U.S President-elect Donald Trump has asked Goldman Sachs executive Gary Cohn to head his White House National Economic Council, a group that coordinates economic policy across agencies, NBC News reported on Friday.

Cohn, president and chief operating officer at the Wall Street firm, had been widely considered the heir apparent to Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein. If he goes, it may give rise to a new group of leaders at the bank, most of whom have spent more than 20 years of their careers there.

A Goldman Sachs spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Cohn, 56, is a former Goldman commodities trader from Ohio who joined the firm in 1990. He served in a variety of leadership roles in bond trading, becoming co-head of Goldman’s broader securities and eventually, co-president in 2006.

He makes frequent appearances at industry conferences and on television, speaking on the state of the financial markets.

If he takes the post, he will be following in the footsteps of Robert Rubin and Stephen Friedman, two other one-time Goldman Sachs executives who served in that role.

He would also be joining at least two other former Goldman executives who will also be serving in the Trump administration: Steven Mnuchin, nominated to head the Treasury Department, and Steve Bannon, picked to be chief strategist at the White House. </s> WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name Gary Cohn, the No. 2 executive at the powerhouse Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs, to a prominent White House economic post.

That's according to two people informed of the decision.

Cohn, 56, would lead the White House's National Economic Council, a posting that would require him to leave his $21-million-a-year job as president and chief operating officer at Goldman.

On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly vilified Goldman Sachs for the firm's outsize influence in the financial system. Yet with Cohn's selection, Trump will have named three current or former Goldman officials to key positions in his administration.

The people informed of the decision insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the expected move. </s> Gary Cohn, the Wall Street bank’s president, is expected to be named director of Trump’s National Economic Council, which oversees economic policy in the White House.

The longtime second-in-command at Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn, will help guide President-elect Donald Trump’s economic policy along with a former Goldman partner, Steven Mnuchin, who has been nominated for treasury secretary.

Cohn, the Wall Street bank’s president, is expected to be named director of Trump’s National Economic Council, which oversees economic policy in the White House.

Cohn, 56, rose up through the ranks of Goldman as a trader and developed a reputation for a gruff, no-nonsense demeanor. In recent years, he has been in line to take over the firm from the chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, and his departure will open the door to a new crop of candidates looking to succeed Blankfein.

Cohn has been registered as a Democrat, but has donated to both political parties.

Yet more important, he has become friends with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a close adviser to the president-elect.

The decision follows an extended courtship in which the Goldman executive visited with Trump three times, most recently on Thursday.

The ascendance of Cohn comes not long after attacks by Trump on the financial elite — and Goldman Sachs in particular — during his presidential campaign. Trump criticized both Hillary Clinton and one of his primary campaign opponents, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for their ties to the investment bank.

Since his election, however, Trump has stocked his future cabinet with a number of financiers, including Mnuchin, a former Goldman trader, as his pick for Treasury secretary and Stephen Bannon, a former Goldman employee who is now Trump’s chief strategist.

Goldman Sachs has already become a beneficiary of the future Trump administration. Trump has promised to push back on financial regulations passed since the financial crisis, which have come down particularly hard on Goldman. Since the election, shares of banks and other financial institutions have risen sharply; Goldman’s stock is up 34 percent.

Over his Goldman career, the 6-foot-3 Cohn has been known for a brusque and intimidating presence, reportedly looming over traders at their desks. But he has softened that approach over the years as he became more of a financial diplomat. </s> BATON ROUGE, La. (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will likely ask a senior Goldman Sachs banker to coordinate economic policy across his administration, turning again to Wall Street for expertise in managing the world’s largest economy, a transition official said on Friday.

Trump’s pick of Goldman President Gary Cohn, 56, to head the White House National Economic Council comes despite Trump’s past criticism of the financial sector’s power.

Trump hammered Goldman and its Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein during the presidential campaign, releasing a television ad that called Blankfein part of a “global power structure” that had robbed America’s working class.

The anti-Goldman message rankled some on Wall Street, although several alums of the bank had major roles in Trump’s campaign and are bound for senior administration posts.

“That Trump is willing to take this step does suggest the political risk to the biggest banks may be diminishing,” said Jaret Seiberg, an analyst at Cowen & Co.

