After serving in the Trump administration for four years, former Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin is keeping his distance from the former president and his campaign, according to people familiar with the matter.
“Mnuchin has not been in the room,” said Stephen Moore, a conservative economist who is advising Trump. “I don’t know if it’s Mnuchin being done, or maybe there was a falling out between the two.”
Mnuchin was one of Trump’s most loyal Cabinet secretaries and an architect of the administration’s tax cut plan. But so far in the 2024 race, Mnuchin has not been involved in calls or meetings between Trump and the former president’s economic advisors.
Those advising Trump on economic policies include Larry Kudlow, an anchor at Fox Business and the former director of the National Economic Council, and Bob Lighthizer, former United States Trade Representative during Trump’s first term in office, NBC News reported.
Mnuchin’s absence means Trump is without a trusted advisor and a steady hand who played a key role in his first campaign for president, and later implemented some of Trump’s most popular policies.
Now, Trump’s campaign is eager to highlight these policies to remind voters of the “Trump economy,” an era of tax cuts and low inflation, and to draw a sharp contrast with President Joe Biden’s first term.
A person close to Mnuchin who was granted anonymity in order to recount private conversations, said Mnuchin supports Trump’s 2024 run for president. But they did not know whether that support would translate into actively helping Trump in the primary or the general election.
Over the years, Trump has benefited from more than just Mnuchin’s counsel.
In 2016, Mnuchin was Trump’s national finance chairman during his first run for the White House. In that role, the well connected Mnuchin tapped his networks to help the long shot candidate raise millions of dollars to take on establishment Democrat Hillary Clinton.
For now, Mnuchin’s private equity firm, Liberty…
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