see, there are methods to my madness. i'd like to tell you, there's always a bull it looks like gender politics, not monetary skills, will determine the next fed chief. larry summers versus janet yellen. does yellen win because she's a woman? does summers move because he once disparaged women in math and science? we'll talk about it. plus, tonight get this, the same irs workers who will be forcing obama care for all of us don't want to be forced to go on obama care themselves. you know what i say? they should eat their own cooking. we thought anthony weiner were the ethically challenged ones.

and now there are questions about his wife, huma abedin. why is she getting a six-figure salary from the state department? why is she stone walling a senate investigation? all that and more coming up on the "kudlow report" right now. first up, the white house saying today president obama likely won't name fed chairman ben bernanke's replacement to the fall. the battle for the seat is on but it seems to be less about monetary policy and more about gender. good evening, john. >> this looks like a choice between two ivy league educated economist who is served democratic presidents, but the race between larry summers and janet yellen has become something more than that.

yellen is the current fed vice chair expected to continue the policies bernanke has established, but she'd also be the first woman chair of the fed and enjoys the backing of prominent female economists and members of congress. larry summers has worked closely with the range of other obama advisers like tim geithner and jim sperling since the clinton area. he's a favorite inside the white house that some women complaint isn't always inclusive. yellen has more experience on monetary policy, seen as more of a consensus builder. summers has been a crisis manager for clinton and obama, can be brusque as well as brilliant as we discovered at the white house. one thing we can't say often enough, larry, only a tiny circle of white house aides know the president's thinking and all they say now is this decision won't be made for a while. >> john, okay, i get that part but when did this larry summers bo

boomlet come from in the last week or so? that had to come from his pals inside the white house, from the clinton years and reuben years. >> i think that's right. and to the extent that it's real, it traces to the president. after all, he worked very closely with larry summers for two years during 2009 and 2010 as they were digging out of the financial crisis and trying to generate a recovery. he has very high regard for larry summers and the question will be does that override the other characteristics that yellen would bring to the job, not only gender but her experience in monetary policy, working with bernanke, who has also been president obama's partner. >> thank you, john harwood. >> should we be concerned this choice seems to be more about gender politics than monetary policy? here now is our free market friday panel. tonight we have jessica tarlove,

jennifer stefano and john fund from the national review. one thing, the way this battleground is set up and, jennifer, i'm going to go to you first on this. here's how the "new york times" put it -- the california girls versus the reuben boys. the california girls, all right? christine romer and laura tyson, nancy pelosi, dianne feinstein, barbara boxer, a great favorite of mine. the reuben boys, tim geithner, jacob lew and jason fuhrman. this is one hell of a way to make one of the most important economic decisions. they're going to do it on the basis of boys versus girls? >> this is just something that continues to happen withins obama white house, even on public policy as well. what i always say is what is best for the country? i'm not very interested in having a woman into a leadership position, i'm not interested

whether someone reflects my anatomy, i'm interested whether they reflect my principles and values and embrace what we need for the economy. this is another instance of having a failure coming out of the obama administration. you won't have the right fit for the job if it's based on gender. >> jessica, this is kind of the ultimate quintessential democratic interest group politics only the stakes are extremely high, federal reserve chairman. do you think that in fact the battle that's being described now between the women and the men over this is correct? do you think that's true? do you think that's going on? >> i don't think it's correct completely. i think gender is a part of it. you have a man versus a woman. it's always going to be a component and you have powerful women speaking out on it. beyond gender politics, this is about class warfare. you have larry summers, a vocal supporters of the glass ceiling act and on the other hand, you have janet yellen, who has been more dovish in policy

preferences. to reduce it to gender is incredibly unfair. >> do you think this gender discussion is unfair? it sure looks like it's breaking out like hives all over the place. >> it's always going to be a component when you have a man versus a woman. but if there's any job in this country where this should be the absolute bottom consideration, it's this job. if you ask the person in this country who is a part-time worker and hopes to be a full-time worker, if you ask the person who is under what in their mortgage, hoping to get out of it, if you ask the person who is trying to get a loan from a bank and can't one, you ask any other person how much considering should gender be in the choice of the fed chairman, they would look at you as if you were from mars! >> absolutely right. larry summers is no stranger to gender politics. hold on a second. his tenure at harvard was marched. this is when he was president of harvard, was marred about

