Speed Reads

Rumors

Larry Kudlow is the 'leading contender' to replace Gary Cohn, says his former CNBC cohost Jim Cramer

Former Reagan administration official Larry Kudlow is a candidate to be President Trump's top economics adviser, CNBC reports. Kudlow, who worked in the Office of Management and Budget under former President Ronald Reagan, would be replacing outgoing National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, who announced last week that he would leave the White House.

Kudlow is a longtime contributor to CNBC, and while the network said Kudlow declined to comment on the rumor, the report came from Jim Cramer, Kudlow's former cohost on Kudlow & Cramer. In reporting the news Monday, Cramer said he had it on "pretty good" authority that Kudlow "is now the leading contender for the job to replace Gary Cohn."

Cramer added that he believed that if Kudlow was offered the job, "he would take it." The New York Times reported Saturday that Trump was considering another frontrunner for National Economic Council director: former Microsoft executive Chris Liddell.