Trump adviser nearly quit due to remarks
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser sharply denounced the president’s response to the racial violence in Charlottesville, saying in an interview that he felt “compelled” to speak out. Gary Cohn, who is Jewish, was so upset by Trump’s comments that he wrote a letter of resignation but never submitted it.
“Citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK,” Cohn told The Financial Times in an interview published Friday. “I believe this administration can and must do better in consistently and unequivocally condemning these groups and do everything we can to heal the deep divisions that exist in our communities.”
It was an extraordinary public rebuke of the president by a senior adviser, and came just as Cohn will be a key figure in the administration’s fall push for sweeping tax reforms. It also played out as Cohn emerged as a candidate to replace Janet Yellen as chairman of the Federal Reserve when her term ends in February.
Cohn told associates he expressed his unhappiness to Trump a week ago at the president’s New Jersey golf club and considered stepping down, according to a person familiar with the conversations. Two people familiar with his thinking said he’d written a resignation letter but then pocketed it.
“As a Jewish American, I will not allow neo-Nazis ranting ‘Jews will not replace us’ to cause this Jew to leave his job,” Cohn said in the Financial Times interview.
Cohn said he had come under “enormous pressure” both to resign and to remain in his position. He told the Financial Times, “As a patriotic American, I am reluctant to leave my post as director of the National Economic Council because I feel a duty to fulfill my commitment to work on behalf of the American people.”
Financial markets were rattled last week by rumors that Cohn would resign, and U.S. stocks dropped until the White House put such talk to rest. In the interview, Cohn aired publicly what he had been telling those close to him for more than a week: that he was upset by Trump’s remarks that “many sides” were to blame for the violence in Charlottesville.
The White House had signed off on Cohn’s interview, which was meant to outline the administration’s plans for overhauling the tax code, according to officials.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Cohn has spoken often with the president.
“He’s been very open and honest, so I don’t think anyone was surprised by the comments,” Sanders said.
Nonetheless, longtime Trump associate Roger Stone said on Twitter that Cohn “should be fired immediately for his public attack on the president.”
