Lawrence Summers Expected to Step Down after Elections

Top White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers is expected to leave his post after November's mid-term elections, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday.

The elections are expected to reduce Democrats' majorities in Congress if not cost President Obama's party one chamber of the Capitol, which would most likely be the House of Representatives. Summers serves as director of the president's National Economic Council.

Bloomberg reports that officials are considering replacing Summers with a corporate executive to combat against criticism that Mr. Obama is anti-business. The news organization attributed its report to three anonymous sources who said no decisions had been made.

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CBS News Chief Political Consultant Marc Ambinder reports that a person close to Summers said his two-year leave from Harvard University is up and that his departure after the elections would be a natural point to do so.

At a town hall meeting in Washington Monday, Mr. Obama was asked whether Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner would keep their posts, CBS Radio News Correspondent Mark Knoller reports.

"I have not made any determinations about personnel," Mr. Obama said on the meeting televised on CNBC. "I think Larry Summers and Tim Geithner have done an outstanding job as have my whole economic team."

"This is tough, the work that they do," Mr. Obama said. "They've been at it for two years, and, you know, they're going to have a whole range of decisions about family that will factor into this as well."

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs didn't provide much more clarity at his daily press briefing Tuesday.

"There will be people that have worked enormously hard over the past two years who make decisions to go back to what they were doing before the administration," Gibbs said "That is not, should not be looked at as what happens or what may or may not happen in an election."