President Donald Trump just intensified a war of words with Jamie Dimon, the CEO of the country’s largest bank.
‘The problem with banker Jamie Dimon running for President is that he doesn’t have the aptitude or “smarts” & is a poor public speaker & nervous mess - otherwise he is wonderful. I’ve made a lot of bankers, and others, look much smarter than they are with my great economic policy!’ —President Trump
The president, via Twitter on Thursday, referred to the head of JPMorgan Chase & Co JPM, -1.18% as “a poor public speaker & nervous mess,” who doesn’t have the “aptitude” to be commander in chief, in an apparent response to Dimon’s comments a day ago.
On Wednesday, the outspoken JPMorgan chieftain said he could beat Trump in a presidential contest, claiming that he was ”smarter” than the 45th U.S. president during an event sponsored by the bank. Dimon later moderated those remarks, emphasizing that he wasn’t officially throwing his hat in the ring for president, adding that he shouldn’t have made his comments.
However, Dimon’s attempt to walk back the contentious remarks didn’t appear to be sufficient to stay Trump’s Twitter fingers.
The problem with banker Jamie Dimon running for President is that he doesn’t have the aptitude or “smarts” & is a poor public speaker & nervous mess - otherwise he is wonderful. I’ve made a lot of bankers, and others, look much smarter than they are with my great economic policy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
“I get frustrated because I want all sides to come together to help solve big problems,” Dimon said on Wednesday via emailed remarks from a JPMorgan representative.
In the past, Dimon has described himself as a patriot who wants to serve his country but so far has been reluctant about entering the political arena in earnest. “I would love to be president of the United States of America” he said, according to a Vanity Fair article.
Shares of JPMorgan were up 0.1% in premarket trade on Thursday and have gained 5.7% so far in 2018, exceeding the performance of its banking peers, as of Wednesday’s close of trade.
By comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.11% of which JPMorgan is a component, is up 5.2%, while the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.04% has advanced by 8.1% and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -0.23% has climbed by more than 15% so far this year, according to FactSet data.
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