President Trump has soured on the prospect of nominating his top economic aide Gary Cohn for chairman of the Federal Reserve, according to reports.
Trump’s view of Cohn as a candidate darkened because of Cohn’s public criticism of the president’s reaction to the racist display and violence in Charlottesville last month, the Wall Street Journal reported.
One Republican source quipped to CNN’s Jake Tapper that Cohn is now more likely to get the electric chair than the Fed chair.
GOP source close to WH tells me: Cohn “more likely to get electric chair than Fed Chair” https://t.co/5IGR0Db1wU
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) September 6, 2017
Previously, Trump had said directly that he was considering Cohn for the top spot at the central bank.
Earlier on Wednesday, Cohn had received a vote of confidence from Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, the bank at which Cohn was president before joining the White House.
“Gary is very, very capable,” Blankfein said at a conference in New York. “He’s not an academic, but I’ll tell you there is no one that has a better sense of markets.”
Just last week, Cohn said that his relationship with Trump was “very good.” He also said, however, that he planned to still be working at the White House in February of next, rather than at the central bank.
Following the white supremacist rally and associated violence in Charlottesville, Cohn gave an interview with the Financial Times in which he said that Trump’s response was inadequate.
