also, the ncaa tourney isn't the only big story out of kentucky this week. on tonight's "american greed," a kentucky home build they're stole millions. when he is caught, the scam totals $69 million. and you won't believe who he tries to pin the crime on. don't miss an all new "american greed" tonight. okay, look, we know that we have a sell-off going here. do i think it's going to be of any great magnitude? i think we're up so huge since the beginning of the year, i don't blame anyone for taking profits. like i say, there is always a bull market somewhere. i promise to try to find it just for you. i'm larry kudlow. see you tomorrow. hey larry, busy day. what are you looking at? >> all right, my friend. profit-taking sends the dow to its worst numbers in a couple of weeks. but i say the stronger dollar is a tax cut for lower energy. and that will be bullish. good evening, everyone. i'm larry kudlow. this is "the kudlow report." our top story this evening, the market's worst session in a month. the dow, s&p, and n nasdaq all

down significantly. but i remain an optimistic on stronger dollar and lower energy prices. you'll hear more of my riff in just a moment. sizzle story number two tonight. fresh off victory in three primaries, mitt romney assumes the nomination, pushes back hard against the president's vicious social darwinism attack on him, and some choice words of his own. take a listen. >> he wants us to reelect him so we can find out what he'll actually do. with all the challenges the nation faces, this is not the time for president obama's hide-and-seek campaign. his intent is on hiding. you and i are going to have to do the seeking. >> all right. and rising gop star and romney backer south carolina governor nikki haley. she tells me why she is crunching down on unions, and whether she is running for vice president. and will rick santorum now call it quits? his biggest backer, billionaire foster freeze joins me for a live exclusive interview. president obama's attempt to bully the supreme court over obamacare is backfiring.

and now it looks like he is backing off. texas ag greg abbott fights back on our show against obama in another exclusive. but first up, let's get the rundown on today's market sell-off. cnbc's only kayla tausche joins us with the details. all right, kayla, good evening. what can you tell us? >> no secret the bears came out of the woods today causing the worst day for stocks since march 6th, and the worst day for the nasdaq all year with the tech sector sinking 1%. about a percent and a and a half, and the dow holding at 13,74 points. telecom the only sector to close the day in the green. frontier communications getting an upgrade this weekend. at&t reaching a four-year agreement with unions in southeast. you can see that has been good for those two names in particular. also, airlines getting a bid today as well. southwest upgraded at barkley's capital. and delta moving on a report by cnbc's kate kelly that delta is looking to buy conocophillips oil refinery in order to lower

its jet fuel costs. you can see delta up 1.5% on the day. sinking $102 a barrel for may crude. you can see after hours it's up just about a half of 1%. the entire commodity complex was in the red except for sugar. you can see now we are seeing some green across the board. natural gas still at extremely low levels at 213. gold touching a 12-week low intra-day before closing and hitting just about 1624 right now. larry? >> kayla, thank you very much. now, before we jump in and do some stock market work, here is my quick take on why the feds move not to print new money the bullish. why? because it's driving up king dollar. and a stronger dollar is punishing gold and pushing down energy prices. both crude oil and wholesale gasoline are fallen. and that could translate to lower prices at the pump before long. and that in turn could provide a modest tax cut. think about it.

so as this stock correction shakes out, my sense is if the fed stays out of the game and the dollar continue to rise, the tax cut effect of king dollar will be very positive on stocks and the economy. now let's bring in our guests. joining me now is thomas lee. he is the chief u.s. equities strategist at jpmorgan. michael azanian is "forbes" magazine executive editor and co-host of the emmy award winning show sports money. and stephen weiss, "fast money" and the terror of the billion dollar mistake. michael, you're probably the least to believe my point. but if the fed stops printing money, the money dollar value goes up. and that's going to push gold and energy prices down. and i think that is just bullish. what is your take? >> i love it if it's true. i'm skeptical we have a more hawkish fed. look at the '80s. >> right. thank you. >> strong king dollar, very strong economy, low inflation. that's very healthy for equities.

