President Trump on Wednesday accused two major U.S. banks of discriminating against conservatives during a live event with the CEO of one of those firms.
In virtual remarks before a group of business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the president bashed Bank of America after its president and CEO, Brian Moynihan, asked Trump a question about his economic and financial agenda.
“You’ve done a fantastic job, but I hope you start opening your bank to conservatives, because many conservatives complain that the banks are not allowing them to do business within the bank, and that included a place called Bank of America,” Trump said.
Trump is among many Republican lawmakers and officials who’ve criticized what they consider a series of politically motivated decisions by some major financial firms.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares accused Bank of America last year of canceling the accounts of Christian ministry groups and refusing to do business with firearm manufacturers, fossil fuel energy companies and firms contracted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Bank of America was also one of several banks ripped by Republicans for limiting their ties to firearm companies.
A Bank of America spokesman disputed Trump’s comments Wednesday, telling The Hill, “We serve more than 70 million clients, we welcome conservatives and have no political litmus test.”
Trump also accused JPMorgan Chase and its CEO, Jamie Dimon, of discriminating against conservatives.
A spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase told The Hill in a statement that the bank has “never and would never close an account for political reasons, full stop.”
“We follow the law and guidance from our regulators and have long said there are problems with the current framework that Washington must address,” the spokesperson continued. “We welcome the opportunity to work with the new Administration and Congress on ways to remove regulatory ambiguity while maintaining our country’s ability to address financial crime.”
Dimon himself also called for clearer and more transparent guidelines for how banks should handle politically sensitive issues.
“There should be far cleaner lines about what we have to do and we don’t have to do,” Dimon said on the bank’s “The Unshakeables” podcast this week. “We’ve been complaining about this for years. We need to fix it.”
