The White House has named Larry Kudlow, a conservative media analyst who was an informal economic adviser to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, as the next head of the West Wing’s National Economic Council.
The announcement that Mr Kudlow would replace outgoing adviser Gary Cohn was made in a simple statement delivered to the press by White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
“Larry Kudlow was offered, and accepted, the position of Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Security Council,” Ms Sanders said in the statement. We will work to have an orderly transition, and will keep everyone posted on the timing of him officially assuming the role.”
The outgoing director of the council, Mr Cohn, resigned this month amid a heated debate in Washington over Mr Trump’s plan to impose stiff tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, which Mr Cohn opposed alongside much of the Washington establishment.
Still, while the timing of Mr Cohn’s suggestion implied that those taxes had created to great a distance between the President and a tariff-skeptics, Mr Kudlow himself was less than enthused about Mr Trump’s steel and aluminium plans.
Shortly after the tariffs were announced, Mr Kudlow lent his name to a column warning the President that could hurt millions of American manufacturing jobs, and consumers, even if they provide a brief spike for the two industries in question.
“Steel and aluminium may win in the short term, but stele and aluminium users and consumers will lose,” that column, written with conservative economists Arthur gaffer and Stephen Moore, read. “In fact, tariff hikes are really tax hikes.”
The President has acknowledged those differences, and said during a Tuesday meeting with reporters before the nomination was confirmed that he would welcome differing opinions in his White House.
“I’m looking at Larry Kudlow very strongly. I’ve known him a long time. We don’t agree on everything but in this case I think that’s good,” Mr Trump said. “I want to have a divergent opinion — we agree on most”.
The choice was warmly received by Republicans on Capitol Hill, who know Mr Kudlow from his time as a cable news analyst, and as a regular attendee of Republican conferences.
“Couldn’t be more pleased,” Rep Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, said of the appointment when asked by CNN. “He is somebody that House Republicans are extraordinarily comfortable with.”
