Not all of President Donald Trump‘s tweets sink stocks. Take Nordstrom, the latest brand to fall victim to criticisms from the commander in chief.
My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017
The company’s stock weathered a slight drop of 0.65 percent around 11am today after Trump tweeted criticism regarding the brand dropping his daughter Ivanka’s clothing line last week.
Despite Trump’s previous stock-sinking tweets directed at Boeing and Lockheed Martin, Nordstrom’s shares closed today with a gain of more than 4 percent, shaking off the notion that Trump’s tweets are volatile for the companies he attacks. However, Nordstrom’s recovery may have been impacted by the bizarre chain of events that followed Trump’s initial tweet.
Like many of Trump’s tweets, the president retweeted his agitated response to Nordstrom through his POTUS account. The move was unsurprising considering he retweets many of his personal account’s tweets through the government account, but confusing nonetheless considering that the tweet has nothing to do with his business as president and could be seen as a conflict of interest, as it’s regarding his daughter’s clothing line.
Screengrab via POTUS/Twitter
When asked about Trump’s tweet during today’s press briefing, Press Secretary Sean Spicer called Nordstrom’s decision to remove her clothing line, “an attack on [Trump’s] daughter.”
“He ran for president. He won. He’s leading this country. And I think for people to take out their concern about his actions or his executive orders on members of his family, he has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities and his success,” Spicer told the briefing room.
“For someone to take out their concern with his policies on a family member of his is not acceptable and the president has every right as a father to stand up for them,” he continued.
Sean Spicer on Trump’s tweet blasting Nordstrom: The President “has every right to stand up for his family” https://t.co/8swHddQQdw
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 8, 2017
Asked about the tweet again when a reporter cited the company’s representatives saying that Ivanka’s brand was removed for low sales, Spicer stuck to his political narrative, saying that it was an effort “to undermine that name based on her father’s position, based on particular policies that he has taken.”
.@HallieJackson: Nordstrom says dropping Ivanka was a biz decision due to sales
Spicer: This is a direct attack on his policies & her name pic.twitter.com/Ykjs1dCfw1
— David Mack (@davidmackau) February 8, 2017
“He should not be promoting his daughter’s line, he should not be attacking a company that has business dealings with his daughter, and it just shows the massive amount of problems we have with his business holdings and his family’s business holdings,” Larry Noble, general counsel of the nonpartisan organization Campaign Legal Center, told CNNMoney. “If he was any other government employee, this [retweeting the criticism from the POTUS Twitter account] would be illegal.”
Despite Trump and Spicer’s insistence that Nordstrom’s move was political, a spokeswoman told a CNN reporter the decision to pull the line was purely business.
NEW stmt from @Nordstrom doubles down on @IvankaTrumpHQ brand’s performance – Trump was personally informed of the decision in early January pic.twitter.com/ykf0HCfkJp
— Betsy Klein (@betsy_klein) February 8, 2017
“To reiterate what we’ve already shared when asked, we made this decision based on performance,” the statement reads. “Over the past year, and particularly in the last half of 2016, sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didn’t make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now.
The statement continued: “We’ve had a great relationship with the Ivanka Trump team. We’ve had open conversations with them over the past year to share what we’ve seen and Ivanka was personally informed of our decision in early January.”
According to CNNMoney, Ivanka is on leave of absence from the clothing line and the Trump Organization, and promises she will “no longer be involved with the management or operations of either company.”
