Trump Has a Treasury Secretary in Mind—and He’s a Total Nightmare

Donald Trump has one of the most powerful business leaders in his corner—and might make him treasury secretary if elected.

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, is in the running for the Cabinet position after Trump held a meeting with him and more than 70 other top U.S. executives last month that the former president and convicted felon described as a “lovefest.”

“That was a lovefest, and I will tell you when I’m not loved because I feel that better than anybody,” he said.

Trump may have felt loved in that meeting because he promised to lower the corporate tax rate to 20 percent if reelected. As president, Trump was responsible for lowering the rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, a move that was praised by business leaders at the time, including Dimon. The former president told Bloomberg that he would ultimately want to lower it to 15 percent “because that would put us in the absolute lowest in terms of incentive.”

Dimon has inclined himself toward Trump this year after Nikki Haley, whom he previously endorsed, dropped out of the race for president. Dimon has asked Democrats to dial back their criticism of the former president, saying that Trump was in many ways right about the economy. And Trump seems to have reversed his criticism of Dimon as well, after calling the banking CEO a “highly overrated globalist” thanks to his Haley endorsement.

Despite, or perhaps because of his stature in the business world, Dimon’s credibility may be inflated. He has touted disgraced WeWork founder Adam Neumann, his firm paid $290 million to settle a lawsuit over his bank’s funding of Jeffrey Epstein, and JP Morgan Chase has had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission during his watch. But as long as he heads a powerful Wall Street firm, he will retain credibility in financial markets, and that is why Trump will want to curry favor with him. Through Dimon, Trump may enjoy support from other CEOs, and will enjoy their financial contributions to his businesses and his campaign. The only question is whether Dimon would want the job.