The risks worrying corporate leaders whether Trump or Harris win

With the US presidential election just days away and the race expected to be tight, Gravity Research president Luke Hartig joins Market Domination Host Julie Hyman to discuss what risks a former President Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris win pose for businesses.

Hartig tells Yahoo Finance, "We recently surveyed a number of top executives at Fortune 500 companies, and we asked them about the risks that they felt from a Trump administration versus a Harris administration, and the risks they feel from a Harris administration are kind of the traditional business regulatory risks [like] overregulation [and] taxation. What we hear [about] a Trump administration is their concern that he would somehow reignite kind of the culture wars around major societal issues."

Watch the video above for more on what risks a Harris or Trump White House presents to businesses, watch the video above.

To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination Overtime here.

This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.

Video transcript

As we've been talking about the presidential elections just around the corner followed by a new administration in the coming weeks.

And companies have the task of navigating new leadership in government and they have to be aware of the risks.

Luke Hartig gravity research president joins us now to map out the potential effects of a Trump or a Harris administration.

We've been talking obviously a lot about this.

Luke and you're sort of offering a guidebook for companies to try to figure out how to navigate a potential Harris or Trump administration.

So help us map it out.

Let's talk about uh Kamala Harris first and what are sort of the top risks that companies need to think about in, you know, the the initial days of her administration say, yeah, you know, this is really interesting.

We, we recently surveyed a number of top executives at fortune 1000 companies and we asked them about the risk that they felt uh from a Trump administration versus the Harris administration.

And the, the risk they feel from a Harris administration are kind of the traditional business regulatory risks, right, over regulation taxation.

Uh What we hear from a Trump administration is their concern that he would somehow um kind of the culture wars, no major societal issues.

So, if we're thinking about Harris, you know, the first big thing to watch out for is economic populism.

You know, she as well as um President Biden have gone after companies and labeled and pinned the blame on them for things like inflation, right?

Shrink Lation and price gouging and other components along these lines.

Um So we could expect some significant action from her um to crack down on some of those things.

Now, she has not been quite as hard charging on this as President Biden has.

Um She's not calling out companies by name in the same way that he has been, but it's very much a risk there.

I think it actually leads into a broader risk which is uh regulation of companies in general, right?

And we could expect to see this on a number of different areas, certainly around kind of pushing the limits of the Supreme Court Chevron Deference decision.

And how far can the branch go in regulating business, um climate and energy issues?

We could certainly see a continuation and expansion of some of the regulation of the last administration.

Um And then certainly some of the issues that she's really pinning her campaign on things like reproductive rights, um drug pricing and things of that nature.

The final big one I think is, is just DB I, right, the historic nature of her candidacy means that there's already a lot of conversation about de I provoked by Kamala Harris being in the race.

Um There are certainly things she could do as president that would advance ad E I agenda.

And one of the things that we've seen is just the rise over the last year, in particular, some really well connected, um, conservative anti de I activists who we think would just be all the more energized and perhaps inflamed in the Harris administration.

And you point out Luke too that understanding how presidents operate is key.

It's critical as well.

And, and specifically you talk about, listen, you got to understand the increasing reliance on executive orders.

Exactly.

Yeah.

No, this is something we've seen across administrations, sort of the, the growth of what some have called the imperial presidency.

But uh this is a across administrations.

If Harris wins, she almost certainly will win with a divided congress.

There's not going to be a lot of room for her to pass legislation because she probably won't have the Senate and she may or may not even have the House, right, likely to have the House, but, but it's unlikely that she would have a clean sweep.

So the, the, the need to rely on regulation would be essential to getting her, um, her agenda through.

Um, and there's a lot of things she can do in that regard.

Right.

Um Certainly the EPA gives a lot of opportunities.

Department of Labor could be, um, a, a vehicle for advancing some of her de I policies, for example.

Um, and you can go on down the list of different regulatory agencies.

The last couple of administrations we've seen in the first between Biden and, and Trump within the 1st 100 days, passing dozens of executive orders.

Um, some of those are executive orders that would undo their predecessors efforts.

We wouldn't expect to see much of that from, um from Harris and she'd be following on, on Biden's footsteps, but certainly that use of executive power is something that's been on the rise.

And I think we would look for, especially in a Harris administration and quite likely in a Trump administration as well.

Um I wanna talk about one of your, the top risks you've pinpointed for a Trump administration, which is the reigniting of the culture wars.

Now, would this be sort of more a halo effect from the administration or do you think there are actual measures that a President Trump would put in place that would also fan the flames?

And then why is this a risk for companies?

Yeah, for sure.

So, so I think the number one issue that I'm looking at in this regard is the de I agenda, right?

And when we talk to our clients and we serve 80 of the biggest companies in the world and we ask them right now, what's their up at night challenge?

When it comes to corporate reputation.

The biggest thing they tell us that they're concerned about is DE I and these assaults on DE I that we've seen over the last year or two, which are legal in nature, which are social media in nature.

The Robbie Starbuck, um targeting most recently being the one that's really front of mind for people with President Trump in office and controlling the levers of government.

There's a lot he can do to make it much harder for companies to implement de I efforts.

Um And we know that this is really important, it's really important to the employees of a lot of companies.

For a lot of companies, it's essential to their consumer base.

It's certainly helpful in recruiting employees.

Company executives themselves have very strong beliefs in the need to diversify their companies.

So the ability to kind of roll that back, I think would be substantial.

There are other things that, that don't um impact companies quite as directly.

For example, action that we could see on abortion and reproductive rights action, we could see on title nine, gender protections, et cetera.

And while those may not impact companies directly, they are the sorts of things that we've seen that employees really care about.

Um And companies consistently tell us that the number one source of pressure that they feel to engage on societal issues comes from their place.

So you can imagine a number of scenarios where um a President Trump puts in place policy that affect societal issues, that sort of inflame us culture wars and lead to employees saying, hey, you have to stand up for us because I work at a place that I believe represents my values and that'll create a real conundrum for uh for corporate leaders.

Luke.

Thank you so much.

Interesting stuff, a lot for executives to consider next week.

Thank you.