Politics Trump expands boycott calls to JP Morgan, ViacomCBS, Cisco, UPS

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Donald Trump has expanded the list of companies he is calling on his supporters to boycott over their supposed opposition to a new Georgia law placing tougher restrictions on absentee voting.

'For years the Radical Left Democrats have played dirty by boycotting products when anything from that company is done or stated in any way that offends them,' Trump said in a statement on Saturday. 'We can play the game better than them.'

It came after Trump called for boycotts of MLB, Coca-Cola and Delta over the companies' stances against Georgia's new voting law, which President Joe Biden has called 'Jim Crow on steroids.'

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The Redstone family-controlled company discloses top executives’ compensation in a regulatory filing.The Redstone family-controlled company said in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that CEO Bob Bakish received $39 million in 2020, compared with his overall 2019 pay of nearly $36.6 million.

Former President Donald Trump on Friday called on Major League Baseball fans to boycott the organization over its decision to move the 2021 All-Star Game and 2021 draft out of Atlanta in response to a Georgia voting law that critics claim makes it more difficult for individuals, particularly black voters, to exercise their constitutional right to vote. We must continue to right the wrongs of our past, and stand united in our advocacy for equal voting rights for all," Chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan wrote in a message to employees.Apple: "The right to vote is fundamental in a democracy.

Former President Trump called Friday night for a boycott of Major League Baseball, Coke and Delta Airlines — and all other companies that have pulled out of Georgia or otherwise protested the state’s controversial new voting reform bill. The Republican called for a boycott in a statement he issued hours after MLB announced it is “Baseball is already losing tremendous numbers of fans, and now they leave Atlanta with their All-Star Game because they are afraid of the Radical Left Democrats who do not want voter ID, which is desperately needed, to have anything to do with our elections,” Trump ’s statement read.

Now Trump is calling for boycotts of JP Morgan, ViacomCBS, Cisco, UPS and Merck, all of which have signaled opposition to the new Georgia law to some extent.

Shipping giant UPS, headquartered in Atlanta, stopped short of saying it would halt political donations to politicians who supported the new law, as some liberal activists have demanded.

Raphael Warnock REFUSES to oppose calls to boycott Georgia-based firms

Senator Raphael Warnock on Sunday declined to oppose calls by Black Lives Matter activists to boycott Georgia-based corporations for not taking a position against the state's new voting law.The Democratic senator was asked about calls by local activists to boycott Atlanta-based firms like the Coca-Cola Company, Home Depot, UPS, Arbys, and Delta Airlines.

Trump said. “ Boycott Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, ViacomCBS , Citigroup, Cisco , UPS and Merck. Trump continued, “They rigged and stole our 2020 Presidential Election, which we won by a landslide, and then, on top of that, boycott and scare companies into submission.” “Never submit, never give up! The Radical Left will destroy our Country if we let them.

Former President Donald Trump called for people to boycott Major League Baseball (MLB) on Friday night after the league caved to pressure from leftists to cancel the All Star Game, which was scheduled to take place in Atlanta, after Georgia passed a law to tighten up voting security around the state. Trump ’s statement comes after MLB Commissioner Robert D. Manfred, Jr. announced earlier in the day that the league was moving both All-Star Game and MLB Draft to a new host city following a misleading pressure campaign from leftists about the state’s new laws.

Instead, the company says it plans to print absentee ballots for employees who ask, offer its employees to work as volunteers at polling sites on election days, and fund organizations that hold voter registration drives.

The chief executives of ViacomCBS and Cisco signed a joint statement with about 200 other companies accusing lawmakers of imposing 'barriers that result in longer lines at the polls or that reduce access to secure ballot dropboxes.'

The CEOs of JP Morgan and Merck have both spoken out publicly opposing Georgia's new voting law.

In his statement, Trump blamed 'WOKE CANCEL CULTURE' for pressuring companies to fall in line against the new law, which defenders say cracks down on potential voting fraud.

Critics of the new law claim that it will limit voting access, particularly for people of color.

'Don't go back to their products until they relent,' Trump said. Never submit, never give up!'

