Gary Cohn, the onetime chief economic advisor to Donald Trump, called the pick for a second-term Treasury secretary one of the key decisions facing the president-elect and downplayed suggestions the search for the nation's top economic official was taking too long.
"This is one of the most important — if not the most important — pick he is going to make. So getting it right is important," Cohn said Thursday on Bloomberg Television's Surveillance.
Cohn noted that two of Trump's top economic picks ahead of his first term in 2016 were made after the Thanksgiving holiday — including him and former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, saying there was still "plenty of time" to make a decision.
"The transition team is a couple weeks and probably a month ahead on most of the picks," Cohn said. "We've all got this anxiety because this is a second-term president, so he knows how to get stuff done quickly. But if you think of what happened eight years ago, those picks were made in the last week of November."
Trump tapped Mnuchin for Treasury secretary and Wilbur Ross for Commerce chief in his first term during the last week of November 2016.
The comments from Cohn, an International Business Machines Corp. vice president and former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive, comes as Trump is telling advisors that he is not yet sold on any of the candidates for Treasury secretary who he has interviewed so far.
Hedge fund executive Scott Bessent, Apollo Global Management Inc. executive Marc Rowan and former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh remain among the leading contenders for the post, and each met with Trump on Wednesday.
Asked if there was a potential name in the mix that has not been reported on, Cohn said he was not involved in the process.
"The President will put any and every name that he thinks can do the job well on the list, and he will choose what he thinks is the best person to do the job," he said.
Cohn played a prominent role in Trump's first term as the director of the White House National Economic Council, but left in 2018 after a contentious dispute over tariffs, which the executive opposed. But while in office he also helped shepherd one of Trump's signature legislative achievements, a sweeping tax cut and reform package through Congress.
Trump has said renewing provisions from that law which are set to expire in 2025 will be a top priority of his incoming administration, as well as enacting additional tax benefits and provisions he pitched on the campaign trail.
Cohn identified taxes — with those tax measures slated to lapse — and securing the U.S.-Mexico border as Trump's top two priorities as he prepares to retake power, saying he expected the president-elect to work on those "simultaneously."
"Number one thing on the economic policy front is they're going to deal with taxes. Number two is, I think simultaneously, we could argue this is economics, but they need to deal with the immigration policy," he said.
"I do think there will be some tariff policy going in as well," he added.
