On Monday, before Donald Trump pivoted on tariffs, Michael Cembalest ended a 45-minute client presentation about the levies with a caveat. After calling the president’s plan a “sledgehammer, brute force” approach, the JPMorgan analyst said he withheld certain material with his firm and colleagues in mind. 

His remarks built on a report from last week in which he voluntarily blacked out several passages. He titled it Redacted: Straight talk from the CEO front lines on Liberation Day, invoking Trump’s branding for the day the tariffs were announced. 

“This is the first time I’ve ever had to do a call where I had to think about the things that I was saying, not just in terms of how they reflect our views on markets and economics,” Cembalest said in his presentation, adding that he had never before taken such considerations into account in a career spanning more than 30 years. 

“People are being held accountable for their views and the things that they say in ways that they probably shouldn’t be,” he said. “So I’ve said most of what I wanted to say on this call — but not all of it.”

While Trump has since paused much of his audacious tariff plan, Cembalest’s points on self-censorship are still reverberating on Wall Street. They raise a question that’s becoming more relevant by the week: How candid can one be about the administration at a time when its policies are fueling widespread turmoil in markets? Even this week, billionaire Trump supporters concerned about his tariffs padded their criticism with praise. 

“Michael covered the goals, opportunities and risks of the administration’s policies,” a JPMorgan representative said in a statement. Cembalest, who is chairman of market and investment strategy for the bank’s asset and wealth management division, declined to comment. Both his report and a video of his talk are on the bank’s website.

‘Anticipatory Obedience’

Cembalest didn’t specifically reference Trump in the closing remarks of his presentation. But they were made against an unmistakable backdrop. The administration has targeted large law firms, universities and media outlets that it views as adversarial to its ideals and objectives. In doing so, it has upended long-held norms around the US government’s relationship to those institutions.

Nadine Strossen, who was president of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008, warned about a climate of “anticipatory obedience.”

“You cannot have a democratic form of government without accurate information and the opportunity to debate and discuss policy,” she said. She said these questions aren’t  unique to Trump, and apply to the Biden administration’s approach with scientists in the Covid-19 pandemic too. 

“Every administration is going to use every tool it has to push its agenda,” Strossen said.

Trump’s team is seeking to “eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. This includes law firms and universities that are in violation of federal law,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement. 

Corporate Reticence

Big corporations and trade groups appear particularly cautious about rankling the administration. At the Retail Industry Leaders Association — a group of firms including Target Corp. and Home Depot Inc. — the general counsel paused an effort to bring a lawsuit against the administration on tariffs, even though the group found it would have a good chance of succeeding on merit.

Major law firms Paul Weiss, Skadden Arps and Willkie Farr have agreed to provide tens of millions of dollars in pro bono work aligned with priorities of the administration to avert Trump’s executive actions targeting their industry.

Banks are also under scrutiny. In March, the Trump Organization — now run by the president’s sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. — sued Capital One Financial Corp. over allegations of “de-banking” following the Jan. 6, 2021, riots in Washington. President Trump also went after Bank of America Corp. CEO Brian Moynihan in a surprise broadside at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year.

That means comments in public forums by bank employees — used to adhering to guardrails put up by their compliance departments, public relations teams or layers of managers — are being closely watched.

Mike Mayo, a prominent banking analyst at Wells Fargo & Co., has a personal take on what one confronts when being too outspoken. 

“I paid the price a couple of times” for being too blunt, said Mayo, who added he hadn’t seen Cembalest’s report. “The risk of backlash is always there — whether it’s from individuals, corporates or the government.” 

On Wall Street, Cembalest is a widely followed senior analyst, known for refusing to invest with funds tied to Bernie Madoff because his group couldn’t reverse-engineer how the financier made money. A key associate of JPMorgan’s billionaire whisperer, Mary Erdoes, he doesn’t shy away from controversial takes.