Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Trump Picks Kudlow To Replace Cohn As Top Economic Advisor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Trump has picked television commentator and economic analyst Larry Kudlow to replace Gary Cohn as the top White House economic adviser, the Washington Post and CNBC reported on Wednesday.

CNBC said the announcement of Trump’s decision could come as soon as Thursday.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters that Trump spoke to Kudlow, 70, on Wednesday, but she would not confirm whether he had offered him the job. “No personnel announcements,” she said.

The appointment of Kudlow as director of the National Economic Council would not be a major surprise.

Trump told reporters on Tuesday that Kudlow, a Republican who served as an economic adviser to former President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and also worked on Wall Street, had “a very good chance” at being selected to replace Cohn.

Kudlow, an informal advisor to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, had criticized the president’s decision last week to place steep tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum, saying they would harm steel-consuming producers. Cohn also opposed the tariffs.

But Trump said on Wednesday that Kudlow had “come around” to view tariffs as a useful tool for renegotiating trade deals.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.