President Donald Trump said that CEOs leaving his business council "are not taking their job seriously" and aren't committed to U.S. manufacturing. Trump pours gasoline on feud with CEOs The president ramps up attacks on leaders who have left his manufacturing council, calling them 'grandstanders.'

The businessman president is bleeding support from business leaders he once called allies — and his latest comments cost him another adviser.

“I cannot sit on a council for a President that tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism,” Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, said in a statement on Tuesday, an hour after President Donald Trump defended protesters in Charlottesville at a free-wheeling news conference. “His comments today were the last straw.”


Since Monday morning, Trumka and four other business leaders have dropped out of Trump’s manufacturing council, citing his inadequate response to the Virginia protests or suggesting that their companies shouldn’t be involved in politics.

Trump on Tuesday escalated his feud with those leaders, accusing them of failing to do their jobs and rebuffing criticism from Walmart’s CEO that his comments about Charlottesville were insufficient.

The business leaders are leaving his advisory council because “they are not taking their job seriously” and aren’t committed to U.S. manufacturing, Trump said on Tuesday. “We want products made in the country,” he added. “I have to tell you, some of the folks that will leave, they’re leaving out of embarrassment, because they made their products outside.”

Earlier in the day, the president tweeted that the departing CEOs were “grandstanders.”

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Trump’s latest attacks — coupled with his renewed defense of the protesters in Charlottesville — only heighten the conundrum for business leaders, who don’t want to antagonize the White House but are also facing growing calls for possible boycotts. One social media campaign targeted Campbell’s Soup, whose CEO remains on the manufacturing council, with images of a soup can labeled “Swastika Stew.” Liberal activists have deluged participating companies like IBM and Dell with emails and calls urging them to leave the council.

Meanwhile, Trump supporters are calling for a boycott of Under Armour, after CEO Kevin Plank left the council on Monday night.

About two dozen business leaders remain on Trump’s manufacturing council, and another 20 executives serve on other White House advisory groups. Executives have suggested the largely symbolic councils allow them to get unfiltered access to the president, while the administration has touted the meetings as a sign of Trump's pro-business ties.

Although five major leaders — Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier; Intel CEO Brian Krzanich; Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing; and Plank and Trumka — have left Trump’s manufacturing council since Monday morning, the president has focused his attacks on Frazier, criticizing the company twice on Twitter and again at Tuesday’s news conference in New York.

“Look at Merck as an example … take a look at where their product is made. It is made outside of our country,” the president said. “I have been lecturing them, including the gentleman that you are referring to, about you have to bring it back to this country. You can't do it necessarily in Ireland and all of these other places.”

But on July 20, Trump praised Merck at a “Made in America” event at the White House, hailing the company for its work on a new manufacturing initiative in the United States. “I especially want to thank Ken Frazier … along with all the great people at Merck, Pfizer and Corning for believing in America and the American workers,” Trump said at the time.

Other participants have criticized the president but said they would remain on the council.

"Several members have made the decision to leave [the] council, and I respect their decision as a matter of personal conscience," Alex Gorsky, CEO of Johnson & Johnson, said in a statement on Tuesday. But “if we aren’t in the room advocating for global health as a top priority, if we aren’t there standing up for our belief in diversity … then we have abdicated our Credo responsibility.”

Earlier in the day, Trump blasted the departing business leaders and suggested he had replacements in mind. “For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!” the president tweeted at 11:21 a.m. Tuesday.

However, no other CEOs have since stepped forward to join the council. Instead, a growing number of business leaders have questioned the president's actions.

In a statement on Tuesday, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said the president “missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together by unequivocally rejecting the appalling actions of white supremacists.”

Trump countered that his initial remarks on Charlottesville were measured and defensible, given that the situation was still evolving on Saturday afternoon.

“The head of Walmart, who I know, who’s a very nice guy, was making a political statement,” the president said. “I mean, I would do it the same way.”

Nolan McCaskill contributed to this report.