Former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn is undecided on whom he will support in the presidential race.
“I honestly haven’t made up my mind,” he told CNBC on Monday, saying that he votes on the economic issues and is “really eager to see an economic debate between” Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Despite what Cohn told CNBC, the former president and COO of Goldman Sachs told CBS News’s Face the Nation last January that he also votes on social issues.
“I just don’t vote on the economy. I vote on a lot of the social issues as well. So, you know, in many respects, I’ve got to balance both sides of that equation before I figure out who I’m gonna vote for,” Cohn said.
Cohn was tapped by the president to lead the White House’s National Economic Council when Trump took office in January of 2017. In August that same year, Cohn threatened to quit his post after a protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, against removing a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a public park turned deadly and Trump blamed both sides for the tragedy. Cohn, a registered Democrat who is also Jewish, disagreed with the president’s position.
“Citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK. 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,” Cohn told the Financial Times shortly after the incident occurred.
Cohn, a free trader, resigned from the White House position in May of 2018 after Trump announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
“It has been an honor to serve my country and enact pro-growth economic policies to benefit the American people, in particular the passage of historic tax reform,” Cohn said in prepared remarks when announcing his resignation.
Cohn told CNBC that he is concerned about the growing federal deficit and would like to hear from Trump and Biden on how they would address it.
The federal budget deficit swelled to a record of more than $3 trillion with one month left in the current fiscal year, the Treasury Department announced Friday.
The federal government added $200 billion to the deficit in August.
The Congressional Budget Office earlier this month projected increasing deficits due in large part to the federal government’s response to the pandemic.
It estimated that the federal deficit for the current fiscal year would be $3.3 trillion, more than triple the shortfall recorded in fiscal year 2019.
The anticipated deficit would be 16% of gross domestic product, the largest since 1945, when the nation financed its World War II efforts.
“We have to have a plan to get back to a more normalized fiscal picture. … And I really do want to hear where the two candidates are,” Cohn said.