controversial comments about women and science and their aptitude thereof. will his sexist statements still haunt him today? let's get a wrapup from naomi schaeffer riley. she wrote "the faculty loungss and other reasons you won't get the education you paid for." not only does summers lose the battle because, i'm paraphras g paraphrasing, saying women doesn't have the same aptitude in science as men, does this dog him? >> larry summers in 2005 gave a speech in why he speculated why women were not in the top tiers in science and engineering and he suggested two this evenings, first, that there may be biological reasons that women are not in the absolute top tiers and, second that, they may

actually prefer to be at home with their children sometimes. the "new york times" recently ran a poll in which they found only a quarter of women actually said if they had young children that they would like to be working full time. but never mind the reality. the fact of the matter is that larry summers said two very politically incorrect things about women and the administration does not want to pick this fight. >> wait a minute, one more. i always talk about the administration picking this fight. you tell me if i'm wrong. he also said black faculty members should write more and they should teach more classes, heaven forbid. he said black faculty members. and the most famous one i guess, cornell west up and left and went to princeton where you don't have to teach or write. i went to princeton. i don't know. i thought some of those guys were teachers. naomi, now i got women and blacks and a smart guy like larry summers who wants to be

fed chairman but he is in deep yogurt. >> apparently he can't keep his mouth shut. he told cornell west to stop publishing rap albums and publish some research and cornell west took offense to that. after a week of trying to show the country just how black he is, i not going to go over well when you have larry summers there trying to explain when black studies have been intellectually falling apart. >> now, jessica, this is stuff summers said years ago -- there's another story in the wall street journal, oh, my god, oh, my god, summers actually consulted with capitalist institutions like citi and nasdaq and a couple of investment funds. >> all big obama supporters, by the way. so he attacked women, he attacked black teachers and he worked for capitalist

institutions. this guy's got to be dead meat. >> i just don't think that that's fair. i think that people can rise above this. >> can he? >> can he? i think that he can, too. i think they're both incredibly qualified candidates and i think bringing up the gender issue to return to that -- >> nobody's talking about quality. you are right, they're both really smart. i agree with that completely, but, jennifer, i don't think anybody's talking qualifications. i think that's the bad, pathetic part about it. what john said is right, ordinary, middle class people living on the edge or unemployed or underemployed could care less about any of this stuff but this is what the senate confirmation may consist of. >> correct. i love larry summers because he showed what actual diversity is. diversity of ideas. bring them to the marketplace and see how they do. i applaud him. do you know how hard it is to get rid of a faculty member at a college? this guy did it in one sentence. cornell west, getting rid of him, i say bravo to larry

summers. >> that's got to be a plus for harvard. bad for princeton, plus for harvard. >> that shows real diversity. we should look at diversity, not skin color, not gender. as a woman i don't want people to think i got where i am because you're a female or your skin color. that's a degrading way to look at things. >> janet yellen of course is qualified. but the president does not want to get a phone call from nancy pelosi and dianne feinstein and say we're going to come over and discuss with you the future of your legislative -- >> don't forget barbara boxer. >> larry summers supporters are outside of congress, janet yellen supporters are inside of congress. >> this is the way it's going to work. this is a democratic party thing, no matter how you slice the pie, i'm not taking sides intellectually. i think yellen is very, very smart. i think she's a big dove.

i think summers is less of a dove but he's also very, very smart. is john fund right? are we going to have the california ladies, boxer and pelosi and feinstein crashing into the white house saying he attacked blacks, he attacked women and therefore janet yellen has to be the one? >> that's absolutely what's going to happen. they've thrown out these bombs. christina romer said we need more evidence that the administration is being inclusive. sure they have women in other parts of the cabinet and sure they have women in other positions but we need an economic team that includes women. when does this end? do you need a woman represented in every position? do you need a person in the racial rainbow represented? you you're just checking out boxes. that's the way he does the supreme court, too. there is no end to compulsion --

>> small positions, supreme court justices, positions that have no impact. >> these jobs should go to two people, like noah's arc, one man, one woman and there will be more jobs created. you want job creation. >> the clinton/reuben crowd is pulling for summers. we've not heard the last of this, gene sperling, jacob lew, jason fuhrman, i know them all. they're very smart guys and very loyal to summers. it's a hell of a way to make a federal reserve charm. thank you very much. the rest of our panel has a lot more work to do. earnings dominated the market this week. we have crucial economic reports and a fed meeting to look forward to next week. we're going to look at all that coming right up. doesn't forget, folks, free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity. that includes the most qualified people for positions. i'm kudlow. we'll be right back.

