Nigerian born international CEO, Adebayo Ogunlesi has now ceased to be an adviser to embattled US President Donald Trump.

Trump sacked him on Wednesday along with other distinguished CEOs counselling him via two councils on how to “Make America Great Again”.

Trump sacked Ogunlesi on Twitter, when he announced the dissolution of two business advisory councils, in one fell swoop.

Ogunlesi was a member of the Strategic and Policy Forum, one of the two disbanded by the unpredictable president. The other group was the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative Council.

Ogunlesi, heads Global Infrastructure Partners, a private equity firm and one of Fortune 500 companies. He was the only African on the panel.

The New York Times reported before Trump’s tweeted dissolution, that members of Ogunlesi’s panel were debating dissolving the body entirely as Trump wallowed deeper into bigotry quagmire. But Trump preempted their move.

“Corporate leaders had hoped that President Trump would help businesses by slashing taxes and gutting regulations. It is not clear how much he will deliver on that score. On top of that, he is putting many chief executives in the position of answering for a president with an unparalleled track record of outraging people, most recently at a contentious press conference on Tuesday when he drew a false equivalence between the white supremacists who protested in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend and counter-protesters.”, NYT reported.

Trump had earned rebuke and isolation from business leaders for supporting racial bigotry, White Supremacists and the KKK, following his remarks that failed to blame the tragic violence in Charlottesville, Virginia on the groups. Instead, he blamed all the sides and the group that challenged the racists.

The leaders of three companies — Kenneth Frazier of Merck, Kevin Plank of Under Armour and Brian Krzanich of Intel — were the first to resign from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative Council.

They resigned on Monday because Mr. Trump was slow to condemn the white supremacists during the weekend and blamed “many sides” for the violence.

When Trump moderated his tone on Monday by saying “racism is evil” and also condemned neo-Nazis, he did not assuage some of the CEOs working with him.

Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, an organization backed by the steel industry and the United Steelworkers resigned. He was followed on Tuesday by Richard Trumka and Thea Lee, the president and deputy chief of staff for the union group A.F.L.-C.I.O. The latter’s resignation followed Trump’s reversed position at a press conference at Trump Tower in New York, in which he said that “not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me,” referring to the white nationalists who were chanting “Jews will not replace us” as they marched with tiki-torches.

Ogunlesi’s Strategic Forum, composed some of America’s most highly respected and successful business leaders.

Members of the body were expected to meet with Trump frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the president implemented his plan to bring back jobs and “Make America Great Again. ”

The other members of the forum were:

Paul Atkins, CEO of Patomak Global Partners, former commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission

Jim McNerney, former chairman, president, and CEO of Boeings

Kevin Warsh, Shepard Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow in economics at the Hoover Institute, former member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Apart from being managing partner of Global Infrastructure Partners, Ogunlesi also serves on the boards of Callaway Golf Co. and Kosmos Energy Ltd.

At the same time he is the chairman of Africa Finance Corp. and serves on the boards of various not-for-profits ranging from New York Presbyterian Hospital to the NAACP Legal Defence and Educational Fund, Inc.</s>President Donald Trump fired back against criticism of his late response to violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. This time he backed up his original comments blaming both sides again for an atmosphere that led to the car attack.



The president says that counter protesters were also to blame for the violence in Charlottesville. His staff was not expecting the president to take these questions.



President Donald Trump defiant, passionate, saying both sides were to blame for the violence that led to the death of one woman in Charlottesville, Virginia. "What about the alt left they came charging at the alt right, do they have any semblance of guilt? What about they came charging with clubs in their hand, do they have any problem? I think they do," said President Donald Trump.



The president says he condemned neo-Nazi's and white supremacists, but then doubled down on the shared blame for atmosphere of violence in Charlottesville. "You had a group you had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit and they were very, very violent," said the president.



Both Republicans and Democrats lined up to criticize the president. "That's unacceptable. The President was wrong to do that. And I've said that loud and clear," said Senator Cory Gardner, (R) Colorado. 



