When thinking about the major political issues of the day, banking policy probably doesn’t come to mind for most people, but it’s an issue that Donald Trump focuses on more than is generally appreciated.
Just three days into his second term, the president started accusing banking giants of deliberately discriminating against conservative customers. As is usually the case, he didn’t offer any evidence for his conspiracy theory, but in the months that followed, Trump narrowed the scope of his baseless claim: He thought banks had discriminated not against the right in general but against him personally.
In fact, last summer, the president appeared on CNBC and whined for a quite a while about how banks in general (and JP Morgan Chase in particular) had “discriminated against me very badly.” Around the same time, the Republican signed an executive order that directed federal regulators to investigate banks in search of evidence of political discrimination.
This week, he went even further. My MS NOW colleague Erum Salam reported:
President Donald Trump on Thursday sued JPMorgan Chase and its CEO, Jamie Dimon, for closing his accounts five years ago and allegedly putting him and his family on a ‘blacklist.’
The lawsuit centers on the banking giant’s closure of several accounts linked to Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of MAGA supporters. Trump is seeking at least $5 billion in damages.
In the complaint, filed in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the president alleged, among other things, that JPMorgan Chase engaged in “debanking” after Trump’s role in the assault on the Capitol, as part of the bank’s “woke” beliefs.
On Thursday night, Trump told reporters that the case has merit because “every pundit” has said it’s a “great lawsuit.” He added, in reference to JPMorgan Chase executives, “You’re not allowed to do what they did.”
In a statement to CNBC, the bank said, “While we regret President Trump has sued us, we believe the suit has no merit.” That position seems likely to prevail. Trump’s argument, in a nutshell, is that JPMorgan Chase saw a scandal-plagued politician with a history of bankruptcies and business failures taking dangerous steps to remain in office after he lost an election. At that point, the bank effectively said, “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing business with this guy.” Five years later, Trump decided that this conclusion was “woke” and entitles him to at least $5 billion in damages. It’s difficult to say why, exactly, the president waited five years to file this civil suit, although it’s worth noting for context that Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chief executive (who is also a defendant in the case), said in November that he won’t donate to Trump’s White House ballroom vanity project.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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