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the dow rallied at the end of trading today to end this week just slightly positive. but next week we are getting a lot of important economic data,

including home prices, our first look at second quarter gdp, car sales and july jobs report. how much will markets look at next friday? this is going to be gigantic. we welcome jim le camp, and jack bouroudjian. on top of everything else, you probably know this, there is a fed meeting. jim, what did you make of earnings? the market basically is flat this week. i thought on the aggregate, earnings came in about as expected. i know there are winners and losers. is that your take or is there something else going on with profits? >> i think earnings came in right at expectations. the concern is about revenues. if you look at most of the misses, they've been on the revenue side more so than the earnings side. there's not a lot of ways to patch up sales.

that's where your level of concern is going to be. the market is handling it pretty well. today's recovery is a very good sign for the market. this is two quarters in a row where revenues were flat to down. ultimately that's going to catch up to the market. >> jack, a lot of people are saying revenues and the economy get better in q3 and q4 and into next year. do you buy that? do you think today's stock market is reflecting future improvement? >> i think it is, larry. i think what we've seen over the last year has reflected that. the question is how much of it is already priced in? you know me, i've been on this show dozens of times. i'm what used to be called the optimist being armenian. but we're getting to points where we're getting to target levels. what jim said, by the way, is spot on. two quarters in a row of shrinking revenues is starting to concern me a little bit. the reason being is because now

you're getting into notional value of the entire stock market reaching the gdp level. this is a very esoteric argument and an esoteric discussion to have but it's something that we as fundamental watchers have to pay attention to. it's telling us maybe we're getting to the price where we're fairly priced -- >> nominal gdp has only grown 4% and that's close to revenue. jim, you have a lot of stuff coming up next week, a lot of it is really important, gdp -- what are you expecting? do you think it's going to show the economy as stronger or weaker? >> just stronger. i think recently the manufacturing reports have improved a little bit. those jobs numbers aren't very good.

and while core capex has improved, they're not that great once you strip out transportation and a few other things. we're in first gear, maybe trying to get into second gear. >> jack, unemployment claims, weekly unemployment claims, a very important indicator, running slightly below 350,000. many economists believe that's consistent with about 200,000 jobs and then many economists believe 200,000 jobs, which has been about the average this year, is consistent with the fed tapering, where the fed buys fewer bonds, which i think is a de facto tightening. i want to ask you if you buy that logic and i want to ask you if that logic is going to hurt the stock market or is it already in the stock market? >> i don't think it's going to happen. i think that logic is right. i think it's correct, by the way. i think eventually it will hurt the market but don't look for this fed to do anything. i think it's a given we're going

to get a new fed chairman. chances are we're not going to hear anything until the new fed chairman is announced or put into place. we've seen a fed chairman over the last 20 years change twice and that was followed by a major move down in equity twices. i'm not one to worry too much, but if there was ever a time to be concerned, this is the time. i've been taught there are bulls, bears and pigs on wall street and pigs get slaughtered. after a few hundred point run on the s&p, it might be time. >> the jobs numbers are a complete misrepresentation of the jobs market. >> that's right. >> they don't reflect these jobs coming in are part-time jobs, burger flippers, waitresses. we're not getting a healthy job recovery. if you look at labor rates, capacity utilization, none it have shows an accelerating economy. >> you're absolutely right.

