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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Trump Taps CNBC’s Larry Kudlow to Be Top Economic Adviser

President Donald Trump on Wednesday will name economist and CNBC contributor Larry Kudlow to be his new new chief economic adviser, replacing Gary Cohn.

(CN) - President Donald Trump on Wednesday will name economist and CNBC contributor Larry Kudlow to be his new new chief economic adviser, replacing Gary Cohn.

Trump reportedly offered the job to Kudlow over the phone Tuesday night while the television personality was at dinner in Manhattan, and Kudlow immediately accepted.

Earlier on Tuesday Trump had told reporters that Kudlow had a "good chance" of taking the helm of the National Economic Council.

Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs president, resigned from his administration post after breaking with the president over his plan to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

Cohn was the leading internal opponent of the planned policy shift, and is said to have tried to orchestrate an eleventh-hour effort to push Trump to reverse course.

Kudlow is also an advocate of free trade and may also disagree with some of Trump's protectionist views. Trump acknowledged as much Tuesday, but suggested that that's okay by him.

"We don't agree on everything, but in this case I think that's good," Trump said. "I want to have different opinions. We agree on most. He now has come around to believing in tariffs as a negotiating point."

Kudlow, 70, was born and raised in New Jersey, and attended Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where he studied politics and economics.

He began his career as a staff economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

During the first term of the Reagan administration, Kudlow was associate director for economics and planning in the Office of Management and Budget.

While he worked at the OMB, Kudlow was also an advisory committee member of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. He left public service at the start of Reagan's second term, and in 1987 was hired by Bear Sterns as its chief economist and senior managing director.

Since the early 2000s, Kudlow has been mostly involved in journalism, hosting several shows on CNBC. He also served as something of an informal economic advisor to Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

This story is developing ...

Categories / Economy, Government, National, Politics

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