Trump to Bank of America CEO: I Hope You Start Opening Your Bank to Conservatives

BRENDE: “Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. President. We’ll now go to another CEO that you know very well, Brian Moynihan, the CEO and Chair of Bank of America.”
MOYNIHAN: “Good afternoon, Mr. President, and congratulations, and obviously eventful week for you and your family. If you remember 5 years ago, you came here and we walked among 150 CEOs from all over the world and you engaged with them about your policies and your procedures. This year, you’re not here, and yet this week was eventful from the orders that you mentioned earlier, literally a wave of orders coming out, on immigration, on trade and many other matters. And so, as a representative of the United States here, we got a lot of questions about what does all this mean and how would the president square this with his clear focus on growth, prosperity, market growth — stock market growth, a good bond market, and bringing down prices. So how do you think about the impact of all these orders and how fast they come out and how you’re going to balance them with that scorecard of being successful on both continuing GDP growth, bringing down inflation, and also having a good stock price?”
Trump: “Down to 21 percent, the corporate tax. And it was actually, if you look at state and city, it was in many cases much higher than 40 percent. I got it down to 21 percent. And now we’re going to bring it down from 21 to 15 percent if — there’s a big if — if you make your product in the U.S. So we’re going to have the lowest, just about the lowest rate. It’ll be the 21 is on the low side worldwide. The 15 is about as low as it gets. And by far the lowest of a large country, a large, you know, rich, powerful country by far, not even a contest. So we’re going to bring it down to 15 percent if you make your product in the U.S.A.. So that’s going to create a tremendous buzz. We’re also probably going back to the one year deduction where we deduct, you know, we — we did that originally and that was amazing what — the impact that that had, the one year deduction, which built up over a period of time and then it expires. But we’re going to go back to that when we do the renewal of the Trump tax plan. We have to get Democrats to approve it. But, you know, if the Democrats didn’t approve it, I don’t know how they can survive with about a 45 percent tax increase because that’s what it would be. And so I think they’re going to do it. We’ve been working along with them pretty well. I think it’s very hard for a political group to say, ‘Let’s charge people 45 percent more.’ So I think we’re in good shape. We’re actually doing a reduction for business and small businesses where you’re going to be — bring it down to 15 percent, which is really something. And by the way, speaking of you and you’ve done a fantastic job, but I hope you start opening your bank to conservatives, because many conservatives complain that the banks are not allowing them to do business within the bank. And that included a place called Bank of America. This conservative — they don’t take conservative business. And I don’t know if the regulators mandated that because of Biden or what, but you and Jamie and everybody, I hope you’re going to open your banks to conservatives because what you’re doing is wrong.”
MOYNIHAN: “Mr. President, I’ll say that your friend Gianni was said hello, told me to tell you hello. And we look forward to sponsoring the World Cup when it comes, both this summer for the club and next year. So thank you for getting that for the United States.”
Trump: “Thank you very much, Brian.”