prices. i think that will bode very well for those specific chip-makers as we move forward here. it will obviously bring a lot of revolution. liz: when you say lower prices, p-e ratios for nvidia, amd, some of these other names. you can see they're all pretty darn rich. n nvidia, 39. intel 15. i get that. david, 15 seconds the dow at record. it needed 21 points. it is up 27. what do you foresee for the year? >> i think we'll have a melt-up. that will probably lead to a melt-down. i don't see an election cycle happening but it is combing. [closing bell rings. liz: david, thank you so much. former fdic chair -- ♪. larry: hello folks, welcome to "kudlow," i'm larry kudlow.

happy new year, it is great to be back and we've got some big breaking news out of cambridge, massachusetts. harvard president claudine gay resigns. the straw that broke the camel's back, the charges of six more charges of plagiarism discovered by the washington "free beacon." she is resigned from her post, hanging on as harvard faculty although her plagiarism, her dedication to social justice, diversity, equity and inclusion, remains unresold. there are lots of questions. in a moment we'll talk to harvard professor emeritus predicted gay's demise. first molly line in boston with more. a heck of a story. what can you tell us? good evening, happy new year. >> reporter: good evening, happy new year to you. these calls for president gay's

resignation calling for weeks and months but she put out a statement out to the harvard community safing it was a decision made with a heavy heart but adding it is in the best interests of harvard for her to resign writing amidst all of this it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rig gore, to bedrock values fundamental to who i am. frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus. gay faced backlash following her response to the october 7th hamas terrorist attacks and in december she and two other university leaders testified before congress on anti-semitism. during that testimony she clearly failed to say calling for genocide of jews failed to adhere to policies. >> yes, calling for genocide of jews -- >> it depends on the context.

>> it does not depend on the context. >> it does not depend on the ton tex. the answer is yes why you should resign. >> reporter: she faced scandals of plagiarism, the harvard corporation unanimously followed president gay, noting she would make corrections to several piece of prior work. the corporation acknowledged gay's intention to step down, president gay acknowledged missteps and taken responsibility for them it is true showed remarkable resilience in sustained attacks. of it played out in the public dough main. many has taken the form of public and racist have it troh have it street. congress condition tins to look how harvard handled these allegations of plagiarism. listen. >> and i believe as we continue our congressional investigation that we will uncover what will be the greatest scandal in higher education because the harvard corporation members

themselves are complicit in this coverup of her plagiarism and again the most importantly their failure to protect jewish students on campus. >> reporter: gay as you noted will remain a member of the faculty. that was part of her statement as well, that she put out to the harvard community. it is worth noting as well the harvard provost, chief demographic officer, alan garber will be the interim president. larry. larry: thank you, molly for the update. joining with us great pleasure alan dershowitz professor emeritus at harvard law school, author much the war against jews. welcome back, professor dershowitz. i want to play a clip from you two weeks ago. please take a listen. do not have the clip. sorry about that, anyway, so i will say, we'll find the sound if we can. you said, that any additional problems would mean her demise. that was a hell of a call.

i don't know what the trigger was. maybe the new pagism charges from the washington free beacon. maybe the harvard corporation. tell us if you know anything about this and what does this mean? do you think this is anything definitive, any change in harvard? >> i sure hope so. it means she lost confidence of some members of the board. i had heard at least two or tree members of the board were beginning to suggest to her she ought to resign. the board originally came behind her 100%. even our good friend larry summers supported her 100%. most of my colleagues on the law school faculty herr 100%. i think those were public. i don't think in their heart they supported. she represents this diversity, equity, inclusion bureaucracy destroying universities all over the country. this thing called intersectionality which divides

the world into oppressed and oppressors. we're the oppressed we're white, we were successful and made it on meritocracy and oppressed are everybody else and that's what students are learning these days. and so the corporation made a terrible mistake by appointed her in the beginning. she was appointed as a diversity, equity and now she is blaming everybody but herself. she is blaming racists. i'm not a racists. i was against her on the merits because she didn't deserve to be president. she didn't do a good job in her six months as president. that is called meritocracy. that is what universities are turning against today, meritocracy. they're against grades. they're against any valuations that they want people to be judged by the color of their skin, not the content of their character to paraphrase martin luther king. i hope it marks the end of d-ei but i am not sure it does.

