A new book from Wall Street Journal reporter Michael C. Bender alleges that Mike Pence praised former Trump advisor Gary Cohn for blowing up on the president over his response to Charlottesville.
President Donald Trump had gained the ire of Cohn for saying that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the debate between people who wanted to remove the Robert E. Lee statue and the people who wanted to keep it.
An excerpt of Bender’s book, “Frankly We Did Win This Election’: The Inside Story of How Donald Trump Lost,” was published in Politico Magazine on Friday. In it, he describes a confrontation between Cohn and the president.
“Gary Cohn, the president’s top economic adviser—and a registered Democrat—was even more despondent. Raised Jewish on the East Side of Cleveland and a longtime New York resident, he stood next to Trump for the infrastructure news conference and grew increasingly alarmed and uncomfortable. Later, in a private meeting inside the Oval Office, Cohn unloaded on the president,” the excerpt says.
The author continued on to write, “Cohn told Trump that his lack of clarity had been harmful to the country and that he’d put an incredible amount of pressure on people working in the White House. He told Trump that he might have to quit. No one backed Cohn up. Others in the room, including Pence, remained quiet.”
“Cohn returned to his office after the meeting broke up. Following a few minutes behind, Pence climbed the flight of stairs and appeared at the threshold of Cohn’s door,” the book claims. “‘I’m proud of you,’ Pence told him, safely out of earshot of the president.”
