JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has been speaking with Donald Trump in latest months via secret again channels, serving to the president-elect hammer out a coverage agenda earlier than and since his decisive White Home victory, The Put up has discovered.
The 68-year-old Wall Road titan — who, like 78-year-old Trump, grew up in Queens in New York Metropolis — has acted as “a sounding board” for the incoming commander-in-chief’s financial manifesto, 4 sources near Trump’s transition workforce mentioned.
One GOP insider mentioned the president-elect’s internal circle held a sequence of “no-holds-barred conversations” with Dimon — who on the time was rumored to be eyeing a authorities job himself.
“They have been speaking regularly for months,” mentioned one other GOP supply briefed on the state of affairs.
Three of the sources near Trump mentioned the key again channel targeted on plans for reducing authorities spending, banking regulation, taxes and commerce.
An organization insider added that Trump’s high aides arrange the calls, which continued after the election, to “create a bit of daylight” between the 2 males and cease particulars of the exchanges leaking.
A spokesperson for the Trump transition workforce declined to remark. A JPMorgan spokesman additionally declined to remark.
The quietly cozy relationship between Trump and Dimon has flourished regardless of the banker’s cryptic and tight-lipped tendencies in relation to politics. Trump had floated Dimon’s identify as a attainable Treasury secretary choose in June and later claimed he had received his White Home endorsement — regardless of an absence of any public assertion from Dimon to that impact.
Trump and Dimon even have continued to speak regardless of bouts of pressure, together with on Nov. 14 when the president-elect declared on Reality Social that Dimon ”won’t be invited” to hitch his Cupboard. The banker promptly shot again: “I haven’t had a boss in 25 years and I’m not about ready to start.”
The JPMorgan CEO, a registered Democrat who declined to again both candidate within the White Home race, had even reportedly toyed with the concept of becoming a member of a Kamala Harris administration however then dominated himself out of leaving the Wall Road large when her ballot numbers tanked, The Put up beforehand reported.
On Nov. 22, The Put up broke the information that Trump was additionally consulting with Blackrock CEO Larry Fink, a serious Dem donor, on coverage points.
Nonetheless, the previous” Apprentice” star’s admiration of Dimon, who has helmed JPMorgan Chase for almost twenty years and has a internet price estimated by Forbes at $2.6 billion, was described by one supply as “a man crush.”
One other particular person near the president-elect mentioned Trump “greatly appreciated” it when Dimon, an avid reader of the New York Put up, instructed CNBC in January the eventual election winner was “kind of right” to criticize unlawful immigration and weak protection spending by America’s NATO allies.
Dimon’s feedback angered left-wingers inside the Biden administration who then blacklisted Dimon from the White Home in a match of pique, as The Put up solely reported.
Two weeks in the past, the JPMorgan boss mentioned Trump’s risk of slapping tariffs on Uncle Sam’s main buying and selling companions “will bring people to the table” if “done wisely.”
Dimon, a vocal critic of present US banking guidelines, not too long ago slammed the ‘onslaught’ of pink tape drafted by Dem-backed regulators, launching a foul-mouthed tirade over a listing of his most-hated items of laws at a latest convention in New York,
“It’s time to fight back…I’ve had it with this s–t,” Dimon instructed the shocked viewers.
The JPMorgan boss singled out rules aimed toward retaining banks proof against monetary storms by forcing them to carry extra capital on their steadiness sheets. The proposal, often known as Basel III, would see main lenders elevate that emergency buffer by 9%.
“Things are becoming unfair and unjust, and they are hurting companies, a lot of these rules are hurting lower-paid individuals,” Dimon mentioned on Oct. 28.
Dimon, who pulled down a wage of $34.5 million final yr, urged the US authorities in his annual letter to shareholders final Might to ship “effective policy-making” issuing a warning that “a politician’s dream is a businessman’s nightmare.”
Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo mentioned Trump’s second time period as president will current “the biggest inflection point for banking regulation in three decades.”
“This is Jamie’s vindication,” Mayo instructed The Put up. “He is looking at all the bureaucracy and red tape and saying enough of the regulatory theater. It’s like banking with one hand tied behind your back”
Mayo added that Trump probably taking an ax to stringent banking guidelines “should mean borrowers get better rates for their loans and better services for customers.”
The highest analyst mentioned: “It would be foolhardy for any administration not to hear Jamie Dimon out. Everyone should at least be consulting him for ideas.”
The revelations that Trump has sought recommendation from a “kitchen cabinet” of Wall Road bigwigs comes after his appointment of staunch loyalist and hedge fund mogul Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary.
He has been hunkered down at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Seashore constructing his workforce for his new administration.
Trump’s transfer to hunt casual counsel from titans of American finance, who’re outdoors his MAGA internal circle, might present additional reassurance to traders forward of his second time period within the White Home that kicks off on Jan. 20.