Senator Marco Rubio tweeting the president needs to call events in Charlottesville a "terror attack by white supremacists."



Senator Bernie Sanders on twitter called the president embarrassing to all the "Americans who fought and died to defeat Nazism."



Two group leaders publicly defended the president's comments as fair - the former head of the KKK, David Duke and white nationalist leader Richard Spencer.



Because of this.. Now six CEO's from the president's manufacturing council resigned. The president says they don't take their job seriously.</s>As companies bowed out of the American Manufacturing Council, the president elected to end it through an announcement on Twitter.

Among the companies to announce their departure before President Donald Trump's announcement was Connecticut-based United Technologies.

UTC's chairman and CEO posted his company's reasoning on Twitter.

"Earlier this year I was asked to participate in the American Manufacturing Council that was established by the new administration," said Greg Hayes, chairman and CEO, United Technologies. "This council, which is made up of more than 20 CEOs of leading American manufacturers, was tasked with developing policies to revitalize the American manufacturing sector. The administration has other councils focused on other policy areas, such as developing a competitive income tax code and streamlining burdensome regulation.

"UTC strongly supports the goals of each of these committees as a way of ensuring the enhancing economic growth in the decades to come.

"However, as the events of last week have unfolded here in the U.S., it is clear that we need to collectively stand together and denounce the politics of hate, intolerance and racism. The values that are the cornerstone of our culture: tolerance, empathy and trust, must be reaffirmed by our actions every day.

"Accordingly, I have tendered my resignation from the council effective immediately."

Trump posted on Wednesday afternoon that "rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council and Strategy and Policy Forum, I am ending both."

Trump created waves this week by "blaming both sides" following a weekend of violence in Charlottesville, VA. A counter protester was killed when a man plowed his vehicle into her group, which was facing off with white supremacists.</s>President Donald Trump had pushed many of America’s top corporate leaders to the breaking point with his inability to decisively condemn white supremacists so they huddled on an 11:30 a.m. conference call Wednesday.

The frustrated members of the White House policy forum which included executives from General Electric, Wal-Mart, General Motors, Boeing, IBM and JPMorgan Chase chose to dissolve their advisory panel. The White House was then phoned and Trump agreed that it was the right course of action, according to four people familiar with the talks who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations.

It was a shocking setback for Trump. The president had reveled in his ability to draw billionaires and corporate titans into the Oval Office, where he touted deals to invest in factories and add factory jobs. But by equating the white supremacists whose actions led to deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia to a group of counter-protesters, Trump had already inflicted damage on his manufacturing jobs council which had seven departures by Wednesday morning.

So after learning about this latest loss of confidence by his former strategic and policy forum, Trump tried to put a more favorable spin on the defections.

He fired off a tweet Wednesday saying that he chose to disband his strategy forum and manufacturing jobs panel, “rather than putting pressure” on CEOs to stay. “Thank you all!” the president wrote.

The alliance with the White House forged in hopes of overhauling the tax code, cutting regulations and jumpstarting new infrastructure investments had turned into a risk for corporate leaders. For those CEOs with shared policy aims, Trump’s recent statements were distractions that risked alienating employees and customers in an increasingly diverse United States.

“It is a leader’s role, in business or government, to bring people together, not tear them apart,” said Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, in a statement. Dimon also chairs the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs, that recently launched a multi-million dollar advertising campaign in support of Trump’s calls to cut corporate and personal tax rates.

GE’s chairman Jeffrey Immelt called the president’s remarks “deeply troubling.” The “ongoing tone” had made it difficult to foster policies that help economic growth, he said.

Companies were facing pressure on social media to denounce the president and resign from the White House advisory boards, while companies that had already cut ties were facing possible boycotts from Trump supporters. Only by acting together and having those panels disbanded would they be able to avoid harsher scrutiny not just from the public but also from a president with a track record of blasting individual companies that cross him on Twitter.

“The problem was it was quickly becoming a litmus test for companies, CEOs and brands,” said Timothy Calkins, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University. “This move takes away that issue because it allows everyone to back away without being seen as backing away.”

