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Kudlow hospitalized for heart attack, Trump tweets ahead of Kim summit

Posted at 10:01 PM, Jun 11, 2018
and last updated 2018-06-11 22:01:34-04

US President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow suffered a heart attack, the President tweeted as he arrived for his summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“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, 25 minutes before he was set to meet with Kim for the first time.

Kudlow, 70, was not traveling with the US President in Singapore, but he had just returned to the United States from the G7 summit in Canada, where trade tensions dominated the atmosphere.

Kudlow’s heart attack came less than three months after Trump tapped the former CNBC host and commentator to chair the White House’s National Economic Council.

Kudlow has been at the center of the US President’s trade feuds in recent months, joining US delegations in Beijing and Canada to address trade disputes. Though he has long been opposed to tariffs, he has supported Trump’s decision to erect tariffs against both China and key US allies like Canada, Mexico and the European Union, calling them a useful tool.

Kudlow was front-and-center in the administration’s rebuke of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sunday, accusing Trudeau of having “kind of stabbed us in the back” during a news conference after Trump had departed the summit early.

Vice President Mike Pencealso tweetedMonday night that he and second lady Karen Pence Karen “are praying for our dear friend @Larry_Kudlow tonight.”

Kudlow suffered a cocaine and alcohol addiction in the 90s, taking leave from the financial firm Bear Stearns to check himself into rehab.

He told The New York Timesin March he has been sober for 23 years, calling it “the center of my life.”