Former Rep. Pete Hoekstra on Friday ripped top CEOs including Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla Motors' Elon Musk for panning Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Accord, saying the president did it for the Americans who elected him, not the wealthy fat cats of the business world.
"All these corporate CEOs who on average, they're making $11 million a year, OK?" Hoekstra said on Newsmax's "America Talks Live" with Bill Tucker. "Donald Trump is doing this for the people that voted for him. The people that are actually losing their jobs, Zuckerberg and all of these folks, they're not going to lose their jobs,"
"They can go home and they can feel good and they can take their big paychecks home, but it's the people in the heartland of this country that have been hurting for the last eight, 10, 12 years because of policies on climate change, because of NAFTA, bad trade agreements, and those types of things.
"[Trump's supporters are] feeling that once again they've got a guy in the White House who's got their backs and saying, 'I'm with you and I don't care what the big corporate CEOs say because I know you're the ones that are hurting. These are the guys that are not.'''
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Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican who chaired the House Intelligence Committee, also criticized the movers and shakers who quit Trump's economic council in protest, including Musk, who is also the founder of SpaceX, and Disney CEO Bob Iger.
"Great, take your toys and go home. You've just demonstrated who you are. You need to get everything or you're going to take your ball and bat and you're not going to play anymore. I'm sorry, that's not how it works," Hoekstra said.
Hoesktra is the author of "Architects of Disaster: The Destruction of Libya," written with Teri Blumenfeld and published by The Calamo Press.
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