Larry Kudlow To Succeed Gary Cohn as Top Trump Economic Adviser

Larry Kudlow speaks on the set of CNBC at the closing bell of the Dow Industrial Average at the New York Stock Exchange on March 8, 2018. Image by BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP/Getty Images

By Nathan Guttman March 14, 2018

Larry Kudlow, a conservative cable news analyst, will step in as Trump’s top economic adviser following the resignation of Gary Cohn.

Kudlow, who until now worked as an economic pundit for CNBC, has been close to Trump for years and kept in touch with him after the elections. Trump phoned Kudlow Tuesday night and offered him to chair the White House National Economic Council. Kudlow agreed.

Kudlow, like his predecessor Gary Cohn, disagrees with Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum from certain countries. But Trump said Wednesday that this should not be an obstacle. “We don’t agree on everything but in this case I think that’s good. I want to have a divergent opinion. We agree on most,” said Trump.

Kudlow, who is 70, was raised in New Jersey to a Jewish family. After his bar mitzvah, Kudlow became non-practicing. In 1997, following a personal struggle with substance addiction, he converted to the Roman Catholic faith and is now an active church member.

Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com or on Twitter @nathanguttman

Nathan Guttman, staff writer, was the Forward’s Washington bureau chief. He joined the staff in 2006 after serving for five years as Washington correspondent for the Israeli dailies Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. In Israel, he was the features editor for Ha’aretz and chief editor of Channel 1 TV evening news. He was born in Canada and grew up in Israel. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO