“Just as dessert was being served, the president explained to Mr. Xi he had something he wanted to tell, which was the launching of 59 missiles into Syria,” said Ross, a billionaire who made his fortune investing in distressed companies. “It was in lieu of after-dinner entertainment. The thing was, it didn’t cost the president anything to have the entertainment.”
When not watching Ross or Mnuchin, attendees joined sessions and milled about with other administration representatives, including Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Pimco CEO Emmanuel Roman relayed the time Mnuchin’s father Robert Mnuchin, then a Goldman Sachs partner, couldn’t pronounce Roman’s name and thus coined his nickname to today, Manny.
Schwarzman’s Role
One of the wealthiest attendees, Blackstone Group LP’s Steve Schwarzman, didn’t escape a friendly ribbing from the conference’s leader, Milken. Schwarzman heads a forum of business leaders that advises Trump on job creation and economic growth.
“I’m happy that you can allocate some of your time to investing,” Milken quipped. When the panel discussion turned to whether the administration will move to lessen the tax deductibility of interest expense, Milken peered down the line of speakers at Schwarzman to say, “Well, Steve’s going to let us know by the end of the panel.”
Despite the many Trump ties, not all attendees gave the president top grades. Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, took aim at Trump’s approach internationally.
“There isn’t a doctrine; there’s a tendency,” said Haass. “It’s a corrosive approach to friends and allies. We’ve made unpredictability part and parcel of American foreign policy.”
Animal Spirits
Others tempered market expectations in the U.S., saying Trump’s domestic agenda will continue facing hurdles. Goldman Sachs’s Solomon said investors’ animal spirits have been damped slightly by evidence that health-care, tax and regulatory reforms will be more difficult to pass than expected.
“This quarter it feels like that conviction is a little bit more muted,” Solomon said. “The market’s pricing in some excitement about where we’re going from a policy perspective. It’s a complicated process.”