Corporate wokeness ends with US borders

Since Georgia enacted voting reform, numerous major companies have called for boycotting the Peach State. Encapsulating the woke drive for political purity, Major League Baseball is relocating its All-Star Game out of Atlanta. © Provided by Washington Examiner Of course, it is the right of private businesses to do as they please with their money and investments, even if said choices are based on misinformation (as is the case with Georgia’s voting law). But based on their own standards, it would be hypocritical for companies to boycott Georgia and not next year’s Olympics in China and the World Cup in Qatar.

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday evening called for boycotts of companies who have spoken out against the new Georgia voting laws. These include Major League Baseball, Delta Airlines, ViacomCBS , Coca-Cola, UPS and others. Trump said "radical left Democrats" have threatened to boycott products for several years, and now the left is "going big time with WOKE CANCEL CULTURE."

Ex-president Donald Trump has called on his supporters to boycott Major League Baseball (MLB), Coke and the US airline Delta after they voiced concerns over Georgia’s new voting act – despite his past criticisms of so- called ‘cancel culture’. Such a decision was met with criticism from Trump , who issued a statement in response claiming that baseball is losing “tremendous Trump wasn’t the only one calling for a MLB boycott , however, with former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer also called on his Twitter followers to stop supporting the league, simply tweeting “ Boycott the MLB”.

© Provided by Daily Mail Major League Baseball has decided to move the 2021 All-Star Game away from Truist Park in Atlanta because of Georgia's controversial new law

© Provided by Daily Mail Trump said in the statement that 'baseball is already losing tremendous numbers of fans'

Trump also repeated his gripes about voting changes in Georgia for the 2020 election, which he blames for costing him the state.

After MLB on Friday announced that it would move the 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta over the controversy, pressure is mounting on leading companies across the country.

The joint statement from executives at nearly 200 companies, including HP, Microsoft, PayPal, Target, Twitter, Uber and Under Armour, took aim at state legislation 'threatening to make voting more difficult' and said 'elections are not improved' when lawmakers impose new barriers to voting.

The outcry comes a week after Georgia Republicans enacted an overhaul of the state's election law that critics argue is an attempt to suppress Democratic votes.

Other companies have, somewhat belatedly, joined the chorus of critics.

Delta Air Lines and The Coca-Cola Co., two of Georgia´s best-known brands, this past week called the new law 'unacceptable,' although they had a hand in writing it.

That only angered Republicans, including Governor Brian Kemp and several U.S. senators, who accused the companies of cowering from unwarranted attacks from the left.

Georgia faith leaders put off business boycott but will protest The Masters

A team of religious leaders says it will wait to begin boycotting Georgia-based businesses it considers to have shown insufficient opposition to the state’s new Republican-backed voting reforms. © Provided by Washington Examiner The group decided to delay a boycott, originally scheduled to begin on Wednesday, until after it meets with executives who lead Aflac, AT&T, Home Depot, Southern Company, and UPS, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. “Hopefully, we won’t have to give the signal,” Bishop Reginald Jackson, who leads the African Methodist Episcopal Sixth Episcopal District of Georgia, said.

The fight has thrust corporate America into a place it often tries to avoid - the center of a partisan political fight. But under threat of boycott and bad publicity, business leaders are showing a new willingness to enter the fray on an issue not directly related to their bottom line, even if it means alienating Republican allies.

'We want to hold corporations accountable for how they show up when voting rights are under attack,' said Marc Banks, an NAACP spokesman. 'Corporations have a part to play, because when they do show up and speak, people listen.'

Kemp said at a news conference Saturday that baseball 'caved to fear and lies from liberal activists' and moving the game means 'cancel culture' is coming for American businesses.

Kemp said state leaders worked in good faith with leaders in the business community on the legislation, including some of the same companies that have now 'flip-flopped on this issue.' He added: 'We shouldn´t apologize for making it easy to vote and hard to cheat.'

Civil rights groups have sued to block the new Georgia law, which was passed after Democrats flipped the once-reliably Republican state in an election that Donald Trump falsely claimed was rife with fraud. Some activists have called for consumer boycotts of Delta, Coca-Cola and others.

They dismiss business leaders´ assertions that they helped water down the bill to ease earlier, more restrictive proposals; those leaders, they argue, should have tried to block the plan altogether.

In Texas, the NAACP, League of Women Voters and League of United Latin American Citizens, among other organizations, are urging corporations in the state to speak out against a slate of Republican-backed voting proposals. 'Democracy is good for business,' the campaign says.

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Nine organizations took out full-page ads in The Houston Chronicle and The Dallas Morning News, the state´s leading newspapers, urging corporate opposition to the plan.

