While chief White House economic adviser Gary Cohn is set to leave his post in the coming weeks, President Donald Trump suggested during a cabinet meeting on Thursday that he may eventually return to the administration--but only after he spends some time in the private sector reaping the benefits of the massive tax cuts he helped craft.
"Cohn delivered bigly for Goldman Sachs."
--Gary Rivlin
"He's gonna go out and make another couple hundred million and then he's gonna maybe come back," Trump said of Cohn, an ex-Goldman Sachs executive whose estimated net worth is somewhere between $200-600 million. "We'll be here another seven years, hopefully. That's a long time, but I have a feeling you'll be back."
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Cohn's imminent departure from the White House was first announced on Tuesday, news that came in the midst of a heated dispute over Trump's decision to impose steep tariffs on aluminum and steel--a move Cohn strongly resisted.
As journalist Gary Rivlin noted in a piece for The Intercept on Thursday, Cohn will likely receive a warm welcome from corporate America when he finally returns, given all the "generous gifts" he helped deliver to big business during his year in the White House.
"Cohn delivered bigly for Goldman Sachs," Rivlin writes.