>> but i dare say, whatever the nuances and we don't have time tonight to dissect the jobs report, okay, i think you've said some things that are right, though i think there may be some exaggeration. i want to go to jack's point, jim. if it is announced in the fall that janet yellen is replacing ben bernanke, which i think is going to happen, and september is the time everybody expects the fed to slow down their bond purchases, that all could happen in september. this is the end of july. should investors be concerned about those events and should they start to pull back? that's really a huge question right now because the market looks ahead. >> it depends on the order. you just said in a previous segment that janet yellen is a dove. i think janet yellen is a dove, too. if she comes in before ben bernanke makes an announcement, i think the market will handle it fine. if bernanke says we're going to

taper down the bond issue, you'll see an effect. if it comes in that order, this could be a september to dismember in the market. but it depends on the order and it depends on what those ten-year treasury rates do. >> i'm going to leave it there, gentlemen. i think both of those guys are very cautious right now. now, we have big news headlines for you. we're going to include the despicable act of vandalism at the lincoln memorial. bertha coombs has an update on the entire investigation next up on kudlow. when we made our commitment to the gulf, bp had two big goals:

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sac capital in court today to be arraigned on insider trading charges. bertha coombs is here to explain how an entire company can enter a plea. >> it is unusual, isn't it? it was peter nussbaum entering the not guilty plea on behalf of the entire fund. they went through the formality of telling the firm it could be publicly defended if it couldn't afford private lawyers. that's rich, isn't it? the government will turn over evidence, including e-mails and wiretaps. over the next two months, which could be used for settlement talks. and look at this, vand als

defaced the national monument. it's not clear who did this or why. but no group has come forward with a political message so it may just be cowardly vandalism. investigators are reviewing individual y video. and the mayor of san diego is not stepping down, instead taking two weeks to get treatment at a behavioral counseling clinic. mayor bob filner has been accused of sexual harassment by seven different women. even his own backers want him to resign. instead filner says he'll take time off and be back at work on august 19th. that case, it's the summer of men behaving badly. i don't get it. >> two weeks for that addiction is not even close to being near enough. >> for any addiction, right? >> right. i've been through that process for other addictions and i can just tell you, two weeks means

nothing. appreciate it very much, bertha coombs. thank you that. >> call it one wall for thee and another for me or should the chiefs eat their own cooking? can it be possible or true that the irs workers union is trying to get its own people exempted from the obama care exchanges? it's really true. we're going to talk about that with our obama panel next up on the "kudlow report."

welcome back to the "kudlow report." i'm larry kudlow. in this half hour, it's a simple compromise. eliminate tax loopholes in return for lowering tax rates. that's a major component to tax reform proposals on capitol hill, but senate majority leader harry reed, he's having none of it. he wants a trillion dollar tax hike instead and so, apparently, does president obama. and it looks like another scandal brewing in the weiner family. one leading senator wants to know why anthony weiner's wife, huma, is still getting a six-figure state department salary. but first up, the obama care train wreck still coming.

taxpayers are going to be left paying the heavy bill. last night the white house delayed the so-called employer mandate and in this op-ed earlier this week, our next guest writes that the delay should be permanent because the employer mandate is unworkable to begin with. here now is andy puzder, ceo. welcome back to the program. >> thank you. >> reading your analysis and doing work on this, i think the employer mandate should be waived permanently. what's your thought? >> i agree. it's either got to be waived permanently or we need a market-driven, bipartisan solution to this health care problem. the cost of insurance is going to be more than the penalties they're going to have to pay if they don't have insurance. normally the reason you get

insurance is because you're afraid you're going to get sick or you're going to become ill or a family member will become ill. under obama care they get rid of the preexisting requirement so insurers can no longer turn down. you can get sick and you can get treatment in the emergency room and there's a 90-day limit they can take to approve it. so young, healthy people who don't normally sign up for insurance, those people aren't going to sign up. if you don't sign up and just get six people, it's going to be very expensive. >> that's the key. as you describe it for your restaurants and i want to universalize this across the country, younger people who are the back bone of the subsidy system for all of obama care, they're the ones who are supposed to come in and pay for this bloody thing, they're not going to do it. they'll take the penalty. the penalty is a hundred bucks. the cost of the thing can be

