Topline
Larry Kudlow considered resigning from his post as director of President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council after a mob of Trump’s supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol building last week, he told the Wall Street Journal Friday, joining several other Trump administration staffers in publicly criticizing how the outgoing president handled the Capitol riot.
Director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow speaks to reporters outside the West Wing of ... [+]
Key Facts
In an interview with the Journal, Kudlow said he wishes Trump had immediately denounced the rioters and told his supporters to go home, instead of waiting hours before asking the mob to leave the Capitol and taking more than a day to condemn their actions.
Kudlow insisted, however, that Trump didn’t incite violence by riling up his supporters.
The economic advisor and former CNBC anchor said he contemplated resigning as a result, but he and other top White House staff ultimately decided to stay until President-elect Joe Biden takes over.
Kudlow also criticized Trump for falsely insisting he won the election, and said he’s “very disappointed” Trump tried (unsuccessfully) to pressure Vice President Mike Pence into preventing Congress from certifying Biden’s win.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Crucial Quote
“I was hoping that he would come out quickly and make statements calling everybody back and stopping the violence,” Kudlow told the Journal.
Surprising Fact
Kudlow is the latest high-level Trump staffer to call out the president’s behavior last week. Around a dozen officials resigned in protest following the riots, including former Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, onetime Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney (who most recently served as special envoy to Northern Ireland) and several White House advisors. Plus, former acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf said the president bears some responsibility for the riots because “what he says matters,” though he didn’t explicitly mention the incident when he resigned from his post earlier this week.
Key Background
Kudlow left his job at CNBC and joined the Trump administration in early 2018, after former National Economic Council head Gary Cohn resigned over disagreements about the president’s trade strategy. Kudlow became a frequent booster of the administration’s economic policies on television, tolerating and even defending Trump’s protectionist, tariff-heavy beliefs even though he was once a staunch free trade advocate.
Tangent
Kudlow told the Journal he’s pleased with Trump’s economic record, applauding the 2017 tax cuts and Trump’s adversarial trade strategy with China. However, Kudlow acknowledged the president should have been more serious about containing Covid-19, a stark reversal from last summer, when Kudlow falsely predicted the United States wouldn’t face a second wave of the virus.
Further Reading
Kudlow Criticizes Trump for Handling of Riot, Treatment of Pence (Wall Street Journal)