larry: i want to give you your due. we found the alan dershowitz sound from a couple weeks ago. we'll play it. take a listen, professor, you will enjoy it. >> but i think there is a good chance if more material comes out in the end she will have to step down. larry: all right, so more material came out today from the "washington free beacon." six new charges of plagiarism. seven of gay's 17 published works have already been impacted by the scanned darling. i'm reading this from the washington free beacon, a conservative website but a very reputable one i think. what about this? she will be a full faculty member, faced with all these charges of plagiarism. i didn't rise in academia the way you did. one i went to college in graduate school, if you page you arized. you were at least put out of college a year or two. maybe you would be expel all

together. why is she getting a honeymoon on the faculty? >> i hope there will be a full investigation by an objective neutral group of scholars who have no dog in the fight. not anybody who defends her, defends the corporation, not anybody opposed to her but three or four major scholars. let them look and see if she warrants a suspension or warrants taking away from her honor professorships or the ultimate sanction, the end of, the end of tenure. it's very hard to take tenure away but i think there should be a full and complete investigation. i hope she survives it. i like her as a person. i met her a couple of times. she is very nice. i think she would probably be a decent teacher. my personal hope she is allowed to remain on but it has to be dependent on the degree of plagiarism. look for me, the thing that put

me over the top is that she page you plagiarized her acknowledgements. this is a woman that can't write from the heart. there was a spoof going around today arguing she plagiarized her resignation statement. i don't think that's true but she doesn't sound like the kind of person who is creative or has the self-confidence to write things. even her testimony in front of congress was scripted for her by a bunch of lawyers. it didn't come from the heart and that's what i haven't seen. anything that shows me that she is a person of the kind of high, high, high, moral character that is required to be the president of harvard. i hope we move on from here and end dei, the new president, i know the acting president. he is a very decent guy, extraordinarily well-qualified scientist. so harvard is in good hands at the moment. larry: i want to say i don't know her either and my modus

operandi, professor as i think you know, i don't do personality, i don't do personal stuff. i do policies. to me as bad as the plagiarism stuff is her response to congresswoman elise stefanik and the whole issue of anti-semitism which i think is endemic in ms. gay's decline and eventual demise as president, i think that's the worst thing of all. you talked about that. >> i agree. larry: the lack of moral clarity here. the lack of moral understanding. the lack of moral leadership and moral leadership on this subject, to ban anti-semitism at a college like harvard which is some ways the tip of the iceberg. i went to princeton myself but harvard is the tip of the iceberg, the top of the thing, that is something that we need. >> right. larry: we need that. we need a scrubbing, you know what i mean? we need a cleansing from harvard college and harvard university? >> i agree with you. we need to get new boards and

corporations because the corporations are part of the problem. they have represent the trendiest approaches. they're supposed to represent the long-term standards of scholarship, objectivity, what we need is a return to meritocracy. a return to hard grading. a return to real values where people are rewarded based on their hard work and their accomplishments, not the color of their skin or their gender. that's what we moved away from and that's what i hope, this is a watershed event and harvard will pick as the president the most qualified albert einstein on its faculty and send a message we reward hard work, and we reward scholarship and we don't play favorites, use these de-i criteria for judging people academically. larry: and we don't, if i could just add a bit, we don't, we the royal, we harvard, and we don't

condone anti-semitism of any kind. that has to be part of it professor dershowitz. you of all people know that. >> 2 was so easy for her to answer that question if she had it in her heart but she didn't. she was reading from a script. she thought she could get away with it. that is the great thing about america, we have checks and balances. harvard university was checked by a congresswoman from new york and a unb of alumni and the great thing about america, nobody, forget about above the law, nobody is above accountability because we have so many sources. we have the media. we have congress, we have other institutions. so harvard has learned a lesson and i hope the rest of the universities around the country will learn a lesson too. that you are more than your current faculty on the hard left. 70, 97% of the harvard faculty identifies as left. that's not diversity. and we need to change

universities and make them more part of the american culture. larry: that's another great point. another great point. professor dershowitz, as always, sir, we appreciate it. thank you very, very much for coming. >> thank you very much for having me. larry: all right, folks now i want to switch gears. we covered all that. i want to go into one of my favorite topics "bidenomics." while it is perfectly true, third quarter, recent months at least in terms of gdp was a stronger economy than expected, okay? it is also true that inflation rates have come down, undenily true. president biden and his staff, however, are mystified at their continued basement level economic polls. recent polls show's biden's economy rating at 21% with 789% say it is in bad shape. president biden blaming the media, ha, ha.