$3,000. when you're 20 years old, you think you're bullet proof. and also, it's a problem with the individual mandate. i don't see why it all shouldn't be scrapped. >> it should all be scrapped. they've delayed the employer mandate so people who wouldn't have gotten insurance their employers can go and get subsidies. they're trying to drive people to subsidies because they know employees and employers are not going to pay. they've given us a year off. that only leaves the taxpayers to fund this and that seems to be this administration's solution to just about everything. if it doesn't work, we'll go to the taxpayers. they're doing again. >> if there's no verification for the subsidies, if there's no participation by younger people who don't want to foot the bill, i don't see where the financing for this comes from. i don't see it. i think all the tax work has to

be thrown out the window and the expenses are going to break the bank, even more than now. >> look, i hope congress realizes that, i hope the president realizes that. we do need to address this issue. i'm not attacking the intentions of people who tried to do it this way but it partisan big government solution isn't working. nobody likes it. the teamsters don't like it anymore. they sent a letter complaining about it with two other unions. even the irs employee union doesn't want members to be subjected to obama care. a train wreck was a very good description. i can't remember who said that. >> senator max baucus of montana. one of hits better line. all right. andy, thanks very much for helping. congratulations on your op-ed piece. >> it's not just executives concerned about obama care. get this, the irs union, the very group that will be responsible for collecting all

the personal health aid under the president's plan is now saying count us out. count us out. we don't want obama care. we're back with our panel, and, john fund, were you going to say something before? i think this irs thing is unbelievable. >> it's potentially a fire storm. what got congress in trouble in the 90s, both parties, they were doing things separate from the rest of the country. they had their own house bank, their own who was office, their own house rules. they weren't bound by the sex and other discrimination laws that we have and the public revolted and threw out dozens and dozens of them, including some from both parties. this will be the same thing. the same irs that doesn't answer the customer service line, the same irs that politicized the --

this is hypocrisy. the american people hate hypocrisy and especially hate it in the irs. >> this union, jessica, is going to lose its subsidy. they're in the federal employees health basket, which is a very good plan. you get a lot of real choice. but they get heavily subsidized. inside this plan that subsidy is gone. that's the whole issue here. so, therefore, they're going to have to go into the exchanges. i ask you, why shouldn't they have to eat their own cooking? why shouldn't this plan affect everybody, including house members and senate members and irs and whatever? why shouldn't it? >> i'm not going to say that it shouldn't and there's no doubt that obama care is in trouble. the letters from ceos and letters from the union leaders are certainly no good. but what's really worst of all is the fact that the gop is using obama care and repealing obama care as a bargaining chip to avoid fiscal showdown at the

end of september. that's really what's wrong? >> what showdown is this. >> with the debt ceiling. >> what does obama care have to do with the debt ceiling? >> they want it repealed. >> no, no. the republicans are saying they're not going to get the repeal and they know that but they can get pulled out from the continuing resolution to fund obama care and it's a way to stop the mandates from coming down is to take the money away. for the irs to be enforcers of obama care, they need to hire 15,000 more employees. the best way and where you can get blue dog democrats on board to vote with you is to remove it from a continuing resolution and make it a separate issue. >> and one out of nine democrats in the house voted against the individual mandate. >> i don't believe the gop believes a repeal of obama could

get through the senate. i think they're going to apply the boehner rule again and the president alluded to this in his speech on wednesday. he's looking for a confrontation. he's saying no debt limit? okay, we're going to fight this out. john boehner says i'll raise the debt limit if you cut spending dollar for dollar. >> if you're going to have a fight on policy grounds, if i were the president, i wouldn't pick obama care. "washington post" poll this week, moderate and conservative democrats, half of all democrats, support for obama care has fallen from 72 this year to 46% this year. this is now a bipartisan opposition to a bad bill. >> it will never get defunded. not now. >> it can be kneecaped. >> it can be pinched and tweaked. but with regard to this national treasury employers union, the irs workers, i think it's completely wrong. i think that having created this plan, obama care, i think

