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The #GrabYourWallet campaign has traveled all the way to the White House.
Earlier this morning, President Donald Trump tweeted his disdain for Nordstrom dropping the Ivanka Trump label, despite the company telling Racked that the decision was due to the line’s poor performance and was not political.
My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017
In a statement shared over email, the brand reiterates that the decision was not political, and that Ivanka Trump knew about it last month.
“To reiterate what we’ve already shared when asked, we made this decision based on performance,” a company spokesperson says. “Over the past year, and particularly in the last half of 2016, sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didn’t make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now. We've had a great relationship with the Ivanka Trump team. We’ve had open conversations with them over the past year to share what we've seen and Ivanka was personally informed of our decision in early January.”
Nordstrom was the first brand Racked reported was dropping Trump family label, and since the move, a slew of other retailers have followed suit, including Neiman Marcus, Belk, HSN, Jet.com, and ShopStyle. Yesterday, Racked learned that Tyra Banks and Jessica Alba’s the Honest Company were pledging to no longer work with NBC’s The New Celebrity Apprentice after appearing on the show as advisors, with Banks also promoting her beauty line Tyra Beauty. (President Trump remains on the show as an executive producer.)
Those engaged in the #GrabYourWallet campaign say they’ll continue to boycott companies connected to the Trump family, from stores that carry Ivanka’s jewelry and the president’s lines to businesses owned by the Trumps themselves. Even though Ivanka stepped down from her label last month, retailers selling her name are still targets, particularly as critics sense countless conflicts of interest by the Trump family leveraging the office of the president for personal business gain.
.@realDonaldTrump Donald, what have we repeatedly said about using your office to influence the family business!
— Bess Kalb (@bessbell) February 8, 2017
It’s not the first time Trump has tweeted about a brand: Just last month, it was L.L.Bean, which was on the boycott list because Linda Bean, a company family member who is on the board of directors, donated to a Trump super PAC.
It’s unclear if the president is aware there are additional retailers besides Nordstrom that are no longer carrying his daughter’s line. But it’s safe to say this feud is just beginning.
Later in the day, Trump shared his tweet on his Instagram and Facebook as well, and retweeted it from the @POTUS account. As Reuters noted, this is the first tweet Trump has sent about one of his own family businesses since becoming president.
It would appear the retailer felt an impact from the tweet, albeit slightly: Nordstrom saw its stock price dip by about 0.7 percent. It later bounced back and was trading a bit higher than earlier (h/t Yashar Ali for pointing it out).
Nordstrom stock price back up, above where it was when the markets opened. pic.twitter.com/JM4XZXmjqA
— Yashar (@yashar) February 8, 2017
White House Press Secretary and Communications Director Sean Spicer was asked about the president’s tweet later in the day during Wednesday’s press briefing, specifically what standards the president is setting in commenting on family business from the office of the presidency.
Spicer gave this response:
“I think this was less about his family business, and an attack on his daughter. He ran for president, he won, he’s leading this country. And I think for people to take out their concern about his actions or his executive orders on members of his family, he has every right to stand up from his family and applaud their business activity and their success. So look, when it comes to his family, I think he’s been very clear how proud he is of what they do and what they’ve accomplished, and for someone to take out their concern with his policies on a family member of his is not acceptable, and the president has every right as a father to stand up for them.”
Spicer says Trump has "every right as a father" to attack @Nordstrom on Twitter because they dropped Ivanka's brand due to poor sales pic.twitter.com/CpwEHFLw3L
— David Mack (@davidmackau) February 8, 2017
Update: February 8th, 2017, 5:31 p.m.
This story has been updated throughout, including the addition of a statement from Nordstrom.