he should blame his own policies right at the start of the his term. he frontloaded massive spending regulations, green new deal war against fossil fuels. the result? skyrocketing inflation. now after two years of root canal interest rate hike tightening by the federal reserve, yes, inflation has eased but the legacy of "bidenomics" mistakes lives on. it's about plunging affordability. here is an example. according to the u.s. bureau of labor statistics real average weekly earnings back in january 2021 was $399. so we're talking about middle class working folks. probably blue-collar. now in november 2023, the most recent, that same measure of real average weekly earnings stood at $380. that is 19 bucks for 4.7% less than three years ago.

as if that weren't bad enough demoralizing the economy the level of consumer prices has gone up 17%. so our middle class family has lost over 20% of purchasing power under joe "bidenomics." they don't buy and sell on gdp or live on year to year inflation rates, it is falling level of wages and rising level of prices caused high anxiety over joe biden's economic policy. that's the key point. affordability has dropped significantly over the past three years. during the trump years by the by with tax cutting and deregulating and drill, baby, drill, middle class family incomes went up at least, this is pre-pandemic, they went up at least $6,000 but measured the same way, middle class fell

roughly $4,000 under "bidenomics." now there are a lot of other issues out there in the economy. despite some recent good news in the two year post-pandemic really the biden economy only averaged 1.7% growth. that's all. the consumer price index which has definitely slowed year on year to just over 3% and that its good news. the fact remains in the last two post-pandemic years the cpi has still averaged 6% at an annual rate. now consumers continue to lean on credit cards, they're shaving off their savings in order to spend post-covid but that game may come to an end sooner than you think. i mean the conference board index of leading indicators has fallen 20 straight months. the treasury interest rate curve is way upside down. short rates far above long rates. manufacturing has been negative for over a year as has business investment. maybe more importantly manufacturing jobs have

virtually dried up even though government jobs have been leading the employment parade all this past year. but principally the plunging affordability crisis has plagued "bidenomics" from day one and unless and until he changes all of that that's going to be a feat that will be mighty hard under his current ultraliberal big government collectivist policies unless he changes working folks are going to bury him in the polls come november and that's my riff. we'll talk much more about this with art laffer up next. please stick with "kudlow." let us help harvard reforms but i don't know, let us hope "bidenomics" reforms but i highly doubt it. however, folks, happy new year. help is on the way. always optimistic. i'm kudlow. we will be right back. ♪.

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♪. larry: so as i just mentioned in my riff plunging affordability plaguing joe biden. real wages down, consumer prices up, people are unhappy campers and bidens don't seem to get it. they're blaming the media, not their policies but our next guest will walk us through it. joining us now the great art

laffer, former reagan economist, presidential medal of freedom recipient, author of "taxes have consequences." happy new year, arthur. >> happy new year, larry. larry: here is our friend, jared bernstein is a friend, here is what jared said on fox news this weekend. take a listen, art. >> i got two words for you, mike, lowering costs. lowering the cost of insulin. make sure the measures that president legislated to keep down the price of prescription drugs, of health care coverage, to continue fighting against junction fees, whether they're at concerts events, air fares, banks, hotels, to continue to build on this progress we've made and not just lower inflation but actual lower costs in key areas of consumer spending. larry: so, art, first of all jared bernstein is a friend. it's not personal. >> yes he is, second of all kind of thin gruel to me, to get rid

