When Gary Cohn quit his highly remunerative job at Goldman Sachs to go work for Donald Trump, his peers on Wall Street were more than a little shocked. For one thing, Cohn is a lifelong Democrat. For another, the president is a moron, someone who the Goldman No. 2 would historically have said wasn’t qualified to shine his shoes, let alone be his boss. For a brief period, that shock turned to relief, with the business community and others hoping Cohn would serve as a voice of reason, and restrain the president from his worst impulses. As it became clear that would not happen, and that there was little Cohn could do to get it into Trump’s head that, for example, leaving the Paris climate agreement was a bad idea and slapping tariffs on countries around the world was even worse, the relief turned to second-hand embarrassment, particularly when Cohn would go on TV and humiliate himself in service to a guy he would have fired on day one at his old job.

Unsurprisingly, after hitting his breaking point in March and basically sprinting barefoot across the South Lawn of the White House, paying an Uber driver $1,000 to drive him straight back to New York, and vowing never to set foot in D.C. again, Cohn has embarked on something of an image-rehabilitation tour. For starters, many suspect him of spoon-feeding Bob Woodward a number of anecdotes for Fear that paint a picture of a commander in chief who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow, despite Cohn claiming in a statement that the book does not “accurately portray” his experience in the White House, wink wink. He‘s also made his position on Trump’s trade policies completely unambiguous, telling CNBC, “No one wins in a trade war. . . . I am anti-tariff. . . . If we artificially raise the price of goods because of tariffs, we are hurting the service economy,” and commenting, in a clear reference to his ex-boss’s America First-everyone-else-dead-last approach, “We live in an economically interconnected world; we live in a world of allies, ally nations; we have treaties and agreements where we defend each other.”

All those things were smart ideas! They give the impression Cohn wasn’t fully lobotomized during his 15+ months in the White House, or completely go over to the bad place. Maybe a less good idea was insisting during a conversation with Reuters on Monday night that Wall Street was unfairly punished for the financial crisis, and that people don’t talk enough about the deadbeat cocktail waitresses who are also to blame:

Cohn, the former economic adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, gave a ringing endorsement of Wall Street bankers on Monday, arguing that borrowers were just as responsible for the 2007-2009 financial crisis as lenders and ridiculing rules intended to make the system stronger in its aftermath. . . . Once the No. 2 executive at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Cohn argued that no top bankers should have gone to jail for their role in the crisis because they did not necessarily do anything illegal, despite what populist movements like Occupy Wall Street have demanded.

Defending his fellow bankers, who are often blamed for causing and worsening the crisis, Cohn said borrowers played a hand in their financial disasters as well.

“Who broke the law? I just want to know who you think broke the law,” said Cohn. “Was the waitress in Las Vegas who had six houses leveraged at 100 percent with no income, was she reckless and stupid? Or was the banker reckless and stupid?”

Perhaps worried that he hadn’t done enough to sound sufficiently out of touch on the 10-year anniversary of the crisis, Cohn then went on to defend poster child for Wall Street hubris and greed, Dick Fuld:

Cohn also mentioned former Lehman chief executive Dick Fuld, who lost a big chunk of his net worth when his company filed for bankruptcy. “Who was Dick Fuld defrauding? Himself?”

While it’s true that both borrowers and lenders played a role in the crisis, it’s interesting that Cohn seems to have forgotten, among other things, that Goldman Sachs paid $5 billion to settle Justice Department claims that it misled mortgage-bond investors between 2005 and 2007, or that settlement over residential mortgage-backed securities, or that whole Abacus thing, or the many reasons why no one went to jail that weren’t “no one broke any laws.” All in all, not the best look for ole Gar.

On the other hand, if he’s gunning for another gig on Wall Street, perhaps this will help his chances!

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China responds to Trump’s tariffs in way no one could have predicted

And by no one we naturally mean everyone outside of Trump and is craziest advisers:

Hours after President Trump announced tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods, China responded with its own levies on $60 billion worth of U.S. products.

Chinese state television on Tuesday reported that the government has decided to impose tariffs of 5 percent to 10 percent on $60 billion worth of U.S. products, starting on Monday. The tariffs will apply to 5,207 items.

If the U.S. continues to raise its tariffs, China will respond in kind, the report said. That sets the stage for yet another set of tariffs. Trump on Monday also threatened to add levies on about $267 billion of additional imports if China retaliated.

Unsurprisingly, Beijing no longer appears interested in taking part in talks Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin attempted to arrange earlier this month to ease trade tensions. “Negotiations can’t be done with this kind of tactic,” Fang Xinghai, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission and an ally of Vice Premier Liu He, said at a World Economic Forum meeting. “It may work with some small country. It doesn’t work with China.” The fresh U.S. tariffs, he said, have “poisoned the atmosphere for negotiations.”

The Justice Department has taken an interest in Tesla

Specifically, federal prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into C.E.O. Elon Musk’s tweet last month that he was considering taking Tesla private and had “funding secured” for the deal, which sent shares higher. According to Bloomberg, the board said that Musk hadn’t presented it with any kind of formal proposal at the time, which doesn’t look great! In a statement concerning the probe, the company said that it had “received a voluntary request for documents from the D.O.J. and has been cooperative in responding to it.” The news comes a day after Musk was sued for libel by the British diver he called a “pedo” after the guy helped rescue 12 Thai teenagers from a flooded cave. All in all, not the best string of days for Tesla investors.

Larry Kudlow: do not besmirch the good name of tax cuts!

If there’s one thing you need to know about National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow, it’s that he’s almost never right about anything. If there’s another, it’s that he absolutely loves tax cuts, and thinks they’re the antidote to literally everything, from low economic growth to psoriasis. And he will not sit around and let you or anyone else speak ill of them!

Mr. Kudlow rejected Monday the widely held view that recently passed tax cuts favored by the Trump administration and Republicans have significantly exacerbated what were already high government budget deficits.

The Congressional Budget Office said last month higher spending combined with the tax cuts is creating an “unsustainable” path. It is also unusual for government deficits to rise at a time when the economy is growing so strongly, which raises concerns about the state of borrowing when the next economic downturn arrives.

Mr. Kudlow said tax cuts should be left out of the criticism.

Claiming that problem is “principally spending too much,” Kudlow said with a straight face that while “people are quick to blame deficits on tax cuts,” he “[doesn’t] buy that,” because of course he doesn’t. Really, what’s $1.9 trillion between friends?

Elsewhere!

World’s Most Valuable Pot Company Envisions $100 Billion Future (Bloomberg

America First Won’t Last Much Longer in Stocks, JPMorgan Warns (Bloomberg

Three Crypto Exchanges May Be Operating Illegally, N.Y. Says (Bloomberg

SeaWorld, ex-C.E.O. settle with S.E.C. over Blackfish (N.Y.P.

Probe of FEMA Chief Brock Long Referred to Prosecutors (W.S.J.

Great whites have a “secret shark cafe” in the Pacific Ocean (N.Y.P.