>> i hate to jump. i just love. this reagan's first term and clinton's second term. strong dollar, falling gold, falling energy prices, fabulous bull markets. nothing lasts forever. but that's what we had. that's what i'm looking for. and steve weiss, my other point is the economy is fine. it's not fabulous, but it's fine. we had the adp employment report. probably pretty good payrolls coming out on friday. we had the ism services index, the nonmanufacturing index. you know, you could be looking at a 3% economy. my question to you what, do you think of my scenario or what is your scenario? >> i agree with your scenario? >> you do? >> i think that the fed statement yesterday was actually the perfect statement. they say that they're not going to have any more qe, which actually has begun to be destruct alternative both the household, to corporations just across the playing field. but yet they say the economy is picking up. i don't believe they're going to keep it where they are through 2014. i think they'll be forced to

tighten sooner because the economy is going to be a lot stronger. so i'm buller. i've been looking for a consolidation, not look future a big correction. but i'm focused on domestically focused stocks. one would be the airlines. i'm looking at, for example, usair. i own it. i love -- >> because of lower energy prices. >> because of lower energy prices, number one. and because they're insulated from the issues in china and europe which are slowing. you can look at ford instead of gm. we saw the numbers yesterday. they've got a small part of their business in europe, much bigger in the u.s., not really in china. that's the playing field that i'm in. i love the u.s. economy. i'm short the euro against the dollar. i'm short long bonds. i'm short the aussie dollar. >> what is your take on this correction? is it a correction? are we going to come out of the correction? and secondly, let's assume, even if the fed, let's assume you woke up in a month or two or three, and the fed nudged up its short-term interest rate targets. surprised the hell out of everybody. they would still have an

incredibly easy money policy, would they not? in other words, the fed not doing more bond buying, they're still easy. the fed raises rates by a quarter, they're still easy. what is your take on the correction? >> i do think corrections are going to be pretty shallow. we know investors are underinvested right now. there is a tendency for momentum in this market. we've had two double-digit quarters in a row. it's happened 14 times since 1900. the following quarter tends to be positive 80% of the time. so i think it's going to be a shallow pullback if it happens. on your comment about tightening, you know, it would move the ten-year up. i think that's actually positive for pe. so i think stocks would ultimately benefit. >> isn't that good for banks? isn't that good for banks if the interest rates move up a little bit and the differential between short and long-term rates, even a banker can make money with the steep yield curve. >> absolutely. the nim would have a huge benefit. >> even a jpmorgan bank kerr make money, even though it's an excellent bank. >> yes, no comment. but corporates have $1.9 trillion in cash.

so imagine you add 1 percentage point to that. that's 19 billion a year in profits. >> so they would make some pheromone. >> valuations are incredible. no offense to jpmorgan, but you look at citibank and bank of america trading at 60% of book value and 50% of book value respectively. so the valuations to your point about banks is right on the mark. >> if you don't know what the valuations are in those banks because you know know what actual book value. i think this is the perfect environment for a well-run banks like jpmorgan. it's one of my favorite stocks because you do have the steepening yield curve. they're buying nondistressed assets in europe from disstraesed sellers and taking market share. it's panacea with rates going up and with the economy picking up. and credit quality better. >> let me ask you, mike, you said you would be a big buyer if the dow dropped all the way to 10,000. >> right. >> i don't happen to agree about 10,000. what brings the dow to 10,000?

>> if you look at when this rally started, right, since that time, real gdp per capita in this country has declined. we have become poorer as stocks have run up simply because we've had this monetizing by the fed. it's a pure bubble. i'm saying this. if you go back down and look at slowing economic growth that we have with no more qes and no more money print priming by the fed, that's going to bring the market down because corporate earnings growth has slowed dramatically. >> it will bring energy prices down. that's the point i'm making. i need some defense here. if you're optimist, i need defense. if you have more ideal energy prices, isn't that good? >> it's a big plusment right now oil levels is a threat. i think you made a great point about dollar strengthening. >> coy be wrong about the dollar strengthening. that's the achilles heel. i get that. i think the fed has figured out the economy is not going into a double-dip recession. >> it seems to be more

