TIME

DO BUSINESS LEADERS MAKE GOOD PRESIDENTS?

Eisenhower was the last President to display as overt a fondness for businessmen as Trump

IT WAS A BRIEF STOP, BUT DONALD TRUMP WOULDN’T HAVE missed it for the world. In late October, the Republican nominee traveled to Washington for a ceremonial ribbon cutting for his new Trump International Hotel at the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House. “Under budget and ahead of schedule. So important. We don’t hear those words too often in government, but you will,” Trump said. “Today is a metaphor for what we can accomplish for this country.” Reporters covering the event got the message: Trump was promising to bring his much vaunted—mostly by himself—private-sector experience to fixing the public sphere. Two weeks later, on the night of his victory over Hillary Clinton, the President-elect of the United States put the

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