President Donald Trump name-checked a dozen Cabinet members, state officials and lawmakers at the beginning of his remarks in Springfield, Missouri. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo Trump leaves out Cohn as he delivers shout-outs at tax reform speech

President Donald Trump delivered an extensive round of shout-outs at the top of his major speech on tax reform on Wednesday — but left out Gary Cohn, his top economic adviser.

Trump name-checked a dozen Cabinet members, state officials and lawmakers at the beginning of his remarks in Springfield, Missouri. He twice mentioned his daughter, senior adviser Ivanka Trump, but snubbed Cohn, his national economic director who has been leading the tax reform effort along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.


Cohn traveled with the president to Missouri, but it is unclear whether Cohn was inside the Loren Cook Company building as Trump spoke.

It’s also not clear why Trump avoided a direct mention of Cohn, a potential candidate to replace Janet Yellen as chair of the Federal Reserve. Cohn, however, did criticize Trump last week during an interview for the president's response to the deadly violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this month.

After acknowledging the fan manufacturer’s CEO, Gerald Cook, Trump on Wednesday welcomed “the many distinguished guests who are here with us for this very important event.”

He went on to rattle off a dozen names: Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon, Sen. Roy Blunt, Gov. Eric Greitens, Lt. Gov. Mike Parson and Reps. Sam Graves, Vicky Hartzler, William Long, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Jason Smith and Ann Wagner.

“We have so many more. Anybody I forgot?” Trump asked, as he pointed toward someone in the crowd. “Right? Everything OK? Good, I got it. You, I remember more than anybody.”

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The president later shouted out Ivanka Trump, twice — “I see my beautiful daughter’s in the audience,” he said first, motioning for her to stand. Affordable child care, he said at another point, is “so important to Ivanka Trump.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered an explanation for Trump’s omission while briefing reporters on the return flight to Washington.

“Pretty standard tactics for us to not specifically call out staff,” she said, noting that he usually calls out Cabinet members. When asked about Ivanka Trump, who is a White House staff member, Sanders said, “His daughter I think in this case is a little different.”

In his interview with the Financial Times last week, Cohn said, “This administration can and must do better in consistently and unequivocally condemning these groups and do everything we can to heal the deep divisions that exist in our communities.”

“Citizens standing up for equality and freedom,” he added, “can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK.”

Cohn, who drafted resignation letters after Trump doubled down on his view that “both sides” were responsible for violence, said he has faced pressure both to resign and to remain in his post.

“As a patriotic American, I am reluctant to leave my post ... because I feel a duty to fulfill my commitment to work on behalf of the American people,” Cohn said then. “But I also feel compelled to voice my distress over the events of the last two weeks.”

The White House said after the report was published that Trump wasn’t caught off guard by Cohn’s critical comments. “The president, as I said, and Gary have spoken many times,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters last Friday. “Gary has not held back what his feelings are.”