President-elect Trump is considering CNBC contributor and prominent supply-side economics advocate Larry Kudlow for a top economic adviser post, according to a Trump campaign adviser, adding another television personality into the mix for the White House.
Trump is planning to appoint Kudlow the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, fellow Trump adviser Stephen Moore told a Michigan chamber of commerce Thursday, according to the Detroit News.
That appointment would make a major advocate of tax cuts responsible for helping formulate Trump’s economic policies and conducting economic analyses for the administration.
Of note, Kudlow has been a strong proponent of free trade throughout his career as a commentator, a viewpoint that could put him at odds with Trump’s more protectionist agenda.
On Thursday, however, Kudlow appeared to respond to suggestions of a possible conflict with the president-elect on the matter of trade, tweeting that he also believes that “trade deals counter to U.S. interests must be changed. And enforced.”
Kudlow, 69, would be a departure from recent chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisers in that he is not a Ph.D. economist.
Earlier in his career, he worked on the staff at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and later in President Reagan’s budget office. Later, he served as a business economist to investment bank Bear Stearns in the late 1980s and 1990s.
As a host and contributor to CNBC, as well as on his radio show and in books, Kudlow has spoken in favor of low taxes, less regulation and free trade. In 2005, he published The Rising Tide: Why Tax Cuts Are the Key to Prosperity and Freedom.
The Council of Economic Advisers plays less of a role in setting economic policy and more in providing analysis to the president on big-picture ideas. It is also responsible for the annual Economic Report of the President, and sometimes the chairman is dispatched to speak on behalf of the president on economic policy issues.
