Correction: Trump Says U.S. Shouldn’t Pay Its Bills

Instead, the president wants the government to negotiate a better deal: “Everybody expects to be cut. When you send in a bill, you expect to be cut.”

Good Morning!

Here are today’s highlights:

• More than half of small businesses say they are maintaining their DEI initiatives.

• When you decide whom to lay off, do you consider personal circumstances?

• When you train employees, do you worry about other companies stealing them?

• Those weight-loss drugs are increasingly important in employee recruiting and retention.

GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING

President Trump says the government shouldn’t pay its bills in full: “President Trump boasts regularly about his prowess as a businessman. And in an interview on Tuesday, he suggested that government agencies might learn something by simply refusing to pay bills in full as a way of negotiating for better deals for American taxpayers. Mr. Trump told the Fox News host Sean Hannity that ‘everybody expects to be cut’ when they send a bill. He said he could pick a bill at random out of thousands that the federal government is paying, one that was dealt with ‘by some bureaucrat.’”

• “He offered a negotiating strategy, musing that an official could say, ‘I’ll give you three, I don’t want to pay you five. It’s too high. I’ll give you three.’ ‘But they don’t do that,’ he said. ‘If a guy sends in a bill for 5,000, they pay 5,000. They expect to be cut. Everybody expects to be cut. When you send in a bill, you expect to be cut.’”

• “The comments echo Mr. Trump’s long history as a real-estate developer, when he would brag about his negotiating prowess. He also was accused of not paying contractors and lawyers, as was his longtime lawyer and mentor, Roy M. Cohn.” READ MORE