self-sustaining. and i think i have heard you comment when you look at loot telephone data, it implies a much better level of gdp growth than what we've seen. >> i think we're looking at 3% growth. why wouldn't you buy technology companies if you believe the economy is growing? it seems to me you buy banks and technologies. i don't want to buy energy. i don't want to buy commodities because the color is rising in this scenario. what about tech? >> tech is actually the biggest part of my portfolio. so i'm sticking with name like qualcomm, which i talked about on the show many times. it's the world's most dominant technology company. not apple. fine company cheap, but qualcomm, because you don't have to pick between the iphone, the blackberry device, or the android. because they're in all of them. i love tech. tech is going to benefit from spending. but i don't is a to be careful. cisco is hurt by government spending. they're pulling back. qualcomm is not. >> michael ozanian, are you a seller right now. >> i'm a seller. i also believe there is going to be another round of quantitative

easing. >> we'll leave it right there. thank you very much. coming up, folks, rises republican star, south carolina governor nikki haley. she is a die-hard supporter of business, and she is awful tough on unions. and she'll be here live. but up next, the president is out of bounds. obama's attempt to bully the supreme court over obamacare is backfiring. now he is under fire from a federal appeals court. and folks, as always, don't forget free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity. that includes the judicial rule of law. i'm kudlow. we'll be right back. zap technology. arrival. with hertz gold plus rewards, you skip the counters, the lines, and the paperwork. zap. it's our fastest and easiest way to get you into your car. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz.

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economists and market types will be waiting for the jobs report on friday. the economists will be able to blather about it, but no one can trade on it because the markets closed. why such a crucial report out when the market can't react to it? my pal james cramer wants an answer. >> hey larry, let me ask you something. you ever wonder how out of touch this labor department is with modern-day america? it's not the sanctity of an important religious holiday. what makes me make this charge on your show? despite the fact that the stock market is closed, correctly, to allow people to observe good friday, the labor department is

choosing to issue the most important statistic it compiles, the payroll and employment report at its regular time, 8:30 at friday as if there is no holiday at all. this number should not be issued on a day when the market can't react to it. i have to believe in this modern era they could issue it tomorrow morning if they wanted to. this good friday issuance is a pretty disgraceful decision when you think about it. the fact that neither the change nor the s.e.c. pretect this is outrageous. if good friday is important enough to close the ex-changes, which i think it, it's important enough to be respected by the labor department. their silence is not golden. to me it is still one more reason why the nonprofessional investor continues to avoid stocks as a respectable asset class. it's also ooh a good time to reflect on the fact that while every institution i know is spending on upgrading and developing real-time data, the labor department seems to be stuck in, i don't know, abacus era. but maybe that's just typical of the errant ways of the sadly

performing department that seems so, so set on trying to get more green jobs, often at the expense of all other jobs, and a economy that is stubbornly resisting hiring more of its own. this department is ideological to its core as witnessed by the unwillingness to help hires to get to the one area of the economy that truly is hiring, the companies involved in fossil fuel exploration and production. shame on the labor department, shame on the government, and shame on the exchanges for not pressuring labor to do the right thing and speed up the payroll numbers not to conflict with those observing good friday. let's hope the next time the monthly data pal roll data falls on this holiday, the department is finally at last ready to do the right thing. lawrence, back to you. >> all right, jimmy cramer, i think you're 100% right. as an observer of good friday, i believe with everything you say. thank you for that. now switching gears. the obama administration is under fire tonight on charges the president tried to intimidate the supreme court justices this week. the white house now seems to be in full spin mode. take a listen.

>> the administration, the president, the attorney general believe obviously that the federal courts the authority to rule on the constitutionality of laws passed by congress. >> all right. joining us now to comment on this exclusively we have texas attorney general greg abbott. texas, of course, one of the original 26 states if i'm not mistaken to challenge the constitutionality of obamacare. ag, thank you very much. am i right? is it 26 states and you were one of the leaders? >> well, you are right, larry. you may recall when we filed the lawsuit, it was 13 states. then it expanded to more than half of the states of the country. >> all right. thank you. now, obama bullying the supremes. your court of appeals down there in texas apparently called him out on it. where does this matter stand now? it looks like attorney general holder is backing off, as he should. i don't understand how a constitution law professor like barack obama could have made a blunder like this. but you tell me, greg. >> well, ironically, on the day

that obama made the comment, his doj lawyers were in the fifth court of appeals here in texas making an argument about a different obamacare case. and federal judge jerry smith called out the doj lawyer and said that he wanted that lawyer to provide three pages in writing single spaced tomorrow. the doj's answer about whether or not the courts have the authority to strike down laws the courts consider to be unconstitutional. >> and eric holder, the attorney general of the united states, backed off. is that right? is that where we are tonight? >> well, the department of justice, eric holder, and even obama are backing off. obama said when he first made his comment that this was extraordinary and unprecedented for the supreme court to consider striking down a law like this. the only thing, larry, that is extraordinary and unprecedented is to have a president bashing the united states supreme court like this. this is unconscionable to see what the president is doing. >> even a nonlawyer like me, and i'm a dope when it comes to legal issues, believe me.

