Warren Buffett: 'I'd do it for President Trump'
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett on Wednesday tiptoed around criticizing the CEOs who resigned from President Trump’s White House councils after his comments on the white supremacist-led riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, during which he said there were some “good people” on both sides of the protests.
An ardent Hillary Clinton supporter during the 2016 election, Buffett told FOX Business’ Liz Claman the business moguls should not have accepted the positions if they foresaw conditions that might force them to resign. So far, Buffett has been reluctant to criticize the president for any decisions he’s made while in office, saying that just because his candidate lost, he is not in a place to attack the current administration.
“I think, if I can be helpful in some big way -- there’s nothing at the present time -- I’d do it,” he said on "Countdown to the Closing Bell.” "I’d do it for President Trump. I would’ve done it for Hillary Clinton if she’d gotten elected.”
That refusal to criticize extends to President Trump’s escalating tensions with North Korea, which on Tuesday sailed a missile over northern Japan. It’s difficult to know from the outside what Trump’s strategy is, Buffett said, adding that Trump would be “crazy” to share everything with the media.
The Trump administration has since announced that it plans to tackle tax reform after failing to deliver on a seven-year promise to overhaul the Affordable Care Act. But, that reform may end up looking more like tax cuts, Buffett said.
“Reform for one person is something else for another person,” he said. “It looks like we’re moving more and more toward an overall tax cut. And that’s not where we started.”
Buffett also discussed how despite a path of destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, some insurance companies may escape financially unscathed from the storm that has left at least 20 people dead.
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate owns Geico, which insures about 500,000 cars in the Lone Star state. Of those 500,000 vehicles, Buffett estimated that about 10 percent were completely destroyed by the unprecedented rainfall -- though the company won’t be certain for several more weeks.
“It’s not a huge insurance event to Berkshire Hathaway as a whole,” he said. “And the effect on people as a whole is unbelievable. We do not write supercat insurance to any degree anymore and that’s where the bigger loss is.”