JPMorgan Chase CEO Calls for More Respect When Discussing Trump Voters

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told CNBC hosts that people need to be more respectful when discussing former President Donald Trump’s supporters.

“I wish the Democrats would think a little more carefully when they talk about MAGA,” Mr. Dimon said, referring to the Trump slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

Democrats, he said, are scapegoating Trump supporters, who he said aren’t voting for Trump because of his “family values,” but because of his effectiveness in office.

“Just take a step back—be honest—he was kind of right about NATO, kind of right about immigration,” Mr. Dimon said. “He grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China. … He wasn’t wrong about some of these critical issues, and that’s why they’re voting for him.”

Because they are fellow citizens, Democrats should refrain from disparaging Trump voters as they have been doing, he said.

One host agreed, saying it’s “hard to hate 75 million of your fellow Americans.”

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Mr. Dimon said that framing Trump supporters as “deplorables” who are “hugging onto their Bibles and their beer and their guns” is not going to help Democrats.

“I mean, really, could we just stop that stuff and actually grow up and treat other people with respect and listen to them a little bit?” Mr. Dimon said. “I think this negative talk about MAGA is going to hurt Biden’s election campaign.”

Comparing MAGA to Nazis

President Joe Biden and other Democrats have made President Trump and his supporters the central focus in their campaigns, as exemplified in several of President Biden’s speeches comparing MAGA-aligned people to Nazis.

President Biden later stated that one can’t be “pro-insurrectionist and pro-American.”

“Yet Trump and his MAGA supporters not only embrace political violence but they laugh about it,” President Biden said.

In his infamous 2022 midterm election speech titled “Soul of the Nation,” with a glowing red backdrop, President Biden said that President Trump was the figurehead in an extremist movement within the Republican party that threatens Democracy.

On Tuesday, after President Trump easily won the Iowa caucuses, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow refused to air his victory speech.

“The reason I’m saying this is of course there is a reason that we and other news organizations have generally stopped giving an unfiltered live platform to remarks made by former President Donald Trump,” she said. “It is not out of spite. It is not a decision that we relish. It is a decision that we regularly revisit. And honestly, it is not an easy decision.”

She then framed his supporters as fascists.

“If we are worried about the rise in authoritarianism in this country, if we are worried about this potential rise of fascism in this country, if we are worried about our democracy falling to an authoritarian and potentially fascist form of government, the leader who is trying to do that is part of that equation, but people wanting that is a much bigger part of that equation,” she said.

Co-host Joy Reid complained that Iowa is “overrepresented by white Christians” and quoted Robert Jones, president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute. She said Mr. Jones told her that white evangelical Christians believe they are “rightful inheritors of this country” who see all others as “fraudulent American[s].”

Iowa Win

President Trump won 51 percent of the vote in Iowa, the largest margin of victory in history for the Republican race at the Iowa caucuses.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came in second at 21 percent, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley finished third at 19 percent, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy finished fourth at 7.7 percent.

Mr. Ramaswamy later stepped out of the race and endorsed President Trump.

Mr. Dimon was initially answering a question about what the economy will look like in this election year.

Among the issues he highlighted were the Russia-Ukraine war and terrorist activity in Israel that will play into how the U.S. elections are shaped.

“I think it’s a mistake to assume that everything’s hunky dory,” he said. “When stock markets are up, it’s kind of like this little drug we all feel, like ‘it’s just great,’ but remember, we’ve had so much fiscal monetary stimulation, so I’m a little more on the cautious side that we are facing a lot of things in 2024 or ‘25.”