--- title: Who Is Larry Kudlow? Trump's Pick for Economic Adviser description: Here's what to know about Larry Kudlow, who could replace Gary Cohn as director of the National Economic Council. canonical: https://time.com/5197983/larry-kudlow-replace-gary-cohn-what-to-know/ author: Sarah Gray article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-03-13T19:51:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-12T21:16:03.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Picks Larry Kudlow to Replace Gary Cohn: What to Know og:description: He's a commentator for CNBC og:url: https://time.com/5197983/larry-kudlow-replace-gary-cohn-what-to-know/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt767b48d960a83a32/69892aaafb4eacfd7f89601d/180313-larry-kudlow-economic-advisor.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: 180313-larry-kudlow-economic-advisor og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Picks Larry Kudlow to Replace Gary Cohn: What to Know twitter:description: He's a commentator for CNBC twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt767b48d960a83a32/69892aaafb4eacfd7f89601d/180313-larry-kudlow-economic-advisor.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Is Picking Larry Kudlow to Replace Economic Adviser Gary Cohn. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Sarah Gray](https://time.com/author/sarah-gray/) ## Sarah Gray Updated: Dec 12, 2023 9:16 PM UTCPublished: Mar 13, 2018 7:51 PM UTC  Larry Kudlow, conservative economist and former host of CNBC's "The Kudlow Report," considering a Senate bid against Senator Blumenthal, shown here in an interview on September 15, 2015. Larry Kudlow, conservative economist and former host of CNBC's "The Kudlow Report," considering a Senate bid against Senator Blumenthal, shown here in an interview on September 15, 2015. Adam Jeffery/CNBC—NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images by [Sarah Gray](https://time.com/author/sarah-gray/) ## Sarah Gray Updated: Dec 12, 2023 9:16 PM UTCPublished: Mar 13, 2018 7:51 PM UTC The departure of Gary Cohn has left the Trump Administration with a vacancy at the head of the National Economic Council. On Wednesday, it emerged that President Donald Trump plans to pick CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow to fill the role. Just one day earlier, Trump [hinted at his pick](http://time.com/5197334/we-disagreed-on-things-read-president-trumps-remarks-after-firing-rex-tillerson/), telling reporters: “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.” Last week, Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs president, resigned from his White House position as head of the NEC, after losing the battle over Trump’s implementation of steel and aluminum tariffs. Following the announcement of Cohn’s resignation, several names were floated for his replacement: [Christopher Liddell](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/us/politics/christopher-liddell-trump.html), a former General Motors and Microsoft executive who works with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the White House Office of American Innovation, was mentioned. So was White House adviser Peter Navarro, who favored the tariffs but said he’s not in the running, according to Reuters. (On Sunday, the [_Wall Street Journal’s_](https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-not-so-liddell-problem-1520802951) editorial board wrote a scathing op-ed on Liddell and his stance on free trade.) Here’s what to know about Kudlow, the reported pick for the job. ## Kudlow as a media personality. Kudlow, 70, was a host on several now-off-the-air CNBC programs, including _The Kudlow Report_, which ended in 2014\. He currently serves as a commentator for CNBC (and often appears on _Squawk Box_). Kudlow also has an AM talk radio show on WABC called _The Larry Kudlow Show_, and he contributes to [_The_ ](https://www.nationalreview.com/author/larry-kudlow/)[_National Review._](https://www.nationalreview.com/author/larry-kudlow/) Prior to media he worked on Wall Street as an economist at the now-defunct Bear Stearns. He left in 1995 due to alcohol and cocaine abuse, [for which he went to rehab](https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/04/business/economist-is-said-to-enter-a-six-month-drug-program.html). ## Kudlow’s politics. Kudlow was initially a Democrat and supported Daniel Patrick Moynihan in a senate race in 1976\. However, he served in the Reagan Administration and he is a believer in [supply-side](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/03/tv-pundit-who-blew-the-financial-crisis-could-be-trumps-next-gary-cohn) economics and deregulation. In 2016, Kudlow contemplated running as s Republican against Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal in Connecticut, [but ultimately declined to run](https://www.wsj.com/articles/larry-kudlow-wont-run-for-u-s-senate-1455666001). During the 2016 election, he served as an informal advisor to Trump’s campaign, [and recently he said on CNBC that Trump was](http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/13/investing/larry-kudlow-trump-national-economic-council/index.html) “so good on taxes, he’s so good on tax cuts, he’s so good on deregulation, infrastructure — I even like him on immigration.” ## Where Kudlow overlaps with Trump’s economic policy. Kudlow has praised the president’s tax cuts, which were signed into law in [December of 2017](http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/20/news/economy/republican-tax-reform-everything-you-need-to-know/index.html). “Trump and the GOP are on the side of the growth angels with the passage of powerful tax-cut legislation to boost business investment, wages, and take-home family pay,” [Kudlow wrote in a CNBC op-ed](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/23/kudlow-with-this-tax-cut-trump-and-the-gop-are-on-the-side-of-the-growth-angels.html). “The Democrats, meanwhile, are left with stale class-warfare slogans about tax cuts for the rich.” ## Where Kudlow and Trump’s economic ideas diverge. Trade: After Trump announced 25% tariffs on steel and 10% tariffs on aluminum, Kudlow, along with economist Arthur B. Laffer, and economic analyst Stephen Moore wrote [an op-ed criticizing](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/03/kudlow-mr-president-tariffs-are-really-tax-hikes.html) the president’s position, saying “tariff hikes are really tax hikes.” > [](https://twitter.com/larry%5Fkudlow/status/969965350220595210) “Even if tariffs save every one of the 140,000 or so steel jobs in America, it puts at risk 5 million manufacturing and related jobs in industries that use steel,” the three wrote. But, according to the New York _Times,_ who spoke with Moore, Trump’s exemptions to Mexico and Canada made the tariff plan slightly more acceptable. “It’s a Trumpian way of negotiating,” Kudlow said of the tariff plan, in a radio interview on Sunday. “You knock them in the teeth and get their attenjtion. And then you kind of work out a deal and I think that’s what he’s done. My hat’s off to him. He had me really worried. Now I’m not.” Kudlow, [according to CNN Money](http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/13/investing/larry-kudlow-trump-national-economic-council/index.html), also believes that the president focuses too much on the stock market, and should pay more attention to the broader economy. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5197983/larry-kudlow-replace-gary-cohn-what-to-know/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5197983/larry-kudlow-replace-gary-cohn-what-to-know/"},"headline":"President Trump Is Picking Larry Kudlow to Replace Economic Adviser Gary Cohn. 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