but i know about marbury versus madison. i know about constitutional reviews by the supreme court. and what i want to ask you is, mr. abbott, this. how much do you think the supreme court justices themselves will be angry at what obama tried to do? and might it actually affect the outcome of the case regarding obamacare? >> generally, i would say they wouldn't be all that angry, and they will decide the case based on what the constitution says. you have to remember, though, larry, the way that some of the justices reacted when obama during the state of the union address in the well of congress called out those justices for their decision in citizens united. that was offensive to put those defenseless justices in that compromising position. now the president has done it once again. this is becoming offensive behavior by the president against the highest court in the land. >> it is remarkable. everybody knows he is trying to politically influence the outcome of the case. but his overreach here is quite remarkable.

attorney general, let me ask you one more on the way out. this voter id business, which you are promoting in business as a state right, and i get that. the black leaders of the black congressional caucus, democrats in washington, d.c. are pushing a boycott of key companies like coke and walmart, coke industries and overs who participated in a legislative exchange. what can you tell us about that? are there boycotts going on? does that affect your own views on the need for voter id? >> well, the need for voter id has been established by the united states supreme court. the united states department of justice has approved voter id laws. all texas has done is to pass a law like the law that has been upheld by the united states supreme court, like the law implemented in indiana and georgia. and so if they want to do a boycott, it's going to be a boycott nationwide about laws that have been in existence and upheld by the united states supreme court. and larry, remember. this is something approved by more than 75% of texans. and remember this. in the states that have employed

voter id laws, minority vote participation has increased, not decreased. >> so you're not going to be intimidated by a bunch of leftists from congress. that correct? is that what you're saying to us tonight in you're going ahead with what you're going ahead with on the voter idea? >> texas is not going to be intimidated by anyone when it comes to enforcing the law, ensuring integrity of the ballot box, and ensuring that texas can have the same voter id laws that the united states supreme court has already said are perfectly constitutional. >> all right. texas attorney general greg abbott, we thank you as always, sir. appreciate it. hope you'll come back soon. >> thank you, larry. all right. next up, programing note, by the way. my pal brian sullivan is going to host a special edition of "street signs" tomorrow. talking bond convict atlantatys, financial reform with barney frank, and a whole lot more. coming up tonight in "the kudlow report." a rising republican star, governor nikki haley of south carolina. she is the living embodiment of my kudlow commandment, thou

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>> good evening, larry. word that facebook's final market transaction has priced at $43.50 a share, which values the company at roughly $109 billion, ahead of the highly anticipated ipo in may. jpmorgan ceo jamie dimon told his shareholders today that 2011 was a good year, but mortgage-related losses kept it from being a better year. well expect earnings to grow over time, dimon said, adding that hostility towards the banking community continues. aig shares were up today after cnbc reported aig could launch the ipo of its aircraft leasing business, ilfc in the second quarter. earn billions from the ipo and other asset sales. delta airlines is considering buying a conocophillips refinery for over $100 million in a strategy to save on rising jet fuel costs by refining petroleum in-house at the trainer, pennsylvania, based facility.

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welcome back to "the kudlow report." i'm larry kudlow. mitt romney's three-primary sweep yesterday all but cement his eventual gop nomination. but rick santorum hopes pennsylvania's april 24th primary proves to be his campaign firewall, and today gave no indication his race will end soon. take a listen. >> we have to win here. and we plan on winning here. you know, as i said last night, the people in pennsylvania know me. you know, all of the negative attacks are i think going to fall on a lot of deaf ears here.