After Trump’s initial equivocating on Saturday about protests that stemmed from a planned removal of a Confederate statute, executives began to leave his manufacturing and jobs council. First was Merck, then Under Armour and Intel, followed by the Alliance for American Manufacturing and the AFL-CIO.

But many companies among the 28 represented on the panel sent out statements saying they believed it was important to engage with the White House.

Then Trump, for the second time, on Tuesday afternoon suggested that there was little difference between the actions of white supremacists groups and those protesting them in Virginia.

“There is blame on both sides,” he said, saying that any of the previous departures were due to companies being embarrassed about making goods overseas.

Shortly after those remarks on Tuesday, a pre-cautionary statement was drafted to disband the strategic and policy forum by Stephen Schwarzman, chair of the group and head of the investment firm Blackstone. The statement was adopted by the members of the forum on Wednesday morning as part of the decision to dissolve. The statement said they support “an inclusive pro-growth agenda” but that the debate about their relationship with the White House had become a “distraction.”

Still, the dissolution showed clear doubts in Trump’s leadership, said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management.

“The emperor is naked,” Sonnenfeld said. There had already been departures from two major councils created by the Trump administration that were tied to its policies.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk resigned from the manufacturing council in June, and two other advisory groups to the president, after the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. Walt Disney Co. Chairman and CEO Bob Iger resigned for the same reason from the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum.

But the disbanding of the advisory panels on Wednesday reflected grave doubts in Trump’s leadership rather than policy differences.

Larry Fink of the investment firm BlackRock told employees in a memo, “Such racism and bigotry must not just be condemned, but must be condemned unequivocally.”

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App</s>Washington, Aug 16 (EFE).- The president of the United States dissolved two business adversary councils on Wednesday after several chief executive officers quit over his remarks about last weekend’s violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Those same comments also have sparked condemnation from Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans, who accused him of drawing a moral equivalence between neo-Nazis and the leftist activists they clashed with on Saturday.

Trump disbanded the American Manufacturing Council, which had seen a gradual exodus of its members – including the CEOs of Intel, Merck, Under Armour and the president of the US’s largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO – since Monday, and the Strategic and Policy Forum, whose members decided to step down en masse on Wednesday.

“Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy (sic) & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!” Trump tweeted.

Fifteen members still remained on the manufacturing council, including the CEOs of Boeing, General Electric, Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin and Johnson & Johnson.

Trump was broadly criticized for his remarks at a Tuesday press conference about the events in Charlottesville, where white supremacists had obtained permits for a Saturday rally to protest plans to remove a statue in that city of Gen. Robert E. Lee, the army commander of the pro-slavery Confederacy during the 1861-1865 American Civil War.

Although Virginia’s Democratic governor declared a state of emergency and canceled the rally before it was scheduled to begin, clashes broke out between protesters and counter-demonstrators.

The situation turned deadly Saturday afternoon when a suspected neo-Nazi plowed his car into a crowd at an intersection in Charlottesville, killing one female counter-protester and injuring more than a dozen other people.

On Tuesday, Trump grew irritated at journalists who pressed him to more vehemently denounce the far-right protesters and said leftist activists had also acted lawlessly.

“You had a group on one side that was bad. And you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that, but I’ll say it right now. You had a group – you had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit, and they were very, very violent,” the president said.

In his most controversial remarks, Trump spoke favorably of some of the people protesting the removal of the statue.

“Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch.”

Trump’s remarks have been criticized by several prominent members of his party, including Sens. John McCain and Marco Rubio; the speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan; and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“There are no good neo-Nazis, and those who espouse their views are not supporters of American ideals and freedoms. We all have a responsibility to stand against hate and violence, wherever it raises its evil head,” McConnell said.

Two former Republican presidents – George H. W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush – issued a statement shortly after Trump’s remarks.

“America must always reject racial bigotry, antisemitism and hatred in all its forms,” the Bushes said, without referring to white supremacists.</s>It’s gotten beyond name-calling at this point.

When Paul Krugman of the New York Times calls Donald Trump “not a real American,” he now has solid facts backing him up.

