Stuart Varney: There's a new sheriff in town
During his "My Take" on Wednesday, "Varney & Co." host Stuart Varney discussed corporate leaders changing their tune with a new Trump administration looming.
Stuart Varney: My how times change when there's a new sheriff in town.
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For the last four years, Corporate America has lined up with Biden. Maybe they really believed the progressive message. Maybe they were frightened by the administration's demagoguery on climate, race, gender and pronouns. Who knows? But it’s over.
Corporate America is now in a headlong rush to change sides.
Just look at Mark Zuckerberg and Meta. He and his company had bent over backwards to help Democrats. Zuckerberg gave $400 million for the 2020 election. After the Jan. 6th riot, Facebook banned Donald Trump. How's that for free speech? And when anyone tried to post unconventional views on COVID, they were censored!
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Now a complete reversal. Zuckerberg makes the trek to Mar-a-Lago, gives money for Trump's inauguration, and then comes up with a new free speech plan that is modeled on Elon Musk's "X." In a video, he says there's just been too much censorship! Think about this — a trillion-dollar company does a 180. The new sheriff clearly has Zuckerberg worried, if not scared stiff.
And then there's DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion, the advanced version of affirmative action. The Biden team pushed it hard. Now, DEI is being dropped almost across the board.
The latest to retreat is McDonald’s. On Monday, it announced it will abandon specific diversity goals for its top executives. Meritocracy is making a comeback. Granted a Supreme Court ruling outlawing affirmative action in colleges has helped end DEI, but it was Donald Trump who engineered the court's conservative majority.
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Right after his election win, Trump held court at Mar-a-Lago. Media people went down to kiss the ring. Remember Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski desperately trying to get back on Trump's good side after years of insults? And there was Canada’s Justin Trudeau, clearly afraid of Trump's tariffs. But it was the stream of executives who showed us the extent of the corporate changes Trump will bring in. Bankers, oil guys, Wall Street people, and, of course, the CEOs of all those trillion-dollar technology companies.
They want to influence the new administration, and they're not afraid to switch sides. They'll ditch Biden and go with Trump, because he has the White House, the Senate and the House, and all the power that goes with it.