Trump says he’s considering swapping out Goodyear tires from presidential car

President Trump doubled down on his attacks against tiremaker Goodyear over its policies on political attire, saying Wednesday he’s considering replacing the company’s tires on the presidential car with a different brand.

“I’m not happy with Goodyear because what they’re doing is playing politics. And the funny thing is that the people who work for Goodyear, I can guarantee you I poll very well with all those great workers in Goodyear,” Trump said at a White House press conference, expanding on an earlier tweet in which he urged his supporters to boycott Goodyear over its policy restricting employees from wearing “Make America Great Again” attire and other political apparel in the workplace.

“When they say that you can’t have ‘Blue Lives Matter,’ you can’t show a blue line, you can’t wear a ‘MAGA’ hat but you can have other things that are Marxist in nature — there’s something wrong with the top of Goodyear,” Trump added.

The president, when asked if he was looking for the federal government to stop purchasing Goodyear products, said that ultimately it was an individual’s decision whether to buy them but that he “wouldn’t recommend it.”

Trump later answered in the affirmative when asked if he would replace the Goodyear tires on the presidential car, known as the “Beast,” if there were an alternative.

“Yeah, I would do that. I would swap them out based on what I heard. We’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “You’ll have a lot of people not wanting to buy their product anymore. They’ll buy from a competitor, made in the USA too.”

Trump’s tweet Wednesday morning followed a report from a local news outlet in Kansas about a slide purportedly shown at a Goodyear diversity training in Topeka that listed “Black Lives Matter,” “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender pride” as “acceptable,” while listing “Blue Lives Matter,” “All Lives Matter,” “MAGA attire,” and “politically-affiliated slogans or material” as “unacceptable.”

The company in a statement Wednesday morning that the image of the slide — which made the rounds on social media — created “misconceptions” about company policy. Goodyear said the visual was not created or distributed by Goodyear corporate, nor was it part of a diversity training class.

The company said it does not tolerate any form of harassment or discrimination in the workplace and as a result asks associates to “refrain from workplace expressions in support of political campaigning for any candidate or political party, as well as similar forms of advocacy that fall outside the scope of racial justice and equity issues.” It also rejected suggestions that it was “anti-police” and said it is supportive of equality and law enforcement.

Goodyear’s stock fell on Wednesday following the president’s tweet, closing down 2.36 percent. The company is among the largest tire manufacturers in the world and has 60,000 employees. It is headquartered in Akron, Ohio, a key battleground state in the 2020 election and one that Trump won four years ago. 

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow and trade adviser Peter Navarro both said they hadn’t seen the tweet on Wednesday afternoon when asked about it. In an interview on CNBC, Kudlow said he was unaware of it but would follow up with Trump about it, and added that in general the Trump administration’s policy is “buy American.”