Former President Donald Trump is set to attend a closed-door meeting with one of Washington's most powerful business lobbying groups as he seeks to build a coalition with major corporate leaders.
In an email to members on Wednesday, Business Roundtable CEO Joshua Bolten confirmed that Trump will attend the group's general meeting in Washington on June 13. President Joe Biden had been invited but cannot attend because of an international trip to the G7 meeting. Bolten's email said the business group has instead asked White House chief of staff Jeff Zients to attend. Zients accepted the invitation last week and is expected to address the group on June 13, a person familiar with his plans said.
The meeting will be private and closed to reporters, Bolton wrote in the message, adding that Trump's team had confirmed to the group that the former president would be attending.
After this article was published, the Business Roundtable confirmed in a statement that Trump would address its members at its upcoming quarterly conference. The group also confirmed that Zients would be speaking to the group because Biden will be overseas.
“As per usual, this spring the Business Roundtable invited presidential candidates from both major parties to speak to its members at its CEO quarterly meeting in June,” said Michael Steele, the organization's senior vice president of communications. “Former President Trump accepted. President Biden will be traveling overseas to the G7, but White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients will be attending in his place.”
The Trump campaign later confirmed that the former president would take part in a “moderated discussion” at the meeting.
The membership invitations came nearly a week after Trump was convicted in New York of falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to porn stars, charges he continues to deny.
The meeting, which could include the full membership of the Business Roundtable, a group of more than 200 CEOs, could be a pivotal moment for Trump, who has been urging business leaders to support and donate to his presidential campaign while touting the idea of tax cuts and across-the-board tariffs if he beats Biden.
Members of the group include Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, who recently endorsed Trump and said he would like to back an alternative to him in 2022. Other members include JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Carlyle Group CEO Harvey Schwartz, AT&T CEO John Stankey and Chevron CEO Mike Wirth.
The Business Roundtable has not always been supportive of Trump's policies during his presidency.
While the group supported President Trump's tax cut policies, it opposed the then-president's tariff policies on Chinese products.
In 2017, several members of the committee resigned from the White House Business Advisory Council following the white supremacist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Chuck Robbins, Cisco's chairman and CEO and now chairman of the Business Roundtable, said at the time that “it is incomprehensible that we are having this conversation in 2017,” and that the company condemned “racism, discrimination, neo-Nazism and white supremacy.”
Following the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the Business Roundtable condemned the attack and called on President Trump to “end the chaos and facilitate a peaceful transition of power.”
Still, Trump has regularly tried to court some wealthy business leaders, despite his apparent disagreements with them.
Trump's chief campaign adviser, Suzie Wiles, spoke to a group of Republican megadonors in Florida in January, led by veteran investor Paul Singer, about why she thinks they should support Trump.
Even after the conviction, Republican-leaning business leaders have downplayed Trump's conviction and, in some cases, pledged further support, with his operation announcing it had raised more than $50 million in the 24 hours following his guilty plea last week.
