Cohn Plays Coy on Fed Chairman Job Trump Is Considering Him For

(Bloomberg) -- White House senior economic adviser Gary Cohn played coy about his willingness to take over as chairman of the Federal Reserve next year.

“I’m really excited to be doing what I’m doing,” Cohn told Bloomberg Television on Friday when asked about his desire for the job of being head of the U.S. central bank.

President Donald Trump said in July that Cohn was a leading candidate for the Fed post when current Chair Janet Yellen’s four-year term expires in February. The president also told the Wall Street Journal in an interview that Yellen and two or three others were in the running.

Since then, Cohn has publicly distanced himself from the president’s widely criticized response to a deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, telling the Financial Times in an Aug. 24 interview that the administration had to do a better job condemning such groups as the Ku Klux Klan.

In a separate appearance on CNBC television on Friday, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. president rebuffed a media report that Trump was unhappy with him over his remarks.

“I have a great relationship with the president,” he said.

Cohn told Bloomberg Television that he relished the opportunity to work with Trump on tax reform.

Asked by Bloomberg’s Alix Steel what he expected to be doing in February, when Yellen’s term as chair expires, Cohn replied, “I’m going to be right here, doing what I’m doing right now.”

--With assistance from Alix Steel

To contact the reporter on this story: Rich Miller in Washington at rmiller28@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Murray at brmurray@bloomberg.net, Alister Bull, Randall Woods