Krugman’s Monday morning column, titled, “When The President Is Un-American,” lays out a convincing, point-by-point argument that Donald Trump holds the highest office in a land whose ideals he does not share.

Over the weekend, Trump crossed yet another line in his tumultuous, young presidency — refusing to denounce the white supremacy behind what his own Justice Department has labeled domestic terrorism. Trump’s equivocation in stating that “hatred, bigotry, and violence” came “from many sides” in the Charlottesville rally that led to the killing of a 32-year-old woman shows exactly which side he is on.

It was much later — Monday afternoon — before Trump reversed course and condemned the KKK, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis in a rambling video address which opened with boasts about the success of his economic policies.

The racists and neo-Nazis declared victory with Trump’s original statement over the weekend, with white supremacist website The Daily Stormer crowing that Trump’s response was “really, really good” and that they received “no condemnation at all.” (That was before the site’s domain host GoDaddy.com told the site to find another provider for violating the company’s terms of service.)

Trump’s Monday statement, which might have seemed adequate as a first response to the violence, appeared forced. He read the speech off of a teleprompter and did not make his usual off-the-cuff interludes.

The problem comes down to the fact that Donald Trump is president of the United States, an office in which he at once fills the roles of commander-in-chief, head of state, chief executive, and all-around leader.

As Krugman points out, this is a man who — rather than celebrating the openness and inclusiveness on which our country was based — has chosen to turn his back on the values we consider American.

In Northampton, protesting the acts of the Trump Administration has become such a frequent local activity that the police department is starting to track overtime specifically used for protests.

Meanwhile, there are other pressing issues Trump’s constant outrages — and the need to speak out against them — take our attention away from. Our own state government laid off hundreds of toll workers and installed license-plate reading cameras along the Mass Pike in the name of convenience. It is now clear from reporting by Masslive.com that initial fears they would be used for surveillance and be vulnerable to abuse have come true.

Masslive reports that, thus far, the license plate data collected by the toll cameras has been abused at least once by a contractor who sifted through a month of data without a warrant to find a specific license plate of a suspect in a murder case. They didn’t find it. In fact, the system has not led police to any actionable information or led to any arrests, but it has created a database tracking people’s movements on the MassPike, according to the Masslive article.

But who has time to pay attention when we are constantly thinking our commander-in-chief might get us into a nuclear war? That our head of state is colluding with foreign governments to stay in power? That our chief executive is taking advantage of his higher office for personal financial gain? Or that our leader condones bigotry, white supremacy, and Nazi ideals — and, by extension, the violence they promote?

Dave Eisenstadter can be reached at deisen@valleyadvocate.com.</s>As President Trump's two major business councils fell apart this week over his response to the race-fueled violence in Charlottesville, the president said he was disbanding both of the groups. He tweeted Wednesday: "Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!"

Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!

By the time Trump made the announcement Wednesday, a fourth of the original members of the American Manufacturing Council had already resigned. The New York Times had reported minutes before that members of the Strategic and Policy Forum, another group of prominent CEOs, had been debating dissolving the group.



The disbanding of the councils is a major blow to Trump, who frequently touts his business experience and ability to work with economic leaders.

Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JP Morgan Chase, said in a statement Wednesday that the group had agreed to disband. "There is no room for equivocation here: the evil on display by these perpetrators of hate should be condemned," Dimon said. "It is a leader's role, in business or government, to bring people together, not tear them apart."

After the CEO of the pharmaceutical company Merck, Kenneth Frazier, resigned Monday morning, citing Trump's failure to forcefully denounce white supremacist groups who incited racist violence in Charlottesville, other council members faced mounting pressure to resign. The hashtag #QuitTheCouncil was trending on Twitter on Tuesday.

A cascade of resignations — and denunciations of Trump — began after a Tuesday press conference in which Trump defended white supremacists.

"The President's most recent statements equating those who are motivated by race-based hate with those who stand up against hatred is unacceptable and has changed our decision to participate," said Johnson and Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky, who stepped down Wednesday afternoon.