i feel very, very confident that there is a lot of strength and support here in pennsylvania that is going to launch us into the second half. >> all right. joining us now exclusively we have billionaire fester foster freeze. he is the top donor for the pro-santorum red, white, and blue fund super pac. it is great to see you again. thank you very much for coming on the show. >> it's an honor, larry. it's been way too long. >> i know it. and you are the best. i want to say at the beginning, i am a fan of rick santorum's and a friend. i want to ask you. i know what rick is saying publicly. isn't there a huge risk here that he loses pennsylvania, and it really damages, if not terminates his entire rest of his political career? isn't the stake very high? >> i doubt that would happen. if he loses, we'll deal with that when it comes. but he's got a good chance of winning about five or six of the primary events in may. and he is doing real fine in the delegate count if you look at the possibility that texas might

go to winner take all, which could have a possibility of having close to a dead heat if everything has fallen into place. >> i think, foster, look. the delegate math i think is overwhelming for romney. i understand texas. i do think you're going to have a risk in pennsylvania. those polling numbers are already narrowing. but let me ask you this. rick's claim was that he was the conservative alternative to mitt romney. the reality seems to be changing. important tea party people like marco rubio, senator rubio, senator johnson, for example, paul ryan, tea partiers, not just the establishment, but tea partiers are now coming out for romney left and right. doesn't that change the composition and fabric of the santorum support? >> well, what's amazing about that, larry, is even with that support, and these guys are all stars. i mean ron johnson and paul ryan, i love these guys. they're heroes. but even with that endorsement, mitt romney only won by 4 1/2 percentage points. that says something.

that's with newt gingrich still in there. >> but foster, the other point i was going to make in there, and again, i like rick santorum. but he lost all the big midwestern states, rights? he lost illinois. he lost wisconsin. he lost michigan. he lost ohio. i think he's got some jeopardy in pennsylvania. i guess you disagree. but it seems like all these political cards are stacking up. he could make a lot of people in the republican party really happy. rick could be a hero, literally a hero if he suspended the campaign, foster. >> well, he wouldn't be a hero to all the people who think about the best chance of beating president obama. another one of your competing channels this morning said many people in the republican establishment don't believe that mitt romney can beat obama. and that's a very serious situation. that's the number one issue. who can beat president obama. >> foster, are you intending to continue to finance the pac? >> well, my accountant tells me i got enough money to take my wife to the movies every saturday night with popcorn.

i could die with money leftover. we'll look at that possibility. if money is needed, i want to be there for our country. and i think rick's got the best shot of winning and i'm going to stick by that. >> so you will invest more in the rick santorum campaign? >> yes. and there is a lot of different ways one can do that, other than red white and blue, as you know. so there will be other avenues. >> many things, foster friess. it's great to see you. >> coming up, we'll continue. while santorum does look to pennsylvania, romney has his sights set on washington, using last night's victory speech to hone his attack on potential campaign rival barack obama. take a listen to romney last night. >> when you attack business and you vilify success, you're going to have less business and less success. out-of-touch liberals like barack obama say they want a strong economy, but in everything they do, they show they don't like business very much. but the economy, of course, is simply the product of all the

businesses in the nation added together. so it's a bit like saying you like an omelette, but you don't like eggs. >> all right. so did romney sweep seal the deal and have the vip stakes begun? here we have former vice presidential candidate howard dean. we also have my pal rick lazio, who has been a romney supporter and former congressman from new york. the thing that looks to me, you have this confrontation from today, romney attacking barack obama, yesterday obama attacking ryan and romney. didn't you think, howard, that yesterday that the president was dark and negative and small, no hope in change, no optimism. and didn't romney kind of give him a licking in his response today? >> you know as well as i do the answer to that is no. look, romney's still got a problem with santorum. we both agreed for quite some weeks that romney was going to win the whole thing. i think he will. until he gets santorum out of his hair, the press is going to

write stories what santorum's got to say about romney. romney's got to dispatch santorum. the best way to do that is to win in pennsylvania. that's a big state. pennsylvania three weeks from now, a big deal. >> rick lazio, do you think romney still has a rick santorum problem? >> i think it's getting less and less every day. i know rick santorum well. he is a good man. and he is going to do the right thing. and i think it will be sooner rather than later. he knows that every day he stays in -- he's got to win 80% of all the remaining delegates to be the nominee. and after the next sort of mini super tuesday which is on april 24th with new york and connecticut and other states strongly leaning romney, he'll need to win virtually every single delegate. so at that point all you're doing is hurting the nominee for the party. i don't think he is going to be in that place. >> but see, howard, i come back to. this you and i are probably going to disagree about this tonight. i think the president delivered a very dark message yesterday at that associated press do. and i think mitt romney today kind of nailed him. romney said you know what in you're hiding. you don't want to run on your

