Donald Trump has offered Goldman Sachs executive Gary Cohn a key economic post, which would add to the administration another veteran of the powerful firm he bashed during his campaign, sources close to Cohn told NBC News.Cohn, Goldman’s 56-year-old president and chief operating officer, has been offered the directorship of the National Economic Council and assistant to the president for economic policy, the sources said.
If Cohn accepts the invitation, he’ll join two other Goldman Sachs veterans who’ve already accepted leading roles in the incoming administration: Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s choice for Treasury Secretary, and Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief White House strategist.Part of the problem, of course, is that Trump assured voters he’d “drain the swamp,” targeting special interests’ power in Washington, claims that now appear almost comical in hindsight. But of even greater interest is what Trump said as a candidate about this particular financial giant.During the Republican presidential primaries, for example, one of Trump’s most common attacks against Sen. Ted Cruz was blasting the Republican senator’s ties to — you guessed it — Goldman Sachs. “Is Cruz honest?” Trump asked in January. “He is in bed w/ Wall St. & is funded by Goldman Sachs.” Trump added, “Goldman Sachs owns [Cruz], he will do anything they demand. Not much of a reformer!”In the general election, the fact that Hillary Clinton once gave a speech to Goldman Sachs was, somewhat inexplicably, also a popular line of attack — with Trump claiming the investment giant has “total control” over her.It’s almost as if Trump used campaign rhetoric to advance his ambitions without regard for accuracy or hypocrisy.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."