"Racism and murder are unequivocally reprehensible and are not morally equivalent to anything else that happened in Charlottesville. I believe the President should have been – and still needs to be – unambiguous on that point," said Campbell Soup CEO Denise Morrison.



In a statement, a representative from the Strategic and Policy Forum said "we believe the debate over Forum participation has become a distraction from our well-intentioned and sincere desire to aid vital policy discussions on how to improve the lives of everyday Americans. As such, the President and we are disbanding the Forum."

Here is the full statement, sent to BuzzFeed News:

As our members have expressed individually over the past several days, intolerance, racism and violence have absolutely no place in this country and are an affront to core American values. The President's Strategic and Policy Forum was conceived as a bi-partisan group of business leaders called to serve our country by providing independent feedback and perspectives directly to the President on accelerating economic growth and job creation in the United States. We believe the debate over Forum participation has become a distraction from our well-intentioned and sincere desire to aid vital policy discussions on how to improve the lives of everyday Americans. As such, the President and we are disbanding the Forum. Job creation and supporting an inclusive pro-growth agenda remain vitally important to the progress of our country. As Americans, we are all united in our desire to see our country succeed.

BuzzFeed News has reached out to the White House and to council members for comment.</s>The members of Trump's main business council discussed disbanding the group entirely according to multiple reports.

According to the New York Times' David Gelles, Landon Thomas Jr., and Kate Kelly, the members of the Strategic and Policy Forum held a phone call on Wednesday to discuss the future of the council and their relationship with the White House.

The discussion comes two days after the departure of Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier from Trump's manufacturing council, another one of the White House's meetings of business leaders, set off a wave of departures from that group. Frazier and other business leaders cited Trump's muddled response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia as the impetus for the exits.

The Strategic and Policy Forum features a diverse group of leaders including JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, General Motors CEO Mary Barra, and Walmart CEO Doug McMillon. Steve Schwarzman, CEO of private equity giant Blackstone, is the leader of the council.

According to the Times, even if the group did not disband, a number of executives said they would depart from the council.

Trump, for his part, attacked those executives who left the manufacturing council calling them "grandstanders" and saying they were "embarrassed" because they manufactured their products outside of the US.

The manufacturing council is expected to hold a similar phone call as the Strategic Forum's later on Wednesday.</s>NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Several U.S. chief executives had been considering resigning from Donald Trump's business advisory councils for months after the president said he would pull out of the Paris climate accord and ban transgender people from the military, sources told Reuters on Wednesday, long before Trump's comments on racial violence this week pushed them over the edge.

Trump disbanded two high-profile advisory groups on Wednesday, after the head of his Strategic and Policy Forum advised the White House the group was breaking up, and a trickle of departures from his American Manufacturing Council threatened to become a mass exodus.

"He was at 95 percent already," a source close to Larry Fink, head of investment firm BlackRock Inc, said of Fink's leaning toward resigning from the Strategic and Policy Forum.

"I think that (Trump's latest comments) just made it 120 percent."

A number of CEOs started to consider more seriously whether to disband after Trump's initial remarks blaming violence at Saturday's white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on "many sides," which was taken to include not only white nationalists but also anti-racism activists who opposed them.

Merck & Co Inc CEO Kenneth Frazier, an African-American, was the first to leave the manufacturing council on Monday over Trump's weekend reaction.

Trump then attacked Frazier on Twitter, prompting other CEOs to consider quitting also. Frazier's resignation was followed by the CEOs of Under Armour Inc and Intel Corp later on Monday.

Trump's fiery comments on Tuesday, doubling down on his initial response to the Virginia rally, unnerved CEOs already doubting the utility and public relations value of remaining on Trump's councils, sources close to several of the CEOs told Reuters.

Soon after Trump's comments on Tuesday, JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon, who serves on the Strategic and Policy Forum, started pushing for the forum to take some kind of action, a person close to him said.

Dimon had previously expressed exasperation with politics in Washington, saying in July that it is "almost an embarrassment being an American citizen traveling around the world."

