Axios’ Swan: Wilbur Ross Falls Asleep in Meetings, Trump’s Been ‘Denigrating’ Ross

EXCERPT:

SWAN: "And I was getting calls from people, people have had to tap him to wake him up in meetings, he fell asleep on a conference call. So, that is a problem. But where this roots back is actually earlier last year. Before Robert Lighthizer had really taken over as the top trade negotiator, Wilbur Ross had taken the lead, particularly on China. The Chinese adviser came for a visit and he had dinner with him and thought he had cut a deal with him, mostly over steel, and he took this deal to Donald Trump and the President said, 'This is a terrible deal, you don’t know anything, you’re a terrible negotiator. I don’t want you negotiating for me anymore. I want Lighthizer doing everything.' And this was in front of other staff. He humiliated Wilbur in front of everyone. And since then, Trump has said to people, a phrase he uses about Wilbur, he says, 'Wilbur has lost his step.' And he actually said, 'He’s probably lost a lot of steps.' So Trump has been denigrating him, in many ways took him off the field last July and Wilbur has sort of tried to ingratiate himself since then. He’s been trying to court his colleagues with dinners. But he’s never going to be the force that he was when he came into this administration."