record so, you're just throwing darts at paul ryan and me. i don't think people want that i think they want solutions, and i think the president's outburst yesterday shows he just wants to attack. >> larry, what people don't want is a guy building a multimillion-dollar home with a car garage. they don't want a guy invested in the cayman islands to avoid taxes, and they don't want a guy who had a swiss bank account. 70% of the people in the country believe that romney only cares about rich people. 30% of the people believe that about obama. i think this could still be a close race. right now the republicans have dug themselves such a deep hole among women and hispanics that if the election were held tomorrow, this would be a landslide for obama. >> rick lazio, do you believe that? if the election were held tomorrow, this would be a landslide, or do you think mitt romney is scoring more points and that business creates jobs and obama likes jobs but doesn't like business? >> i think, larry, that the public is hungry for leadership. they know there is entitlement mess. they know the only person talking about fixing the

entitlements in a responsible way is mitt romney. the president has punted on this. unfortunately. you've got another trillion deficit that the president's put forward, the third straight trillion deficit that he has put forward that isn't sustainable. he's got no growth package at all. we've got sub-par growth. we're creating far fewer jobs than we should at this point in a recovery, given the depth of the recession. and we've got romney talking about eliminating uncertainty, promoting the private sector, lowering taxes, and creating more impetus for growth. >> well, this is the first round. this is romney versus obama. this was round one. we'll see the subsequent rounds. howard dean, thank you. as always, rick lazio, great to see you. coming up on "kudlow," rising republican superstar and strong romney backer, south carolina governor nikki haley. she is going to tell me why she is coming down hard on the unions in favor of free enterprise and whether she might

reconsider and run for vice president. hang on for nikki haley. [ artis brown ] america is facing some tough challenges right now.

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education and infrastructure and basic science is not a growth strategy. cutting deeply into the safety net for low income americans is not financially necessary and cannot plausibly help strengthen economic growth. >> all right. welcome back to "the kudlow report." that of course was treasury man tim geithner who is trying to make the case for more government interventions. all week long i've been unveiling my ten commandments of growth. tonight i've got two more. thou shalt curb out of control government union benefits, and thou shall limit government overreach. that's the one i'm focusing on, government overreach. it's a battle between big government and big business. we welcome republican governor nikki haley. governor haley, welcome very much. geithner got the story wrong. you, on the other hand, have really fought in south carolina, as i understand it, for limited government, lower taxes, and

even tough on unions. can you tell us about that? >> well, i can tell you that we have fought through all of those things. and i talk about that in the book. and the results have paid off. $5 billion worth of investment in south carolina, over 22,000 jobs. one of the lowest unionized states in the country. we build planes. we build tires. we build cars, but we don't build unions. and that's why the companies keep coming to south carolina. >> in one of your book tour discussions, you called president obama a bully. >> yes. >> tell me about that. why is he a bully? >> he is becoming more and more of a bully. i've seen it as a governor that we have a tried to pass laws in our state from voter id to making sure that we have illegal immigration reform. to the situation with boeing. we continue to see him bully us on the fronts. now we're watching him bully the supreme court. he is bullying republicans and scolding republicans in congress for their budget. he now thinks that bullying is his way into reelection. it's not going to happen. it's not going to work.

he is now getting desperate on the fact that he has had a term to lead. he came in on hope and change. it hasn't worked. so now he thinks scaring the american public is the way to get reelected. >> let me go back to the national labor relations board versus boeing and south carolina. yeah, those guys bullied you, no question about it. but who won, that governor haley? some people say the nlrb deal basically benefitted the state of washington. they got the jobs and south carolina didn't. >> i will tell you this. that we had a great american economy in boeing, created a thousand jobs in south carolina. at the same time, expanded 2,000 jobs in washington state. not one person was hurt. when president obama and the national labor relations board sued boeing, we fought back. we made sure everybody knew who the nlrb was. and that president knew in this election year they didn't need to have it, the nlrb dropped their suit. what was a thousand jobs in south carolina is now almost 6,000 jobs in south carolina. and you're getting ready to see one of those big mac daddy