The NEC coordinates economic policy across agencies, a key role for Trump’s promise to jumpstart the economy after years of tepid growth.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Cohn worried that an interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve without corresponding action by other central banks could damage the U.S. economy.

“I am concerned (about) how much U.S. rates can dislocate from the rest of the world, and I think that’s a big issue,” Cohn said.

Former Harvard University President Larry Summers served as President Barack Obama’s first NEC director in 2009 and played a leading role in crafting the administration’s primary response to the financial crisis - a stimulus package that was later criticized for being inadequate to boost the economy.

Cohn, who is also Goldman’s chief operating officer, hails from one of the most respected Wall Street establishments and would follow former Goldman executives Robert Rubin and Stephen Friedman in running the NEC.

“I think Trump feels confident that the establishment will help him fix some of our problems,” said Jerry Braakman, chief investment officer of First American Trust.

Cohn was widely seen as Blankfein’s heir apparent and his exit may give rise to a new group of leaders at the bank, most of whom have spent more than 20 years there.

NBC reported earlier that Trump had offered Cohn the job. A Goldman Sachs spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Cohn is a former Goldman commodities trader from Ohio who joined the firm in 1990. He served in leadership roles in bond trading, eventually becoming co-president in 2006.

According to Thomson Reuters data, he has $190 million worth of stock in Goldman.

In 2010, Cohn testified before the federal commission examining the roots of the financial crisis, denying charges that Goldman had bet against its clients who held risky mortgage-backed securities.

Cohn struggled with dyslexia as a child and bounced from school to school and has often talked of his unlikely path to Wall Street. One teacher told his parents if they were really lucky he might grow up to be a truck driver.

He was known throughout Goldman for his direct and abrasive manner in dealing with colleagues, although he has become more polished in recent years, current and former executives said.

Gary Cohn, Goldman Sachs Group Inc president and chief operating officer, arrives for a meeting at Trump Tower to speak with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in New York, U.S., November 29, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Cohn would join at least two other former Goldman bankers in the Trump administration, including Treasury Secretary-designate Steven Mnuchin and White House adviser Steve Bannon.

The abundance of Wall Street faces on his team exposes Trump to criticism he is veering away from pledges to protect American workers from powerful interests.

“Gary Cohn’s bank helped cause the 2008 financial crisis (and) he shouldn’t have anything to do with America’s economic policies,” said Karl Frisch, executive director of Allied Progress, a left-leaning nonprofit group. </s> WASHINGTON (JTA) — President-elect Donald Trump reportedly is set to name a top Goldman Sachs official to coordinate his administration’s economic policy, his latest of several picks from a company he consistently attacked during his campaign.

NBC reported Friday that Trump would name Gary Cohn, the financial firm’s president and CEO, as the head of the White House National Economic Council. The Trump transition team would not comment on the report.

Cohn, 56, is a native of Cleveland. In 2009, he funded the Cohn Jewish Student Center at Kent State University named for his parents.

Cohn is the latest Goldman Sachs banker or alumnus Trump has named to his government. He joins alumnus Steve Mnuchin, the designated Treasury secretary, and Bayo Ogunlesi, a member of Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum who is on the Wall Street firm’s board.

Cohn answers to Lloyd Blankfein, the bank’s CEO, who was vilified in Trump’s final campaign ad, which echoed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories by matching Jewish faces to themes of global control. During the campaign, the Republican candidate accused the bank of being in “total, total control” of his primaries rival, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Trump has not directly addressed why he is hiring people from a sector he disparaged, but has said he wants proven job creators and money makers on his team.

Cohn has a reputation for abrasiveness, but also for getting things done, according to a Wall Street Journal profile last year. In a 2014 New York Times op-ed, Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith wrote on the day he resigned that Blankfein and Cohn were responsible for a “decline in the firm’s moral fibre” that placed the firm’s interests above those of its clients. </s> WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn to an influential White House economic post, two people informed of the decision said Friday.

Cohn, 56, would lead the White House National Economic Council, a posting that would require him to leave his $21 million a year job as president and chief operating officer at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Trump repeatedly vilified the prestigious Wall Street bank on the campaign trail, yet with the selection of Cohn, he has now chosen three of its alumni to key positions in his upcoming administration.

Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary nominee, and Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist and senior counselor, also worked at Goldman Sachs.

