26 August, 2017
But, he said, he felt compelled to voice my distress over the Charlottesville incident, adding citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK..
Gary Cohn - head of the White House national economic council and one of the most prominent Jewish-Americans in the U.S. president's administration - went public with his displeasure over the president's response to recent deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. The administration also wouldn't respond to questions about whether Cohn drafted a resignation letter, as reported by The New York Times.
"As a patriotic American, I am reluctant to leave my post".
In an interview with the Financial Times on Thursday, Cohn, who is Jewish, said he was "under enormous pressure" to both resign and stay on, choosing to stay on but saying Trump and the "administration can and must do better in consistently and unequivocally condemning" hate groups. I feel deep empathy for all who have been targeted by these hate groups. "Cohn should announce that Janet Yellen is the most qualified candidate for the job of Fed Chair and resign from the Trump's Director of the National Economic Council". During the past week, Mr Trump has alternated between trying to backtrack on his comments and accusing the media of having misrepresented his words. "I really hoped he would stay and I told him that", one chief executive said this week.
And so, while Cohn is genuinely troubled by the president's response to a rally and terror attack by white supremacists, the fate of Q4 earnings can not be held hostage to a little thing like Nazism.
The markets were spooked last week amid fears that Mr. Cohn would resign, and United States stocks dropped until the White House denied the rumor.
"I have to do what is best for me and my family".
Cohn spoke publicly for the first time about the issue in the Financial Times interview, which largely focused on tax reform. "This is a personal issue for each of us. This takes time to grapple with".
Cohn indicated there is pressure among his colleagues to speak out on Charlottesville.
Another Jewish-American in the administration, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, also faced calls to quit in the aftermath of Charlottesville, but has refused to do so, and has staunchly defended Trump.
Cohn's comments are extraordinary because few senior White House officials have ever publicly condemned comments made by the president.
The president has said on several occasions that he condemns white-supremacist groups and believes all racist sentiment is "evil", but his own recounting of his words has omitted controversial phrases that aroused the most opposition - that "both sides" were responsible, or, as he said a day after the fatal auto attack, that "many sides" were involved.
