Jamie Dimon said his daughter wrote him a 'long, elegant, nasty letter' after he joined Trump's business council. He referenced MLK to explain why he did it.
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Heather Schlitz
Oct 5, 2021, 00:28 IST
Then-President Donald Trump shakes hands with JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
JPM CEO Jamie Dimon's daughter asked 'how could you, Dad?' after he joined Trump's business council.
Dimon explained by saying Martin Luther King would have gone to "fight for his people."
The business council disbanded following Trump's remarks on a violent far-right rally in Charlottesville.
The CEO and chairman told "Axios on HBO" in an interview that he replied to her by saying Martin Luther King would have kept going to the meetings with Donald Trump to fight.
"You know I love my daughters, but after I went into Trump's business council, one wrote me a long, elegant, nasty letter you know about 'How could you, Dad?'" he said. "And I wrote her back saying you got everything right except for the conclusion, but Martin Luther King would be going seeing President Trump every time to fight, fight for his people."
Dimon made the remarks about the letter from his daughter in response to a question about how he picks and chooses which issues to publicly comment on.
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He told Axios CEO Jim VandeHei that he chooses to comment on some issues and stay silent on others, and has publicly talked about issues such as racial equity and human rights.
"We believe in human rights. We believe in free enterprise. We believe in the capitalist system. That's all counter to China," he said, when asked about China's treatment of its Uyghurs population being called genocide by the US, and why he hasn't spoken specifically about that or lobbied China's government for change.
"The government needs to do that," he said. "I could do whatever I want ... I'm not going to do whatever I want without my board when it's something like that, but we believe in human rights, we don't believe in genocide or anything like that. But for me to like gratuitously make public statements I think is a mistake."
A spokesperson for Dimon declined to comment.
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