of junk fees. by the way neither you or i, price controls don't lower cost of anything, insulin or medical health care. >> no, they don't. larry: i don't know if you saw my riff at all, the problem real wages have been sinking for three years. people are poorer than they were in early 2021. while that's been happening consequently the level of prices has gone up. you no i call that the affordability crisis and i will leave it in your hands. >> yeah, you're completely correct on that. people don't buy inflation. they buy prices. larry: right. >> when you go there to buy -- yes it is true, inflation has been coming down, larry, that is true but no one buys with inflation, they buy with prices and prices have been going up all the time, just at a slightly slower rate. since biden came, 17 1/2%. that is hitting every one all the time every day. interest rates the same thing. all the mortgage rates have gone up substantially. people who bought homes in the last year paying a lot higher

mortgages. even though the mortgage rates are dropping a little it about, they're still high. employment, employment is very, very low. everyone talks about the unemployment rate being low. they're correct. the unemployment rate is low but the employment rate is low as well. that is what people care about, what is the total employment, note how a small number are unemployed. lastly, gdp. gdp growth this last quarter was high but gdp is very low. its growth rate is high at a small is base and people worry about the volume of output, not the rate of growth of output when it is a very low base. all of these things are thin gruel as you say. i love thin but not when it comes to gruel. larry: i think of it as post-pandemic. pandemic was 2020, and 2021, the last two years, post-pandemic actually real gdp up at 1.7% at a annual rate.

third quarter was strong no, question about it. that was 4.9%. >> that's right. larry: as you noted inflation has come down but prices are up 17% overall. groceries up 20%. >> they are. larry: energy up 30%. gasoline up 34%. eastern though gasoline has come down a lot it is still up from two bucks. >> yes it has. larry: electricity sup 23%. so i'm just saying this is what is plaguing biden. inflation is stagnant, prices are up. folks are losing money. ordinary middle class working folks are losing money. that is the problem in the economy. >> yes, they are. larry: where will it take us, arthur? real wages under biden, look at the drop. now part of that is the increase in prices. i probably shouldn't add cpi on top of that but i did. >> yes. larry: but the purchasing power, look under trump pre-pandemic median family income went up 6,000 bucks. under biden, measured the same way it's up, i'm sorry, it's

down 4,000 bucks. that's a terrible swing. >> yes. larry: those are the numbers. i'm not making this up. i don't want to pick a fight with jared at cea, i'm saying those are the numbers. maybe life is going to get better. you think 2024 will rescue the middle class, art? that is an issue. >> no, i don't think so and i think what you're saying are the correct numbers to use, larry, because people are looking at employment, not unemployment. they're looking at the price level, not the rate of inflation. all those points you make are completely correct and then when you talk about median wages falling 4,000 versus trump's rising 6,000, how can you not argue those are the actual numbers you should use. these pole lemm i cans, debaters all that stuff, gavin newsom is the worst of all, all the people pick all the numbers, flip around, truth the numbers that matter look really bad for this administration. they are not getting worse at a

faster rate, they are not but they surely aren't getting better. larry: all right. we will it there, arthur. good form. top 6 your game. happy new year. >> happy new year, larry. larry: buy his book, taxes matter. we like lower tax rates. what stimulus, what stimulus there is in the economy probably comes from the trump tax cuts still mostly out there. >> that's true. larry: coming up here on "kudlow," joe biden's illegal immigrants are flooding our southern border in record numbers. look, folks can you imagine 300,000 illegals in december alone. the question is what is mr. biden and the congress going to do about it? we have congressman pat fallon. he is down in eagle pass, texas. he will join us to talk about it. look, trump aims, listen to this, trump strategist will flip the extreme label on democrats in november.

they are the extremists. we have charlie hurt and we have mark simone to weigh in. trump wants to cam pin in new york, virginia, new jersey and maryland. that is so cool. happy new year, folks. hope is alive. ♪. oh, my daughter gives the best hugs! we're just passing through on our way to the jazz jamboree. [ imitates trumpet playing ] and we wanted to thank america's number-one motorcycle insurer -for saving us money. -thank you. [ laughs ] mara, your parents are -- exactly like me? i know, right? well, cherish your friends and loved ones. let's roll, daddio! let's boogie-woogie!

