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Iger pressed on Trump panel
Shareholders urge Disney boss to leave the post
Robert Iger is the lone Hollywood executive on what is called the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum, a group of more than a dozen chief executives. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/File 2014)
By Brooks Barnes
New York Times

LOS ANGELES — The Walt Disney Cos. annual shareholder meeting Wednesday brought the company’s chief executive, Robert A. Iger, face to face with a smattering of shareholders who demanded that he resign from President Trump’s business policy forum.

“The question is about endorsement,’’ said Mehrdad Azemun, a shareholder from Chicago, echoing two other shareholders who had spoken. “By staying on the economic council, it looks like you are tacitly endorsing Trump’s policies,’’ added Azemun, who identified himself as Iranian-American.

Azemun complained about “anti-women and anti-immigrant’’ policies and decisions by Trump.

Iger objected strongly, saying that he had no plans to step down and that his involvement was “not an endorsement at all of the policies of the new administration.’’ The shareholder meeting was in Denver and was streamed live on the Internet.

On the topic of the Trump administration’s immigration plans, Iger said that he believed in “an open and a fair and a just immigration policy.’’

He added, “A policy that is open to the world is vital to the future success of the Walt Disney Co. and to this country.’’

Iger, a Democrat, is the lone Hollywood executive on what is called the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum, a group of more than a dozen chief executives meant to advise the Trump administration on economic matters.

After Trump’s immigration order in January against refugees and seven Muslim-majority countries, some participants have faced immense pressure from customers to quit. (The executive order has been revised to bar citizens of six predominantly Muslim countries from traveling to the United States.)

Travis Kalanick, the chief executive of Uber, did just that. Elon Musk, the chief of Tesla, said he would use the forum to “offer suggestions for changes’’ to the action on immigration.

Iger has faced criticism online, including some calls for a Disney boycott, and from an advocacy group that has been pushing a petition accusing him and other forum members of being “complicit’’ in the administration’s “cruel and un-American policies.’’

In response to two other shareholders at the meeting who criticized him for participating in the forum — one who said with a quivering voice that she would avoid Disney products — Iger contended that his involvement was largely about access to the president, which he said he would use to express the inclusionary values that Disney advocates in its films and television series, which include “Zootopia,’’ about ending prejudice; “black-ish,’’ the ­stereotype-challenging ABC series; and the cartoon “Elena of Avalor,’’ featuring a Latina princess.

“I think it’s actually a privileged opportunity to have a voice in the room,’’ Iger said. “I made a decision that I thought was in the best interest of this company, to have an opportunity to express my point of view directly to the president of the United States.’’

He added, “I assure you that the values that I speak of are expressed whenever I get the chance.’’