Donald Trump met in Washington, D.C., with a gathering of top business leaders who were reportedly surprised by what they encountered.
The former president and presumptive Republican nominee spoke Thursday at Business Roundtable’s quarterly meeting, where he promised to cut taxes and roll back regulations if re-elected – and got laughed at for suggesting eliminating taxes on tips – but CNBC's Andrew Sorkin said some of the CEOs were alarmed by his behavior during the event.
"I will say I was surprised," Sorkin told "Squawk Box." "I spoke to a number of CEOs who I would say walked into the meeting being Trump supporter-ish or thinking that they might be leaning that direction, who said that he was remarkably meandering, could not keep a straight thought, was all over the map, and that they – which, maybe not surprising, but was interesting to me because these were people who I think might have been actually predisposed and walked out of the room less predisposed to him, actually thinking, as one person said, 'This may not be any different or better than than a Biden thought, if you're thinking that way. That was very interesting."
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The Trump campaign has been hitting president Joe Biden over his age, which is widely seen as a concern among voters, although the former president turns 78 himself on Friday and has raised some concerns about his own mental fitness after a series of bizarre or rambling public statements.
"There weren't any, from what I heard, any shocking sort of situations, there wasn't that moment where they were like, 'Oh, my gosh,' not necessarily," said co-host Rebecca Quick. "It didn't surprise me the message that came out of it. Look, he's there on a mission to try and woo some of them over, which is why he is talking about lower taxes and probably, more importantly, a lighter regulatory touch, getting some of the regulations – CEOs I talked to are more concerned about that than the tax base, especially when you're talking 1 percent. "It can't be billions of dollars for big companies, but I think when they really look at things, it's the what they feel is a tight regulatory environment to be in."