President Donald Trump damaged his ability to press his economic agenda by mishandling his response to Saturday's deadly white nationalist rally in Virginia, billionaire GOP businessman Ken Langone told The New York Times.
Langone, a supporter of the president's policies aimed at boosting the economy, told the Times, "I had high hopes — the president has blown a great opportunity."
"He completely mishandled the situation in Charlottesville. There was no gray area here — these people [the white supremacists] were repulsive," Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot, told the Times.
In the interview, Langone described the president's flip-flopping on blaming both the white nationalists and the protestors for the weekend violence as a "self-inflicted wound."
Despite his disappointment, Langone told the Times he has no choice but to hope for the best on the president's economic agenda, which aims to pursue infrastructure projects, to reform the U.S. tax code, and to get rid of many business regulations.
"I still believe he can get a lot done and he has an uncanny knack of surviving — I mean who would have thought he was going to win in the first place?" Langone said.
Trump on Thursday scrapped plans for an infrastructure advisory council a day after two similar panels dissolved amid backlash from corporate America to the president's comments.
Read the entire New York Times article on the case some executives are making for sticking with Trump.
WATCH: Trump's 'got guts': Ken Langone