everybody in washington should be in it. i think senators should be in it, i think house members should be in it, i think senior staff should be in it and the union should be in it. they should have to eat their own cooking, and that's the way this thing was designed. why should washington elites get a better deal than ordinary people out there in the rest of the country? >> that's a perfect question. and that, believe it or not, the one positive thing that might come out it have is that the irs is actually bringing a divided nation together in total outrage over the idea that they would do this. >> over everything they do. >> right. i think everyone fundamentally sees even if they support barack obama, the idea that the irs is targeting the political opposition of a sitting president outrages everyone because one day it could be you. this is the worst part about what's happening with the irs. most of the things of which they are going to enforce they have not even released yet. for instance, they will be the one who is decide whether or not employers are meeting the criteria for appropriate insurance for employees. they are the ones who are going

to be filling out a form in january 2014 to tell them what type of medical insurance to have. and it's not out yet. >> and for individuals. >> correct. >> and they're the ones who are going to pay the tax credit for individuals to subsidize whatever their plans are. >> correct. >> so the irs has managed in the last -- they had a great year the irs. they have infuriated conservative groups for sticking it to them and now they're about to infuriate the democrats and liberals because they don't want to play in obama care. i love this. what a great group the irs is. >> they bring us together. >> stick around, stick around. we have to ask now is this man the biggest roadblock in the path to meaningful tax reform? i'm talking harry reed. he wants a trillion dollar tax hike and that's going to kill the entire tax reform process. we'll debate that proposition next up on kudlow. my mantra?

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ford dealer. so you gotta take care of yourself? yes you do. you gotta take care of your baby? oh yeah! looks like tax reform is dangerous business. the leaders of the senate finance committee have promised their fellow lawmakers that any suggestions they make about what deductions and credits to preserve in tax reform will be kept secret for 50 years.

what are they so afraid of? here now is ace political report irand cnbc contributor robert costa of "the national review." >> they're afraid of this whole thing being aired out in the public. on capitol hill i've never heard of a 50-year wait to hear about the behind-the-scenes tax maneuvers but that's what they requested. >> did you talk to senator mcconnell about this? >> he actually sounds pretty optimistic about tax reform. he knows there's a lot of behind-the-scenes negotiates but he wants to put sequester and title reform on the table but he did say he will not raise taxes. >> harry reed wants a trillion dollar tax hike. that's reed 's position, that's president obama's position. how does mitch o'connell get around that running in a primary

against a tea party guy? >> mitch mcconnell has a tough tea party in 2014. mcconnell is willing to talk about entitlement reform, change cpi but those rates that were established in the fiscal cliff, mcconnell wants them to stay. >> president obama had every opportunity in that speech he gave on wednesday to reach across the aisle and talk tax reform, right? he's got max baucus, the republican, dave camp, the republican and little groups in both house, bipartisan groups talking tax reform and obama did not do it, robert costa. >> senator mcconnell told me he actually works with vice president biden when he makes these deals. the president just doesn't have the ability to make these grand deals work. >> harry reed and the president

apparently want another trillion dollar tax hike. they've raised taxes already by $600 million. what is wrong with harry reed, jessica? why won't they compromise? >> well, it's not as if the republicans are a particularly compromising bunch anyway. but i think the real issue here is the secrecy about this, it's a problem pervasive across washington. it's a public policy issue. why isn't it our right to know what our representatives are in favor of? and we can't afford to have anything, especially on an issue this important go on behind a cloak of secrecy. >> president obama when he campaigned if 2008 said we're going to have all of the negotiations on obama care on c-span. maybe some of the problems of obama care is because it was all

down behind closed doors. maybe we shouldn't do this behind closed doors. in 1986 we taxed tax reform. and it was agreed the only way we're going to get this done is get rid of deduction, get rid of loopholes, lower the rates, keep revenue neutral. >> i understand. >> that's how you get bipartisanship. harry reed is going against the spirit of bill bradley and bill gephardt. >> i don't understand. reed went out of his way to make this statement so it's revenue positive, not revenue neutral as john fund suggested. he seemed to go out of his way to clarify that. >> he doesn't want to deal. >> to tell you the truth, i read into that in president obama's speech on wednesday, though he wasn't that explicit, it sounded like this is the idea of clamping down on deductions for

upper income people. why would reed go down this route? is he representing the president? is this deliberate sabotage or what? >> i have three things for you, irs, nsa and benghazi. i think there is a sense that they need a fight and they need it over a fiscal issue. i think they know they're not going to win, this president has lost so much political capital with the scandals breaking so early after his reelection. but the fact of the matter is they are getting hammered on very big issues. they are continuing on their signature piece of legislation to lose support on their own base and they're heading very quickly into 2014. they need to pick a fight that divert the attention and place it is on something else. they feel they won the debt ceiling debate before and they can win it again. >> jessica, i want to give you the last word. what harry reed is doing is destroys max baucus, the chairman of the senate finance committee, who is trying to develop a bipartisan deal.

