Kamala Harris has lunch with JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon: VP dines with finance exec who said Trump was ‘right’ about key issues and clashed with him as Attorney General
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon had a one-on-one lunch at the White House with Vice President Kamala Harris last week, according to a report from the Financial Times.
The meeting took place even after Democrats reacted with horror to Dimon’s comments complimenting former President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland in January.
Dimon warned Democrats that they needed to have “more respect” for Trump’s MAGA supporters.
Jamie Dimon angered Democrats earlier this year for saying positive things about Trump
As attorney general of California, Harris clashed with Dimon during a controversial phone call
“I think this negative talk about MAGA will hurt Biden’s election campaign,” he said on CNBC interview.
Dimon describes himself as “barely a Democrat,” even though he regularly donates to Democratic candidates.
In the same interview, he even praised Trump’s policies.
“Take a step back, be honest. He was kind of right about NATO, and he was kind of right about immigration. He made the economy grow considerably. Trade tax reform has worked. He was right about part of China,” Dimon said bluntly.
Despite his Trump-friendly comments, Dimon met separately with White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients while visiting the White House.
There has been no mention of a meeting between Dimon and President Joe Biden.
Jamie Dimon, chairman of the board and CEO of JPMorgan, visited the White House last week and had lunch with Harris.
US President Donald Trump stands to the left of Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co..
Dimon and Harris have a controversial history, as she was one of the attorneys general who opposed a federal mortgage settlement with the big banks after the 2008 financial crisis.
In her memoir, Harris wrote about a contentious phone call to Dimon when she was attorney general of California during negotiations for a legal settlement with the country’s five largest mortgage banks.
“We were like dogs in a fight,” she wrote of the conversation that began when she and Dimon yelled at each other. She wrote that she took off her earrings before picking up the phone to talk to Dimon, which was a sign of “the Oakland in me.”
“As the temperature cooled, I dug into the details of my requirements so he would understand exactly what I needed – not through the filter of his general counsel, but directly from me,” she concluded.
Harris ultimately settled the big banks’ case with the other attorneys general and earned a $25 billion settlement for California.
After Trump was elected president in 2016, Dimon said he would work with the president.
“I would try to help any president of the United States because I am a patriot,” he said on a call with shareholders in 2017.
But he grew tired of Trump’s antics as president and at one point almost challenged him to a presidential contest.
Dimon famously said in 2018 that “I think I could beat Trump” in a head-to-head presidential election, boasting that he was “as tough as he is” and “smarter than he is.”