JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon is throwing some shade at Donald Trump, saying on Wednesday he could bet him in a presidential election and getting in a final dig about the president’s net worth – before walking it all back and saying he wasn’t running in the 2020 race.
Dimon hit Trump where it would hurt as the president is said to be sensitive about his standing in New York City society, how he earned his money, and his intelligence.
‘I think I could beat Trump,’ Dimon said Wednesday morning at an event held at his bank’s Park Avenue headquarters focusing on his charity work. ‘Because I’m as tough as he is, I’m smarter than he is. I would be fine. He could punch me all he wants, it wouldn’t work with me. I’d fight right back.’
‘I think I could beat Trump,’ JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon
Dimon later released a statement saying he wouldn’t challenge President Trump in 2020
He added the part he’d have trouble with the election is winning the Democratic nomination.
‘I can’t beat the liberal side of the Democratic Party,’ he said.
He also addressed Trump’s social standing in New York.
‘I grew up in a poorer part of Queens than he did, but I am a banker. I am part of the elite,’ Dimon said. ‘I don’t think the American public looks at Trump as part of the elite. They look at him as the upstart who punched the elite in the nose every day.’
And he got in one last dig, noting that he earned his money, unlike Trump, who was given $1 million in startup capitol from his father.
‘And by the way this wealthy New Yorker actually earned his money,’ Dimon said. ‘It wasn’t a gift from Daddy.’
But by Wednesday afternoon he was clarifying his comments, sending out a statement saying he wouldn’t run for president.
‘I should not have said it. I’m not running for president. Proves I wouldn’t make a good politician. I get frustrated because I want all sides to come together to help solve big problems,’ Dimon said, according to Bloomberg.
Dimon, who has become a billionaire thanks to his stake in JPMorgan Chase, is a longtime donor to Democrats. There was speculation, after President Barack Obama’s election, that he would be named Treasury secretary, but the job ultimately went to Timothy Geithner.
He served on Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum, where he came under fire for not stepping down as fellow executives did in the wake of Trump controversies. For example, Disney’s Bob Iger resigned from it after the president withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Accords.
Trump disbanded the board after he was criticized for failing to sufficiently condemn white supremacists in the aftermath of Charlottesville’s rally last August.
Dimon has said while he disagreed with Trump politically he felt it was his patriotic duty to serve on the council.
During the 2008 financial crisis, Dimon steered his company through the rough waters with JPMorgan Chase the only bank to show a profit during that time. The New York Times, in a profile of Dimon, called him ‘America’s Least Hated Banker.’
Actor Bill Pullman portrayed Dimon in HBO’s movie on the crisis ‘Too Big To Fail.’