planes come off the runway this summer. i can tell you, south carolina won, boeing won, and the people of our state won. >> tell me more about obama bullying on states' rights. i had texas attorney general greg abbott on a few moments ago. you've got some of the leading congressional black democrats trying to boycott stores in states that are pushing the voter rights id. do you have voter id reform in south carolina? are any of these left-wing groups trying to come in and bully you? >> oh, listen, i mean i've been sued from the unions to threatened by jesse jackson to having, you know, the department of justice come in here. but the fact is yes, we passed the voter id law in south carolina. and we said that, yes, we think if you have to show a picture id to buy sudafed, if you have to show picture id to get on plane, you should have to show a picture id to protect the integrity of the voting process. and president obama once again and his department of justice stopped us. so then we went and they said they were going to have thousands of people who were being denied the right to vote. so we put to it the test.

can't is not an option, and we wanted to prove it. we put to it the test. and we said, all right, i will take you myself. we will drive you to the department of motor vehicles to get a picture idea. out of the thousands of people that claim they'd couldn't get there, for 30 days we had an 800 number. do you know how many people across the state of south carolina got rides? 23. 23. now you tell me what their next excuse is going to be. >> so more people are voting. is that fair? more people are voting, and they're voting without fraud and legally? >> we want as many people to vote that can vote. we want everybody to vote. what we want is to protect the integrity of the process. why would we not show picture idea? in the book i talk about how blessed we are to live in this country. my parents reminded us every day as immigrant how blessed we are to to be here. why do we not want to protect that process? he once again bullies through that process as well. >> so use make the rounds for romney, as you have, do you view

states' rights, let's go right into states' rights, whether it's obamacare, whether it's voting rights, whether it's the national labor relations board, might wind up being drilling offshore, i don't know. how big an issue is states rights in your mind? is that going to be one of the keys for the election in november? >> for the governors of this country, it is a huge key. when you have bills where we've given you three or four different bills in the state of south carolina alone, that the president and his administration have stopped the will of the people of the state of south carolina, states rights are going to be a huge issue, because when i talked to governor romney, i told him of the problems we had. and he said as a governor he knew he needed to do in massachusetts what was the will of the people in massachusetts. i need to be able to do that for the people in south carolina. i think it would will been absolute message. >> a long with jobs and the economy and debt and unions and bullying, and the fact that we have a president that can't seem to get a balanced budget. and that's a problem. >> so you've got the message, governor. why have you taken yourself out

of the vip stakes? >> oh, if you read the book, you will see that it was lot of work and a lot of fight to win the race for governor. and i will tell you, the people of south carolina took a huge chance on me. and i'm trying to prove to them every day that they made the right decision. and the right thing for me to do is to stay and love doing what i do, which is representing the best state in the country and finish the job i promised the people of south carolina. >> all right. many thank, governor nikki haley of south carolina. good luck on the states' rights issue and good luck on the campaign trail and the book tour. >> thank you so much. coming up, what is the real obama energy policy? is it speeding up federal permits or is it putting five-year moratoriums on offshore drilling? i can't figure this out. bill richardson, he is former energy secretary under bill clinton, and gale norton, former bush 43 u.s. secretary of the interior will face off on that next up. e game? i think it's final seconds, ohh, down by two, shoots a three, game over. so two seconds ago...

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welcome back. and, yes, that's a geyser in the white house north lawn, caused by a water main break. but spokesman jay carney has -- but spokesman jay carney has his own spin on this. take a listen. >> we're drilling for oil. it's part of the all of the above. come on! part of our all of the above approach. >> so you're drilling for oil and hit water. >> extending domestic oil and gas production. >> all right. meanwhile the white house now wants the interior department to

speed up drilling permits on federal lands, and to get the full point we go to washington, d.c. for cnbc's own eamon javers. good evening. >> good evening. they're hoping to find something a little more substantive than just water out there on federal lands. and interior secretary ken salazar took the opportunity earlier this week to tour oil country in north dakota, out there making the point that this all of the above strategy by the obama administration does include drilling for oil. also taking the opportunity to announce a couple of new initiatives. take a look at what those were, including at the interior department new systems designed to reduce the review period for permits by 2/3, expediting the sell and processing of federal oil and gas leases that people have been complaining there is a jam up there. they want to expedite that process. and the administration making the point, obviously a political point in an election year, that total federal oil and gas production has increased by 13% during president obama's first three years in office.