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♪. larry: so how bad is joe biden's border crisis? here's how bad. 300,000 illegals in december alone, one month. your own grady trimble live at the white house with more. grady, what can you tell us? >> reporter: larry, despite that, just this morning white house press secretary karine jean-pierre said president biden understands the importance of border security but republicans say he is to blame for that record number of migrant encounters at the southern border in december. those numbers also hit an all-time high of more than 785,000 in the last three months of 2023. gop lawmakers say the

administration's trip to mexico last week to talk immigration did nothing to bring those numbers down. >> they sent secretary blinken and secretary mayorkas and they appeased mexico. they talk about amnesty basically and yet we have all these terrific initiatives, these bills, the secure the border act, rebuild the wall, hr.2 which deals with comprehensive border control measures and yet those sit on chuck schumer's desk and they do absolutely nothing. >> reporter: as we wait for president biden to get back from vacation later tonight he is posting on x about another topic, student loan forgiveness. he says my administration has canceled student debt for 3.6 million people through various actions bringing the promise of higher education to more hard-working americans and we're going to keep going. so maybe a new year's resolution from the president or better said, possibly an election year promise from president biden as

new polling suggests he is struggling with young voters, larry. he is actually falling behind president trump with voters under the age of 35 according to a new suffolk university "usa today poll," grady, and he is losing hispanics. i want to say happy new year to you because you're a fabulous reporter and you always help us. secondly, does joe biden or his staff know that canceling student loans is against the law? that the supreme court, which is the highest legal authority in this great democracy of ours said he does not have the power to do that? does he understand that as he is is in the plane coming back from st. croix and his lovely home he is not paying for? >> maybe he is watching "kudlow" on the plane though i highly doubt that, larry. larry: sure he is. no,. >> reporter: that being said the white house said they were going forward with student loan debt

forgiveness regardless what the supreme court says. they're looking for other avenues to do it. larry: there you go, other avenues. >> reporter: happy new year to you. larry: i want the other avenues in our great democracy. grady trimble is a fabulous reporter. he is probably freezing. thanks. joining me texas congressman pat fallon, he is down there live from eagle pass, texas, pat we'll talk to the speaker tomorrow about all of this i don't know which is worse yeah i do, open border is worse. bidens want amnesty and open borders, this discussion with "amlo," president open bra door a bunch of of hot air looks weak, looks weak. no changes came from it. >> no, larry, not at all. in fact what joe biden has done he proven he is committed to amnesty and actually not securing our border and protecting american citizens. you can see it in the numbers. they can stick their collective you know, heads in the woke sand but here's the deal, alejandro mayorkas gets in front of

congress says lies, nothing hasn't changed. we have these problems. nothing changed from prior administrations. in the first 34 months of obama administration, just 1.5 million illegal border crossings. under president trump, 1.6 million. comparable. under joe biden it has been 8 million. that is not comparable, larry. he is obtuse and belongs in shaw shank or he is lying. larry: look it, mr. trump brought it down quite a bit, middle of 2019, to the end of 2020, i was there the key point, "amlo" in mexico told trump, no we're not going to help you around trump said, okay, fine. we will slap enormous tariffs on your manufacturers and your automobiles, because, mexico is the biggest exporter to the united states, right? and guess what? they had an epiphany. they changed. they put 50,000 troops on the border. you follow? in other words, trump tough,

biden weak. that's what's happening here and unfortunately for america no change. >> so larry you're saying that a united states president should project strength and not weakness? larry: i know. >> and not grovel to other countries, imagine that. how about this one, this is novel concept, larry. putting america first instead of last and katetering to all these other countries. larry: pat, i love that i want to say, you got hr.2. i don't know if you heard the clip from claudia tenney. it was fabulous. >> i do. larry: it was great tough in hr.2, will you, will the speaker, will the gop house conference will you stick to your guns on this and not slide, you know, into some kind of a mushy monetary deal that actually facilitates more illegals rather than closes the border? will you hang tough with hr.2? >> larry i think we have no other choice. the border is really, truly,

that bad. it has to be secured. one of the reasons i ran for congress. i want to secure the border, eventually some day balance the federal budget. mike johnson is the right speaker the right man at the right time for the right job. i think he will hold firm. our very republic is at stake here. we cannot continue on with this disasterous policy. most of these people, 99% are economic migrants. they're not asylum-seekers. the left calls them all asylum. larry: we're almost out of time. there has to be deportation. there has got to be deportation. that has to be part of the solution. i want to add that, there has to be law and order some place. pat fallon, thank you. we'll talk to speaker johnson down there. take care of yourself there at eagle pass, happy knew year, sir. >> thanks, larry, god bless. larry: you bet. it is a pleasure. i love these house guys. i want to say that. switch politics here. 13 days until the iowa caucuses. 21 days until the new hampshire