The Texas proposal would limit some early voting hours, bar counties from setting up drive-thru voting and prohibit local officials from proactively sending applications for mail ballots before voters request them.

Unlike their Georgia-based counterparts, American Airlines and Dell Technologies didn´t wait for the Texas measure to pass. 'To make American´s stance clear: We are strongly opposed to this bill and others like it,' American said in a statement.

Arizona, which Biden flipped from Trump in November, hasn't seen high-profile corporate players engage yet.

But 30-plus groups sent a joint letter to Allstate Insurance, CVS Health and Farmers´ Insurance, among others, urging their public opposition to proposed voting restrictions. Emily Kirkland, executive director of Progress Arizona, a progressive group that signed the letter, said there's been no response yet.

Other groups are demanding that corporations focus on Washington, where congressional Democrats are pushing measures intended to make it easier for Americans to vote, regardless of state laws.

Among the changes, Democrats would enact automatic voter registration nationally and standardize access to early and mail voting.

Democrats also want to restore parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that require the federal government to approve all election procedures in states and locales with a history of discrimination. The Supreme Court struck down those provisions, which applied to Georgia and Arizona, among other states, in 2013.

Corporate giants were mostly quiet when Trump falsely claimed he lost because of fraud. Business leaders largely maintained that caution as Republican state lawmakers used Trump's lie to justify a flood of new bills to make it more cumbersome to vote.

Will Hollywood Boycott Georgia Over New Voting Law?

James Mangold and Mark Hamill have said they want to boycott the state in the wake of its new voting restrictions— but others say that’s not the best way to protest.The new election law — which ushers in more rigid voters restrictions like ID requirements for absentee voting, limiting the number of ballot drop boxes and making it illegal to give food and water to voters in line — has drawn widespread criticism from voting rights groups and Democrats. President Biden dubbed it “Jim Crow in the 21st Century,” while Stacey Abrams called it “a reminder of Georgia’s dark past.

The reticence was a stark contrast to how chambers of commerce reacted six years ago when Republican-run states pushed 'religious freedom' measures. Indiana, under then-Governor Mike Pence, the future vice president, saw immediate corporate backlash.

After North Carolina passed a 'bathroom bill' limiting LGBTQ rights in 2016, PayPal scuttled expansion plans there and the NBA moved its all-star game from Charlotte. An AP analysis in 2017 found the reaction would eventually cost North Carolina at least $3.76 billion in lost business.

Then, Georgia's corporate lobbying groups - with Delta's and Coca-Cola's backing - took no such chances, speaking out forcefully against Georgia conservatives' version of a 'religious freedom' bill. Lawmakers passed it anyway but Kemp´s predecessor, Republican Nathan Deal, vetoed it amid the chamber outcry.

Today, Delta and Coca-Cola's response to the Georgia voting fight is standing as a cautionary tale for other businesses.

Ed Bastian, the airline's chief executive, initially released a statement noting the business lobby's role in altering the bill as it moved through the General Assembly. Officials at the Atlanta Metro Chamber, where Bastian currently serves as president, detailed how corporate lobbyists spent weeks at the Capitol on mitigating provisions.

Some Georgia Republicans wanted to roll back the state´s no-excuse absentee voting law, end automatic voter registration and ban Sunday early voting used heavily by black churches. They also wanted to require photocopies of state IDs to receive and submit absentee ballots, while banning 'drop boxes' as ballot collection receptacles.

The final law preserved no-excuse absentee voting and automatic registration. The new ID requirement for absentee ballots allows a voter to write their state ID number, rather than produce a photocopy, and the legislature included funding for free state IDs.

The law also codifies in-person early voting on weekends, although it allows counties to choose whether to be open for voting for up to two Sundays. And it made drop boxes of mail ballots a permanent fixture in Georgia, but limited the number.

Business leaders´ philosophy, according to Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan, was 'basically, Republicans are going to pass something, so they might as well try to keep from being awful.'

But by Wednesday, the same day 72 black business executives published a letter in The New York Times urging corporate leaders to speak out, Bastian was more direct.

He sent a companywide memo declaring the law 'unacceptable' and 'based on a lie' - though he didn´t mention Trump.

Big business's mistake, Jordan said, was 'thinking there was ever any version that wouldn't end up like this.'