The CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. was dismissive of former President Donald Trump five years ago, but he’s singing a different tune as he looks at the 2024 presidential race.
Jamie Dimon was asked about Trump during a recent video interview with Zanny Minton Beddoes, the editor-in-chief of The Economist, published Tuesday.
“Now if you look, certainly, at the Republican Party, there’s a growing isolationist wing in that party, and it’s not at all clear what a future President Donald Trump might do in terms of American leadership,” Minton Beddoes said. “If you’re outside America, if you’re — you know, I live in London — we’re worried about this.”
“I would worry about another Trump presidency too, by the way,” Dimon said in response.
The CEO of the nation’s largest bank said a lot of policies of both U.S. political parties are “highly misguided.”
“There are a lot of very smart people in both parties who I know and respect that really want to get things right, and I try to focus on that,” he said.
In 2018, Dimon had talked tough about the then-president.
“I think I could beat Trump,” he said at the time, according to CNBC
“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,” Dimon said.
He later said he was not running and chalked his remarks up to frustration “because I want all sides to come together to help solve big problems.”
At that time, Dimon also offered an observation about how a billionaire could be a populist.
“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,” he said.
In April, Dimon ducked a question about the former president.
“Do you think a second Trump term would be good for the U.S. economy?” CNN’s Poppy Harlow asked him.
“I’m not going to answer that question,” Dimon said. Asked why, he said, “I don’t want to.”