Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, who has railed against "socialism," corporate "wokeness," and the Biden administration, recently spoke with FOX Business Charles Gasparino about why he is in a "particularly pissed-off mood" these days.
"I've said this to all of my friends, anybody who would listen: if this election goes the way the last one went, this country will be a Third World country," the 94-year-old billionaire told Gasparino.
Marcus blames the social and economic mess consuming the country on President Biden, calling the president a "dunce" and saying he's the "most divisive president we've ever seen." Labeling half the country as a 'MAGA Republican' was never a way to promote 'unity,' he continued.
The billionaire then talks about Biden's deteriorating mental state, saying, "Somebody is feeding him like a puppet." He warned against the massive spending increase and numerous policy errors that triggered high inflation and an explosion in debt.
Marcus acknowledges some positives during the Trump administration, such as increased wages, higher employment among minorities, and low inflation. However, he expresses concerns about Trump's personality, particularly his inability to "keep his mouth shut . . . I'm afraid if he's elected, the first thing he does is go after his enemies, starting with the Republicans."
Marcus said, "I think [Trump] has the policies if he would just follow the script and do what he has to do."
Gasparino asks the billionaire if he could build another Home Depot in today's environment. The short answer is 'no': "Regulations and all this woke crap" have made starting a public company near impossible, he said.
He added: "I ran a business for 60 years... I would never get involved with a social issue outside of business. That was not my business."
Marcus said there was some hope for the future of the company as Americans were quickly turning on radical leftists. The example he gave was the Bud Light boycott:
"They were No. 1 . . . and they turned stupid overnight," he said. "The American people remember; their sales are going to stay down."
He concludes by saying the American people are worth saving from what he believes is a progressive apocalypse...
In a separate interview earlier this year, Marcus told Americans to "wake up" to the reality that the economy is in "tough times" following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
Months before that, in December 2022, he railed against "socialism" for why nobody wants to work and warned capitalism is in dire straits.
Marcus' warning is similar to co-founder and retired CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey, who recently warned that "socialists are taking over" and 'capitalism cannot be replaced with disastrous socialism.'
The positive takeaway is that the Bud Light boycott serves as a barometer of American sentiment, indicating widespread discontent with progressive policies across the corporate world to local, state, and federal governments.