primary. donald trump in a commanding position according to the polls, all right, it is polls, not votes and what's interesting here, recent interview with john solomon of just the news. mr. trump says he aims to flip the extremism label on democrats in 2024 calling them the fringe party and he is even planning to campaign in blue states like new york and new jersey and virginia, minnesota, new mexico. maybe a massive victory in november. he is just changing everything around. joining us now the great charlie hurt, "washington times" opinion editor, fox news contributor, the great mark simone, wor radio host, soon to be number one in the middle of the day when the other guy retires. and hall of fame. go to you mark, first, this is such interesting, this interview with john so moan. let me read you quick. trump told solomon. john is good guy, just the news is very smart fellow, he is

plotting an all-out campaign to convince the american electorate that the democrats are in fact the fringe party, out of touch with main street usa. they open the borders to millions of illegals and deadly fentanyl. they enriched iran's terror machine and put biological men in women sports and locker rooms and advocated for abortion on demand and then later on just to finish the thought, "bidenomics" and democratic policies are the wreckers of the american dream that have made food and energy unaffordable. that was my riff tonight, with inflation and homeownership unattainable with high interest rates that was my riff. he is essentially going to turn the tables to say to joe biden you are the extremist fringe candidate. >> well it's true. i think he is finally just pointing it out to everybody. democrat used to mean bill clinton, john f. kennedy. now it is claudine gay and every whacko left-wing woke, you know, mccarthy was hunting for

communists. there might be some somewhere in the government. now they're all over the government. you have to hunt for a be non-communist. larry: [laughter]. charlie, is this a wise course for mr. trump to pursue? >> absolutely this is the best of trump. this is why he won in 2016. 2016 was a totally issues oriented election. larry: i said that -- >> kind of goes under the radar because people were so upset donald trump won but donald trump when you look at these issues, whether it is illegal immigration or any others mark pointed out, these are 70, 80, 90% issues. trump who is the master marketer, just looked at it realized okay, both parties but especially the democrat party has failed to address. nothing is more important than the border, failed to address this issue. it is so important to people regardless what their political affiliations. larry: you know, you goo is have heard me say this again and gone, like 2016, 2024, he is

running in 2024 but in 2023 he ran an issues campaign all year between the videos, white papers. by the way he will have a town hall with bret baier and martha maccallum, the same night there is a gop debate. that is very clever, just before the iowa caucuses. mark simone, iowa caucus outlook, not iowa is be-all-end-all, iowa caucus how do you look at it? >> it is be all, end all desantis, start to finish is has been a disaster. he decided to put everything in iowa. that is all he focused on two months. he will lose badly. he has to drop out at that point. i don't know if he has the lack of stubbornness to do it. nikki haley, new hampshire, democrats wilt turn out to vote for her just to cause confusion but she has got to drop out before south carolina. she hasn't got a shot there. larry: that is interesting, charlie. mark has already decided iowa. i will give new hampshire to you. >> so, but i think the really

important thing here out of iowa is going to end up being the press will do everything they can to make it look like donald trump lost even if he comes in first. they will do the exact same thing when nikki haley does better than anybody else in ham lam but the problem with this is, that you know the slingshot effect of doing a strong second place in iowa, let's just say ron desantis outperforms what we think he will do now, you have to win somewhere but at this point it is everybody will do a strong showing by coming in second to trump. well if donald trump wins by a little or a lot in every, the way this works is at the end of the day whoever has the most votes wins. so at the end of the day if donald trump keeps coming in, disappointing everybody by coming in first he will be the nominee. larry: i don't hear them, to these points, the hottest issue right now in u.s. politics is the border, right?