The National Economic Council helps to coordinate domestic and global issues, providing economic policy advice to the president and monitoring how the White House's agenda is implemented across the government.

If Cohn accepts the nomination, he will also be the third Goldman executive to run the NEC. Robert Rubin was the NEC director under Bill Clinton, and Stephen Friedman had the job during George W. Bush's administration.

The two people informed of the decision spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the expected move.

Raised in Ohio, Cohn took a more circuitous path to Goldman.

He graduated jobless from American University in Washington, D.C., and moved back into his parents' home, according to a speech he gave at his alma mater. Cohn quickly found work at U.S. Steel to appease his father, only to pivot to a Wall Street job within a few months that eventually led him to Goldman in 1990.

During the campaign, Trump repeatedly attacked his rivals over their Goldman ties.

He criticized GOP primary opponent Ted Cruz for taking loans from the bank, where Cruz's wife worked, to help pay for his Texas Senate race in 2012. And he chided Clinton for accepting large speaking fees from Goldman and for not publicly sharing what she had told the bankers.

"I know the guys at Goldman Sachs," Trump said at a South Carolina rally in February, when he was locked in a fierce battle with Cruz. "They have total, total control over him. Just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton."

Trump even featured video of Goldman chief executive Lloyd Blankfein in a campaign ad with the voiceover, "Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors."

But Trump appears to have since changed his tune.

In a Dec. 9 speech in Des Moines, Iowa, Trump said, "I want people that made a fortune. Because now they're negotiating with you, OK?"

AP writers Julie Pace and Julie Bykowicz contributed to this report. </s> Gary Cohn, director of the White House National Economic Council, resigned on Tuesday after President Donald Trump made clear that he would reject globalism and pursue new tariffs on aluminum and steel imports.

Cohn lasted less than 14 months on the job.

A former Goldman Sachs executive and lifelong Democrat known for his support of free trade, Cohn in recent weeks had been working to soften or delay nationalist policies in the Trump Administration. He reportedly told aides last week that he might resign if Trump imposed his planned tariffs.

“It has been an honor to serve my country and enact pro-growth economic policies to benefit the American people, in particular the passage of historic tax reform,” Cohn said in a statement. “I am grateful to the President for giving me this opportunity and wish him and the Administration great success in the future.”

In his White House role, Cohn is credited with leading last year’s effort to overhaul of the U.S. tax code, among other projects. He is the latest in a series of departures of senior administration officials, including communications director Hope Hicks and staff secretary Rob Porter.

Previously on :

 —The U.S. Oil and Gas Industry Is Howling About Donald Trump’s Steel Import Tariffs

 —Why Corporate America Hates Trump’s Tariffs Proposal

 —How Donald Trump’s Steel and Aluminum Tariffs Could Start a Trade War

 —Commentary: Our Last Trade War Was a Global Disaster. This Time Won’t Be Any Different.

 —Trump Tweets NAFTA Ultimatum: The Tariffs Stay Until a ‘Fair’ Deal Is Signed </s> Top Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn is leaving the White House after breaking with President Donald Trump on trade policy.

Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, has been the leading internal opponent to Trump's planned tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum. He has tried to orchestrate an eleventh-hour effort to push Trump to reverse course. But Trump has been resistant to those efforts, and reiterated Tuesday he will be imposing the tariffs in the coming days.

In a statement, Cohn says it was his honor to serve in the administration and "enact pro-growth economic policies to benefit the American people."

Trump praised Cohn despite the disagreement, saying Cohn has "served his country with great distinction." </s> : The Wall Street Journal confirms that Larry Kudlow was offered the job as director of the National Economic Council and he accepted.

As we detailed earlier, what had been rumored for days, was just confirmed by CNBC, which reported moments ago that President Donald Trump plans to name Larry Kudlow as his top economic advisor.

Trump could announce his decision to choose Kudlow as his National Economic Council chairman as soon as Thursday. The CNBC senior contributor and on-air personality would replace Gary Cohn, who left the White House earlier this month amid disagreements about tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

As has been the case in past days, when every time news of Kudlow's role in the NEC emerged the market rebounded, today was no exception, and the S&P has managed a modest rebound on the news that a somewhat moderate economist will replace Gary Cohn.
Donald Trump requests Gary Cohn, chief operating officer of investment bank Goldman Sachs, to join his administration as chair of the White House National Economic Council.