he is destroying that. and if you destroy that on taxes, then you destroy it on the budget. and if you destroy it on taxes and the budget, then you destroy it on entitlement reform. it is the most destructive thing. i give you the last word because i do not understand mr. reed's position. >> i don't necessarily stand by everything that harry reed does or says but i do think it's incredibly important that obama as he continues his economic policy makes tax reform a more feature component and is incredibly clear about what it is that the party wants. he and harry reed should be completely in step with each other and it's incredibly unclear if they are. >> i think corporate tax reform, including repatriation, bringing the money back home, would be the most pro growth thing imaginable, help blue collar workers and white collar workers, help everybody. one more hot topic for our free market panel.

why does anthony weiner's wife get a six-figure salary from the state department? what about that even more lucrative job she has as a private consultant? one leading u.s. senator is asking those questions, so are we. next up on kudlow. julie! hey...guess what day it is?? ah come on, i know you can hear me. mike mike mike mike mike... what day is it mike? ha ha ha ha ha ha! leslie, guess what today is? it's hump day. whoot whoot! ronny, how happy are folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico? i'd say happier than a camel on wednesday. hump day!!! yay!! get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. help the gulf when we made recover and learn the gulf, bp from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. i can tell you - safety is at the heart of everything we do. we've added cutting-edge technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a state-of-the-art monitoring center, where experts

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the return of the anthony weiner sexting scandal has put the spotlight on his wife huma

abedin. she was the the consultant to hillary clinton, but hillary clinton is gone and she's still being paid as an employee and she earns three times as much as a private consultant and is apparently stonewalling an investigation in this. jessica, she can't get away with this. where is this going? >> no, i think she needs to, she and the state department need to answer all of senator grassley's questions, explicitly and to his liking. they need to put it all out there. what i think is the really serious problem is not necessarily for huma abedin but what may happen to hillary clinton. four of her major clients are all related to hillary clinton. and, you know, in light of the

upcoming 2016 election, which she may or may not be running for, this could blow back in her face a little bit if something improper has gone on. >> that's an important point. huma and hillary are joined at the hip, john fund. >> so unfortunately is anthony weiner and huma. huma is one of the most sympathetic figures in america right now. everyone is, oh, no, what she's going through. yes, but she's going through it by choice. and obviously this payola, what i call it, is in reaction to her horrible situation after weiner resigned from congress. but these are clients with interest in government. they need government information. the only use she is to those clients is inside government -- >> that's not her only use. you have no evidence that's what she was trading in. >> no, i said that her major --

if she won't give up the documents, and she's refused to, we have to think -- >> we don't have to think. >> yes, if you don't give up documents, you have something to hide. >> jennifer, the problem here, the statute of limitations runs out, hillary is gone, she can't keep collecting this salary. number two to john's point, whether you agree or disagree, she is blurring her role as public servant and a private servant at the same time. you can't do that. you got to pick one side of the fence. that's her real problem. >> i think there's more than that. there's serious issues with the hatch laws. you have to have a fire wall. you cannot be working for the state department and running a political campaign, which the "new york times" and numerous other publications has said she is doing as the man strategist for her husband's campaign. >> on a volunteer basis. >> i think that is right. i don't think that's the issue. i think the issue is public versus private.

if you're going to get paid $135,000 by the state department, maybe that worked, she had a child, she worked at home, i'm not disagreeing but she's gone way over the statute of limitations. how can you be collecting at the same time that salary, which sounds illegal, plus all this investment stuff? i got to get out of here. i just doesn't see it. she's got a lot of explaining to do. and she better not knock charles grassley. thank you all, you were great on a friday night. i'm larry kudlow. see you monday. [ male announcer ] this is the age of knowing what you're made of.

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