President Donald Trump took a group of community bankers on an impromptu tour of the Oval Office on Thursday, after a meeting designed to ferret out ideas on boosting small-business lending.
According to meeting participants, the session was scheduled to be held in the Roosevelt Room, but as it ended the president waved the group of about a dozen bankers into the Oval Office itself. There the group posed for pictures in front of the Resolute Desk. The president gave them a tour of the room and pointed out pictures of his family.
One participant called the meeting "freewheeling" and said that Trump pressed his Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and the head of his National Economic Council, Gary Cohn, to move quickly on deregulation ideas offered by the bankers.
"Can we get this done in six months?" the president asked.
"We'll do our best," he was told.
"I want you to do better than that," Trump said, according to a participant. "I want this done in six months."
The White House team also told the bankers that they are close to making a selection for the community bank seat on the Federal Reserve Board and close to nominating a person to serve as comptroller of the currency.