- The mass exodus of corporate support could affect how senators vote on Trump’s indictment, experts say.
- Dozens of companies have raised money from GOP lawmakers who voted against Biden’s certification.
- CEOs say they increasingly have no choice but to bring politics into the council chamber.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Moral beliefs may not be the only reason GOP lawmakers turn their backs on former President Donald Trump.
Lawmakers who voted against ratifying Joe Biden as president may also reconsider their position after losing corporate funding, experts told Insider.
After Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in a desperate attempt to overthrow the presidential election results, which turned into a violent uprising, killing five people, businesses quickly severed ties with Trump and the legislators who dismissed his unfounded supported claims of election fraud.
Read more: Lawmakers, Hill staff members and reporters recount the disturbing experience when a pro-Trump mob broke into the Capitol to protest the voter turnout.
Walmart, Amazon and Morgan Stanley are among the companies that have cut political funding to the 147 GOP lawmakers who voted against ratifying Joe Biden as president. Hallmark went a step further and asked Republican senators Josh Hawley and Roger Marshall, who both voted against Biden’s certification, to repay their political donations.
The mass exodus of corporate support could have an effect on politicians’ actions, experts told Insider.
“Cutting funding is hitting these politicians where it hurts,” Donald Hambrick, a professor of management at Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University, told Insider.
The withholding of donations is ‘probably the deepest of the actions that can be taken’, he added.
The House of Representatives voted on January 13 to accuse Trump. It is now up to the Senate to decide whether he is guilty. If he gets the two-thirds majority needed to be convicted, the Senate will vote on whether he refrains from ever holding public office again.
“I think senators will cringe,” Hambrick said.
As more FBI reports and video footage of the riots are released, more companies will act and “senators will quarrel all the more,” Hambrick added. That could ultimately affect the way senators vote, he said.
“These corporations could have a significant impact on the votes of senators,” he said.
“The vote in the Senate may not be in Trump’s favor.”
Trump’s closest political allies are under pressure from party members to continue with Trump and from companies and other politicians to pull off him, Eric Schiffer, chairman of Reputation Management Consultants, told Insider.
California Representative Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the House minority, may have started stepping in his support of Trump because of the corporate response, Hambrick said.
House Minority Leader Representative Kevin McCarthy and former President Trump in the Oval Office.
Anna Moneymaker / The New York Times / POOL / Getty Images
“People say it’s mainly because of the cuts he’s experiencing and his party faces. Observers are tracking his own face to these cuts in the company,” Hambrick said, referring to news reports he read.
“People have tracked it down to all the cuts in corporate donations, specifically to him.”
Insider contacted McCarthy’s office for comment.
Companies not just remove financing
This is not the only action that businesses can take to cut ties with Trump and his supporters.
Hambrick has been increasingly grouping together over the past few years to write open letters, but that may not have had such a big impact on politicians.
“If the Business Roundtable were to write a letter, it would have an effect, but not so much as a reduction in political donations,” Hambrick said.
Companies have probably cut funding to specific politicians in the past, Hambrick said, but “nothing on this scale, nothing with so much fanfare or visibility.”
Businesses are also taking other actions in response to the siege, but it is not necessarily aimed at politicians, explained Forrest Briscoe, a professor of management at Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University.
Twitter, for example, cleared 70,000 accounts linked to QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory, and Amazon Web Services, Apple, and Google were among the companies that had ties to Parler, a social media site popular with Trump supporters. , cut.
Briscoe also referred to the New York Stock Exchange. Jeffrey Sprecher is head of his parent company, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). Sprecher is married to Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler, an ardent Trump supporter who has supported his unfounded allegations of election fraud.
Loeffler was one of the lawmakers who planned to vote against Joe Biden’s certification as president, although she changed her mind after the siege. But her years of support for Trump could still make businesses think about their relationship with the NYSE, Briscoe said.
As more information about the siege is released, “it will get uglier and uglier, and employees and customers will rely on these businesses to do something and punish the Republicans who helped bring it about,” Hambrick said.
Companies become increasingly political
“Many of us are reluctant to end up in political waters,” a CEO, on condition of anonymity, told Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, founder of Yale’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute. “We do not want to bring politics to the council chamber or to our employees.”
“But we must realize that threats to the rule of law are legitimate matters,” they continued. “It’s completely legal and that’s why it’s so important that we talk about these issues.”
According to Briscoe, the number of companies responding to the siege in the Capitol will increase in the coming weeks, leading to a long-term trend for businesses to become more political.
Their reasons for socio-political activism vary, he added.
“Sometimes it’s clear in the firm’s interest, and sometimes not, it’s just about values and beliefs and positions that people have as citizens or personally,” Briscoe explained.
Often, businesses decide to take action because of the demand from their employees, Briscoe explained. Staff have become increasingly outspoken over the past few years about their socio-political stance and have urged their businesses to take action, he said. For example, Google employees fought against Alphabet’s contract with the U.S. government’s Department of Defense over Project Maven, a drone war project – and after months of protests, the company said it would not renew the contract.
But it is not just employees who have asked companies to respond to the siege of the Capitol.
CEOs are under pressure to consult their boards before taking action such as reducing or limiting corporate funding, Hambrick said. And the directors even introduced the idea to the CEO in the first place, he added.
And here they also have the support of customers. The Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of companies also putting money down, The Harris Poll found. In its survey of 1,960 Americans, nearly three out of four said they support their provisional political donations.
Ultimately, it’s important what companies and CEOs do, Sonnenfeld told Insider.
“The business leaders are currently the most reliable pillar – over the clergy, public servants, even media and academics,” he said.