Donald Trump’s top economic adviser said on Thursday said that the Trump administration “can and must do better” in addressing America’s racial divisions.
But Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, expressed his determination to stick with the White House to help Republicans pass the tax reform he has worked for months to help draft.
“I have come under enormous pressure both to resign and to remain in my current position,” Cohn 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. But I also feel compelled to voice my distress over the events of the last two weeks. Citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK.”
As Republicans prepare for a tough fight on tax reform this fall, their messaging has been sidetracked repeatedly by President Donald Trump’s incendiary rhetoric and tendency to go off-message. Trump sparked a mass exodus of White House advisers after he responded to neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville by condemning hate “on many sides” and defending as “very fine people” some who had marched with white supremacists.
Cohn strongly considered stepping down himself, even drafting a letter of resignation before reconsidering, the New York Times reported Friday. But he ultimately decided to tough it out in the White House to ensure tax reform moves forward.
“We are completely engaged in tax reform,” Cohn said. “Starting next week the president’s agenda and calendar is going to revolve around tax reform.”
Cohn, Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin, and congressional Republican leaders have been meeting for months to establish a mutually agreeable skeleton for a plan that can pass both the House and the Senate. Now it falls to the House Ways and Means Committee to “put flesh and bone on it,” Cohn said.
Cohn said that the committee will be drafting legislation over the next three to four weeks. “And we will be on the road and holding meetings in Washington and elsewhere explaining why it is so important to have tax reform in America.”
