Politico interviewed Borge Brende, president and CEO of the World Economic Forum, and reported that Brende spent a lot of time over the last year organizing for President Donald Trump to attend, so as to reinvigorate their sessions. In the process, Davos has turned from a ‘woke’ talking shop into an event centered around Trump issues.
Brende recounted: “Post-Davos last year, I started discussions with the White House and also coordinating with Chief of Staff Susie Wiles... I also visited D.C. in early December, had meetings in the White House, but also with the different Cabinet secretaries, and now we are in a situation where Trump is coming, and we also have five key Cabinet secretaries. There will be a broad footprint of the U.S. in Davos.”
Instead of topics on global warming, the Paris Agreement, Sustainable Development Goals and such, now it is the MAGA agenda, according to Politico. They cite Mike Rubino, a former Trump administration official, now a partner at Forward Global and Ballard Partners, who said, referencing such things as Ukraine: “That stuff has gone out of fashion.” He explained: “There’s much more excitement” this year. “You’re seeing a scramble of CEOs not just attempting to gain access to the reception that [Trump] will be hosting, but also to gain entrance to the USA House.” The latter is a small church serving as the host for U.S. administration officials and business leaders, paid for by Microsoft and McKinsey.
