MS NOW’s Stephanie Ruhle Stuns Colleague by Telling Her CEOs Like Trump: ‘This White House Is Open for Business’

Stephanie Ruhle shocked her former MS NOW colleague Alex Wagner when she argued that CEOs favor the “transactional” state of things under President Donald Trump over past administrations.

Ruhle joined Wagner on the latter’s Runaway Country podcast on Tuesday, where they discussed the current war with Iran and how the conflict and other moves by the administration are directly impacting multiple industries.

Wagner called it “bonkers” that more CEOs have not pushed back on the administration, especially over moves like the Pentagon saying they’ll restrict business with companies that deal with Anthropic, an AI company that has feuded with the administration over a request to have full access to their technology.

Ruhle argued CEOs either live in “fear” of Trump and any lawsuits he’d bring, or they embrace that he is “completely transactional” when it comes to tariffs and more.

She surprised Wagner when she said she hears from CEOs that they prefer to the current administration to Biden’s, where Ruhle said former Federal Trade Commission head Lina Kahn, under former President Joe Biden, was treated like “public enemy number one.”

“There are some arguments to be made that she took positions that weren’t necessarily practical, but look at what we’re seeing now,” she said.

“This is a party and a president who have been like evangelists for the free market, right?” Wagner said. “Except when it comes to actually running the country. And he has his fingers in all the corporate pudding. That’s such a disgusting visual. I’m sorry I gave it to you.”

“There are CEOs that would say to you, I’ll take it,” Ruhle responded.

“Really?” Wagner asked.

“Yes, and here’s why. And I’m not defending it, but I can tell you that I talk to them. So there are definitely CEOs that feel like, in the Biden administration, there was no one to talk to. They would say, there is no one to call, there wasn’t a person,” Ruhle said.

Wagner joked this administration has a “donation hotline,” while Ruhle said the direct access to the administration offsets a lot of concerns for CEOs who know they simply need to give to get.

Ruhle argued:

This White House is open for business. I can remember during the Biden administration specifically two different CEOs saying to me, there’s no one in this White House for me to talk to… one CEO said to me, you can tell a president’s priorities based on his schedule, and look at President Biden’s schedule, he doesn’t carve out time to talk the CEOs. And you could say, what does that even do? Just have their ego stroked that they want to hear themselves speak. Yes, I’m sure that’s the case, but that is part of the psyche. And they know that now on their phones, they can call Trump himself. They can call Howard Lutnick. They can cause Scott Bessent. They can called Jared [Kusher]. They can cost Steve Witkoff and they might not like what they have to do, but they feel like this white house is open for business.

Watch above via Runaway Country.

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