milton, a former CEO of Air Canada who joined United’s board a year ago, told employees United needs to respond to the incident by crafting “friendly policies and redouble our efforts to win back the trust of everyone.” He said United needs employee ideas large and small “on how we can bring a smile to the faces of our customers with acts of kindness, service, respect and understanding.”

Obviously, not beating them senseless would be a great start.

Looking to make a buck or two off the Trump presidency?

If you’ve been thinking about paying a visit to the White House to curry favor with the Don in an attempt to, just for example, win a government contract for your company but want to avoid the pesky scrutiny of the dishonest media who you just know will make a story of that bag of cash you had on your person, today’s your lucky day. Administration officials said Friday the White House “will no longer disclose logs of visitors to the 18-acre complex where President Donald Trump lives and works.”

While the White House officials cited concern for privacy and national security risks in their decision, others are not entirely convinced. “The only reason to keep secret the White House visitor logs is to hide from the American public the corporate influence-peddlers who are seeking favors and gifts from the White House,” Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, told Bloomberg. “More secrecy equals more cronyism, more insider dealing and more corruption.”

“Amex, challenged by Chase, is losing the snob war”

Time was, American Express’s pitch to new customers was that whipping out an Amex at dinner would signal to your fellow diners that you had arrived. These days, though, the card is grappling with a scary new reality: the millennial would-be customers they’re going after want to have money, but they don’t want to be “braggy” about it. More important to them is the appearance of being “interesting,” which, amazingly, they think is a trait that can be conferred by a credit card. The New York Times tells the tale:

This is the real reason Amex’s executives became so worried when they heard about the dinner, one of multiple held by Chase, when a cardholder said his Sapphire card made him more interesting. American Express, for decades, has essentially sold snob appeal. But for millennials, snobbery isn’t quite as appealing as it once was. Or, more precisely, snobbery has to be hidden and camouflaged as something else, like an Instagram post from your Iceland spelunking adventure or a lament about how hard it is to find a charging station near Burning Man for your electric sports car.

Elsewhere!

Investors can’t believe Trump is doing this to them again (The Hive)

Best corporate profit growth since 2011 competes with geopolitical pressures on markets (CNBC)

Uber lost $2.8 billion last year (CNN Tech)

The great Japan potato-chip crisis: panic buying, $12 bags (Bloomberg)

United pays heavy price for customer carelessness (Financial Times)

Credit Suisse to cut executive bonuses by 40 percent (W.S.J.)

A.I.G.'s board denies C.E.O. 2016 cash bonus after dismal earnings (Reuters)

The world’s most breathtaking pub crawl requires a helicopter (Bloomberg)