“Americans are frustrated. They’re outraged… and that’s the reason why someone like Donald Trump has gotten any traction,” said Don Peebles, the Chairman of Peebles Corporation.
Peebles runs the largest African American-owned real estate company in the U.S. and knows Donald Trump firsthand. He advises the presidential hopeful “to stay on a positive message and not be on a negative message because he’s not the anger spokesperson for America, he’s the optimism spokesperson for America.“
From one real estate mogul to another, Peebles wants to remind Trump of his roots, “the fact is even his grandparents can trace their history to immigrating to this country from Germany so…(for) him to any way attack that is almost un-American.”
As a former member of President Obama’s national finance committee, Peebles knows the data well on the widening wealth gap in this country. “The biggest challenge we have in the country right now is growing and ever expanding income disparity between the top 1% and the rest of the country,” he said.
Last year, income inequality worsened with the richest 1% of Americans taking 21.2% of all income, according to the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.
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The top fundraiser for Obama’s 2012 run is open to walking away from the only political party he’s known. Hillary Clinton has “not stepped up to offer a plan that’s going to get us as a country, to a place where we all have access to the American Dream,” said Peebles.
“The government can’t tax the rich and give it to the poor. This is all about creating opportunities,” said Peebles. As a Floridian, Peebles knows “Jeb Bush very well,” and thinks he could be the candidate with the solutions this country needs. “He has private sector experience and I think it takes private sector experience and public sector knowledge to be effective at running this country,” said Peebles.
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