so larry, this is something we're going to hear a lot more of. we've already seen the president out in front of oil pipelines. we've seen the interior secretary this week. i suspect that throughout the year they're going to continue to hit this point, hey, look, the president is not against oil drilling. he knows that is one of the big criticisms coming at him from republicans. >> all right, eamon javers, thank you so much. so faster drilling permits on idea. i'm all for it. but i want to know if it's just a political campaign stunt because the interior department just put a five-year moratorium on drilling permits off the coast of virginia. that's the old idea. so which is the real obama policy? who can we trust? let's bring in bill richardson. he is a former new mexico governor and former undersecretary on bill clinton. and gale norton, a former bush 43 u.s. secretary of the interior. all right. so bill richardson, i am delighted to see that they may cut the permitting time to federal lands. but at the same time, they deny

virginia a permit that was due last year, and they're putting a five-year environmental review moratorium on it. and frankly, bill, it all smacks of election year campaign politics. >> well, the retail, larry, is under the obama administration, oil and gas drilling has increased. pipeline permits have increased. and you know that's 13% more in the last three years than the last three years of the bush administration. so this all of the above policy includes this effort by the interior department to speed up through an automated process the sale of oil and gas leases, plus a review of any of the new leases. so this is going to speed up oil and gas drilling. and i think that's part of a strategy that includes nuclear, includes renewable energy, clean

call, vehicles that are cleaner fueled and a variety of other options that are important. >> let me go to gale norton, secretary. look, what bill richardson says about oil and gas drilling is correct. but what he doesn't say it's all happening on private lands, had nothing to do with obama's policies. in fact what the studies show is federal lands production of oil and gas has actually slumped, between 10 and 15% in recent years. now gail, you've got a hydra-headed policy. we learned today they're going to speed up permits on federal lands. but the day before we learned they're putting a five-year freeze and denying virginia the permit that virginia was promised. gail, i think this is just pure campaign politics, and i don't know what to believe. >> what's interesting about the announcement is that it takes 298 days today. it took 140 days, half that time

when i left office as secretary of the interior. and so they've doubled the time it takes to get a permit. now they're trying to cut back. leasing on federal lands is at a 25-year low. offshore we've seen with the gulf of mexico, they're down about 160,000 jobs because of the delays in the permitting. so there are lots of things that are happening on the energy front, but they're in spite of this administration instead of because of its efforts to speed things along. >> and bill richardson, look. the other thing that bugs me, you and i have known each other a long time. we've got these new reports of crony green deals, solar trust, which was promoted by energy secretary chu, was promoted by president obama. solar trust, $22.1 billion federal loan guarantee. after a great promotion by the white house and the energy department, it's gone bankrupt. this is another solyndra, solar

trust. there is another one, eco tality. this is now before the securities and exchange commission for all kinds of violations. this was promoted by the department of interior and the department of energy. they haven't given up on these phonily solyndra-type deals, bill richardson. when are they going to get wise and when are they going to take the government out of the green energy venture capitalist and stop wasting taxpayer money? >> because both bush and republican and democratic administrations, we have to be competitive, mainly with china, larry. i just got back from china where there are massive subsidies to renewable energy. look, if we're going to have game-changing technologies, you have to take risks. you've got to invest in some of these innovative technologies that are going to create up to 60,000 jobs. they're going to fuel three million homes. they're going to lower the price of gasoline. >> but they haven't paid off. >> the future of this country is natural gas. >> yes. i agree. >> a lot of them are working

well. you have to. >> you're just wasting taxpayer money. >> you to invest in these new technologies, larry. we can't let the chinese lick us. >> we've got to talk more on this. bill richardson, thank you. gale norton, thank you. sorry we didn't have enough time. time's up. that's tonight's show. we'll be back tomorrow night. maybe look at the solyndra-type subsidies some more. i just hate them. and i say drill, drill, drill, and pipe at the same time. i'm kudlow. tomorrow night we'll see you. zap technology.

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