Trump Putting More Companies Under Pressure To Bail On GOP Convention

Is Donald Trump bad for business?

As the presumptive GOP frontrunner shows no signs whatsoever of ratcheting down his habit of inflammatory remarks or controversial style of campaigning, left-leaning activist groups are pressuring more and more companies not to sponsor or associate themselves with next month’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland due to what they term The Donald’s history of “hateful rhetoric and racist pandering.”

A Politico report over the weekend revealed that Apple has decided not to donate any technology, equipment or money — which it has done in the past — to next month’s Republican convention due to Trump’s controversial presence, although the tech giant has not publicly confirmed that report.

ColorOfChange, a liberal activist group, is now circulating an online petition that calls on companies like Google, Coca-Cola and AT&T to “immediately cancel your sponsorship of a Donald Trump-led Republican National Convention. This includes any monetary and in-kind contributions to the Host Committee for the Republican National Convention, as well as any in-kind contributions to the Republican National Committee in exchange for promotional consideration. Any sponsorship of a Trump-led convention will be an endorsement of his hate-filled and racist rhetoric and runs counter to the values of your company.”

As of Tuesday (June 21) afternoon, the petition had been signed almost 180,000 times.

Last week, Bloomberg reported that several high-profile companies that have provided support to both parties’ conventions in the past — such as Ford and Wells Fargo — don’t plan to offer any to either convention this year, although the report did not specify the reasoning for such a move.

All this comes on the heels of a New York Times report in March that Coca-Cola planned to cut down on its donations to both parties’ conventions this year over concerns about Trump’s racially charged language.

And perhaps to add insult to injury, the PGA Tour announced at the beginning of the month that it would move the World Golf Championship event held annually at the Trump-owned Doral Golf Resort outside Miami to a course in Mexico.

The reason, the PGA said, was an inability to find a new sponsor for the tournament at its Trump-owned location, which has hosted the tournament since 1962.