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NEW CALLS TO BOYCOTT STARBUCKS OVER PLAN TO HIRE REFUGEES AFTER PRESIDENT TRUMP'S TRAVEL BAN; SOME TESLA CUSTOMERS CANCEL ORDERS OVER CEO SERVING ON A WHITE HOUSE BUSINESS COUNCIL
Mercedes Schlapp: I think that the political boycotts will pretty much fall flat. It only works when there's a lot of media attention on the companies. You've seen, for example, 55 out of 144 companies have conceded to their customers when there's a change, but when it comes to these political boycotts, it's different than a traditional boycott. What's becoming so strange, the fact that you have the CEOs of the companies coming out and really being outright political, stating their opinions, instead of really just focusing on what products they want to sell and for customers, it's a turnoff.
Richard Fowler: I was considering buying a Tesla, but now that they're on the board, I’m reconsidering it. I have major problems with Donald Trump and any company that supports him, may be putting the country in the wrong direction. But many of these boycotts, just because I choose not to buy a Tesla, they fall flat right? Because how long can you sustain it? How long will it continue?
Lisa Boothe: The good news, there's much better places to get coffee than Starbucks, thankfully. Wouldn't you want Tesla to be involved in shaping the economic policies of the country? Wouldn't that ultimately benefit your business if we had better business practices and getting regulations out of the way to allow the economy to boom. In regards to the actual boycotts, we do see sometimes it works, for instance, with target, it worked, sales dropped 7.2 percent, and they lost, I think, $20 million in revenue.
Rachel Campos-Duffy: I believe in boycotts when the company is investing in something you're morally opposed to. Starbucks, for example, does give money to Planned Parenthood who performs over 300,000 abortions a year. I don't go to Starbucks, I go to McDonald’s. Are the liberals going to boycott companies because their CEOs simply talked to the president? Because Boeing has, so has Ford, Tesla, and Apple. So are they going to throw away their phones, stop flying, stop driving? It gets really silly.
PRESIDENT TRUMP RENEWS PLEDGE TO SEND IN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IF CHICAGO CAN'T STOP VIOLENCE
Lisa Boothe: I think what is important here is that Mayor Rahm Emanuel has said that he welcomes federal involvement. I think the federal government should limit its involvement in various things. But I think it’s important to mention that Rahm Emanuel has said he welcomes his support. Rahm Emanuel has recently acknowledged that the Ferguson effect is real. And what have we seen in the course of the last year? We’ve seen a 56 percent increase in police officer deaths, 167 percent increase in ambush style police killings as well, so I think that's very important because how are you supposed to stop this crime if police officers feel like they can't do their jobs?
Rachel Campos-Duffy: The crime problem at its root is a family problem, a spiritual problem and nothing that Donald Trump or the feds can do about that. I think that what is interesting here, this is an opportunity for president Donald Trump to engage citizen Barack Obama who right now is sitting on an island with Richard Branson and should probably get off that island and come over to his hometown and start doing the work he never did in his administration to help black families and inner city youth. The plight in the inner city has been a wasted opportunity over the last eight years with an African-American president who really could have done a lot more.
Richard Fowler: I agree with Rachel, president Obama could have done more in America's inner cities, no question about that. But police and families aren't the only problem in the inner city. You have to think about why the families are broken up to begin with. Both Democrats and Republicans agree that we need some sort of criminal justice reform. The reason why many of the families are broken up is because mom or dad happen to be incarcerated for a silly drug crime.
Mercedes Schlapp: President Trump wants to be a fixer. It's just how he functions. He believes by sending in the feds it would work to try to solve the problem in Chicago. That's obviously not enough. You can send federal resources which are what Mayor Emanuel has said, but it's about integrating local law enforcement with some federal help, with social programs in the inner cities. These are areas with very high poverty rates, low education achievement rates, so it's more of a fundamental problem than just sending in the feds.
PRESIDENT TRUMP'S CONTINUED USE OF TWITTER SPARKS NEW DISCUSSION
Rachel Campos-Duffy: Everyone that tells him to put the Twitter down, I think they're wrong and they have an ulterior motive. He is fundamentally transforming the relationship between citizen and their leader; he's making it more transparent. By the way the media needs to take a look at itself. If they don’t like all of the tweeting they’ll have to look at how unhinged and how unfair they’ve been in their reporting, because the more they are, the more likely he is to want to go over their heads.
Mercedes Schlapp: FDR has the fireside chat and Donald Trump has the Twitter. It's an effective way of reaching directly to the American people. This is where you see the authentic Donald Trump whether you like it or not.
Lisa Boothe: I think it’s great. They're changing the game the way the White House communicates. Whether it’s calling on different reporters and changing up the order at the White House press briefings, also, introducing the Skype reporters as well. It's all positive in my opinion.
Richard Fowler: I have no problem with the POTUS tweeting. My problem is when he Tweets out policy. A lot of times policy can't be brought out in 140 characters. We saw that this weekend with the quote, unquote 'Muslim ban.'
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