Trump says he has confidence in Pruitt, in roundtable with auto CEOs
President Trump hosted a roundtable with auto CEOs at the White House Friday, as the administration looks to roll back environmental regulations for automobiles. During the meeting, with embattled Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt in the room, a reporter asked if Mr. Trump still has confidence in him.
"Yes, I do, thank you," Trump responded.
Mr. Trump's administration — and Pruitt specifically — has been looking to ease environmental-related regulations on businesses. The deputy White House press secretary said Mr. Trump "will hear from the automaker CEOs about the impact of the rule-making on the auto industry and their efforts to negotiate a "national program" with the state of California."
The White House has made it clear the administration is, despite Pruitt's seeming missteps, quite happy with the EPA head's progress on the president's agenda. White House legislative affairs director Marc Short sat down with CBS News' chief White House correspondent Major Garrett recently, and expressed how Pruitt "has delivered" on the administration's agenda.
"I think that the reality is that there's an ongoing IG investigation at the EPA, but if you look at the way that the director -- the administrator, I should say -- has delivered on our agenda and the promises we made, he continues to do it day in and day out," Short said. "So I think that Scott is -- because of the agenda on the environmental front there's plenty -- it's always going to be a controversial issue. And I think he's always going to be a target no matter what."
Attendees included the CEOs of the big three U.S. automakers, including C GM's Mary Barra, James Hackett of Ford, Sergio Marchionne of Fiat Chrysler, as well as top executives from global automakers BMW, Mercedes Benz, Toyota, Honda and others.