i mean 300,000 people in december. it is astonishing number for one month. desantis a little bit. haley you know, stuck on the civil war and slavery and she raised the sales tax and the gates tax in south carolina. trump pounding away relentlessly on the border. that is the point of this. let me read this again. he wants to convince america electorate democrats are the extreme party, out of touch with main street and opens the border to illegals and fentanyl. he is saying that and saying that. this it is the hottest issue in politics. it will play this month. new hampshire spills over into early february. i will call it this month. trump has the issue, does he not? >> people forget 2016 the border was the number one issue, that is how he won on the border. the problem in 2020 he pretty much contained the problem so it wasn't a big issue in that election not like 2016. larry: that's a good point. >> now 10 times bigger issue

than 2016. people have seen what it can do. they know he is not an alarmist on this subject. it will be the winning issue this time. >> i agree. as you pointed out a minute ago he did what he did at the border, the mexican border he did unilaterally. the problem was, the reason joe biden was able to undo it all congress refused to work with him on this issue. mark is exactly right. that is the issue that got him elected in 2016 that is the issue that will get him reelected in 2024. larry: last one, 30 seconds. biden wants to cancel student loans. it is illegal. >> insane. larry: supreme court ruledded it illegal. he does not have the emergency authority to cancel student loans without an appropriation and he is doing it anyway. and that is impeachable. >> he is a kleptocrats. larry: oh, kleptocrats. is that like illegal? >> yeah. they will pay, they will spend all your money to buy votes for themselves. larry: it wasn't working. young people i hear them saying this polling for trump.

they're not impressed with buying votes. i don't know, charlie hurt, mark simone, no vote-buying here. happy new year to both of you. you're both fabulous. coming up, israel takes out a top hamas commander in lebanon. very school story like trump took out soleimani. biden has no answer for houthis, however or iran's eye -- ayatol. trey yingst coming up. hope springs eternal. happy new year, kids. rsv is out there. for those 60 years and older protect against rsv with arexvy. arexvy is a vaccine used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions

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snow. larry: more breaking news today. a top hamas commander has been taken out in lebanon by israel. that's a big thing. then of course there is some stories in the paper about israel changing its war strategy. for all the news let's go to fox war correspondent trey yingst live on the ground in tel aviv. trey, happy new year first of all. thank you for helping us as always and good evening. >> reporter: larry, happy new year, good afternoon. we are following this breaking news out of beirut, lebanon. an is railingly drone strike reportedly took out the deputy chairman of hamas. now this strike took place just before 6:00 p.m. local time and a car was targeted in the beirut suburb of daria.

he was one of hamas's top commanders, key political figures and the deputy to hamas leader is mail k the aniya. waves founding members of the hamas military wing and is considered to be their leader for operations in the woes bank. what is especially important though his relationship with hezbollah and iranian regime. in october he met in person with hassan nasrallah, the leader of hezbollah. he also traveled to iran in the past to meet the country's supreme leader as well as the head of the irgc you might remember in august of this year israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu issued a threat directly to him, basically telling him to stop the strikes and attacks across the west bank or there would be a response. we also understand this deputy chairman of hamas had a bounty on his head by the u.s. state department for five million dollars. an indication how big this figure was in amass and why he was a top target for the israeli military. larry.

larry: this sounds a little bit like, in the trump administration when quassem soleimani, rather was taken out. i mean, it was a big thing and sometimes these are symbolic acts but maybe this is an operational defeat for hamas as well? >> reporter: absolutely. it is a great point and an interesting fact about these two, quassem soleimani and he met in the past before he was killed in that drone strike in baghdad. tomorrow is the anniversary of that strike that was ordered by the trump administration. so when you talk about the symbolism, it is certainly the entire region watching to see if there will be a response by hezbollah or other palestinian factions in southern lebanon that may launch rockets or missiles in response into israel. larry? larry: great stuff, trey yingst, can't thank you enough very much. happy new year. be safe. i'm kudlow. we'll be right back with the

last word. ♪. you know what's interesting these days? bitcoin. look for bitwise, my friends.

larry: wishing everybody happy new year for about the ninth time during the show. i'm coming to you in 2024 as an optimist. an optimist. that's what i'll say. weave got problems but i'm going to be optimistic and tune in tomorrow for my interview with house speaker mike johnson camped out on the border in eagle pass, texas. that'll be very interesting but first up, happ