Sensing a breakdown in the group, Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of money manager Blackstone Group and chairman of the Strategic and Policy Forum, convened a call on Wednesday for its members.

After some debate, "the momentum was such that there wasn't much room for dissent," said one source familiar with the discussion.

The decision to disband was agreed and Schwarzman called the White House to inform the president, the source said. Shortly after, Trump tweeted that he was disbanding the two groups.

The leader of the manufacturing council, Dow Chemical Co CEO Andrew Liveris, had planned a call with remaining members to try to salvage the group on Wednesday, according to an email seen by Reuters. The call never took place, superseded by Trump's dissolution of the group.

Sources familiar with the discussions of the boards of Merck and Intel said that they backed their CEOs' decisions to leave because they did not believe stepping down from Trump's councils would have a negative impact on their businesses.

"I don't think these are personal decisions," said Blain Rethmeier, a Republican strategist who worked on the Trump transition and consults with companies in California. "I think these are made through the eyes of what's in the best interest of the company, and the brand risks of what it means to be involved with the council became too much." (Additional reporting by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru, David Henry, Michael Erman and Olivia Oran in New York, and Ginger Gibson in Washington; Writing by Bill Rigby; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Howard Goller)</s>President Donald Trump's war with CNN went off the rails Tuesday morning after he retweeted an image of a Trump train running over a CNN reporter, then quickly deleted it after the meme sparked criticism as inappropriate, particularly coming just days after the Charlottesville violence.

Mr Trump was in the middle of a morning tweetstorm when he sent the image, posted by a supporter who added "Nothing can stop the #TrumpTrain!!," to his nearly 36 million followers.

The president quickly deleted his handiwork but not before the original tweet had been retweeted hundreds of times and was captured on screenshots.

Mr Trump's promotion of the image came three days after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville that turned into a violent clash between the supremacists and counter-protesters that led to the deaths of three people. A driver slammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring at least 19 others; a 20-year old man who has reportedly espoused neo-Nazi views has been charged with second-degree murder in the case. Two police officers were killed when their helicopter crashed.

Mr Trump did not immediately condemn the hate groups behind the "Unite the Right" rally, drawing criticism from Democrats and some Republicans. On Monday, the president attempted to make amends and denounced the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis by name, while calling white supremacists "repugnant to all that we hold dear as Americans."

But even as he attempted to clarify his views, Mr Trump seemed eager to blame the backlash on reporters, in particular CNN. As the president was wrapping up a photo op related to international trade Monday, CNN correspondent Jim Acosta asked him why he had waited so long to condemn the hate groups by name and why he had not answered questions from reporters.

"I like real news, not fake news," Mr Trump said. Pointing a finger toward Acosta, Mr Trump added: "You are fake news."

If the president awoke Tuesday thinking his Twitter account would help him regain control of his political narrative, he was mistaken, however, as he also misfired in retweeting a man calling him a "fascist."

A user named Mike Holden was replying to a Fox News story that said Mr Trump had told the network in an interview that he was considering issuing a presidential pardon for former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was found guilty of defying a judge's order to halt traffic patrols on suspected undocumented immigrants. "He's a fascist, so not unusual," Mr Holden wrote, only to find himself retweeted by the 45th president of the United States.

Mr Holden has posted a rapid-fire series of tweets and retweets over the past days on British politics and the fallout from the violence in Charlottesville, including a retweet of cartoon in the Guardian newspaper depicting the White House topped by a KKK-style pointed hood. The Twitter page also has various tributes to Bernard Kenney, a British man who attempted to subdue a far-right gunman who fatally shot British parliament member Jo Cox last year. Kenney, who was stabbed by the attacker Thomas Mair, died Monday.

Mr Holden quickly set a screenshot of Trump's retweet as his Twitter background image and boasted about the endorsement - kind of - in his bio on the social media site.

"Officially Endorsed by the President of the United States," he wrote. "I wish that were a good thing."
President Donald Trump disbands both the Strategic and Policy Forum and American Manufacturing Council in response to the CEO resignations.