Apple's Cook, other CEOs condemn Charlottesville white supremacists
FBN's Dagen McDowell and Kelly & Co. Managing Partner Kevin Kelly on Merck CEO Ken Frazier's decision to step down from President Trump's American Manufacturing Council.
Apple CEO Tim Cook and Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank on Monday joined a growing chorus of business executives in denouncing the violent white nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, that led to at least one death and more than a dozen injuries.
“We’ve seen the terror of white supremacy & racist violence before. It’s a moral issue – an affront to America. We must all stand against it,” Cook said on Twitter.
In a post to Under Armour’s official Twitter account, Plank said he was “saddened” by the events in Charlottesville, adding that “there is no place for racism or discrimination in this world.
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein shared Abraham Lincoln’s famous quote, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”
“Isolate those who try to separate us. No equivalence w/ those who bring us together,” Blankfein added.
None of the executives made specific reference to President Trump’s polarizing response to the Charlottesville protests. Trump drew bipartisan criticism last weekend after he failed to condemn by name the white nationalist groups that participated in the march.
Kenneth Frazier, CEO of pharmaceutical giant Merck, resigned from Trump’s American Manufacturing Council in an apparent protest to the president’s handling of the situation.
Trump lashed out at Frazier after his resignation, writing on Twitter that the Merck CEO’s decision to leave the council would give him “more time to lower ripoff drug prices.”
Under Armour’s Plank is also a member of the American Manufacturing Council. Company representatives did not immediately respond to a request for clarification of Plank’s views on Trump’s response to the protests.