Top presidential adviser in hospital after heart attack
WASHINGTON — Larry Kudlow, President Trump’s senior economic adviser, suffered a heart attack Monday evening and was hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center, Trump said in a tweet.
Kudlow, 70, who has referred to himself as a “happy warrior” in counseling Trump on trade and economic policy, joined Trump’s team in March as the director of the National Economic Council.
“Our Great Larry Kudlow, who has been working so hard on trade and the economy, has just suffered a heart attack. He is now in Walter Reed Medical Center,” Trump tweeted, just before a meeting in Singapore with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un.
The White House issued a statement late Monday evening saying that Kudlow experienced a “very mild heart attack.”
“Larry is currently in good condition at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and his doctors expect he will make a full and speedy recovery,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in the statement.
A former CNBC commentator and Wall Street economist who has long championed free trade, Kudlow has increasingly defended Trump’s approach to trade policy, including his threat of tariffs. He did so most recently on Sunday news shows, where he defended Trump’s war of words with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada after this weekend’s fractious meeting of the Group of 7 industrialized nations.
Colleagues said they had grown worried about Kudlow in recent days, particularly after a White House briefing last week in which Kudlow appeared visibly tired and uncharacteristically frail.
Kudlow dove into the job with gusto, taking on a wide portfolio that included the president’s roller-coaster trade agenda — including on-again-off-again tariff threats against China, Mexico, Canada, the European Union and others — and negotiations with North Korea.