to sign up anytime. >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's stories and book tv brings you thelatest in nonfiction books and authors . funding comes from these television companies and more including wow . >> the world has changed and today a fast reliableinternet connection is someone something no one can live without . now more than ever it all starts with internet. >> wow supports c-span2 as a public service. >> larry kudlow, will you be writing your book about your time in the trump administration. >> i don't have any plans at the moment. i'm very busy. i'm loving life. never say never but no, not

at the moment. >> how many jobs do you have? >> of course, there's foxbusiness show every day. if i can plug it, 4 to 5 pm. that's the bulk of what i do. i also do a lot of different segments for lkespn and also fox news. i did one this morning on fox and friends and i also doa radio show every saturday morning for three hours . the national radio show runs here on w abc radio but we're live streamed and also syndicated. and i also do some, well i write op-ed pieces pretty much constantly and some informal political consulting. with my friends on policy pretty much anybody who asks so i'm a busy camper. i'm a grateful camper.

life after the white house has been terrific so it's a real blessing . >> this is your second stint in the white house. your first being? >> a few years ago, 40 years ago it was somewhat lower position. i was an economics deputy at the office of management and budget during the reagan bu administration . the director in those days was dana stockman who remains a friend of mine and yes, that was my first job. it was in reagan's first term . >> larry kudlow 2016 book connects the reagan administration with jfk. what is that policy? >> it's the story that i want to tell four years . it's been in the back of my head. and i worked with my pal brian who is a terrific researcher and co-author.

so basically in a nutshell, john f. kennedy was a progrowth democrat. he was a tax cutting democrat. he was ha supply-side democrat . and when he ran in 1960, he was, he ran as the growth guy and richard nixon kind of ran as the status quo in those days republican party was okay with very high tax rates. eisenhower had no interest in cutting 91 percent tax rate inherited from fdr's new deal. and kennedy didn't explicitly run on it but he said i want five percent growth. i want low unemployment. because there have been three recessions during the eisenhower years, three recessions. that's a little-known fact but it's true. and the connection to reagan

some 25 years later was reagan lowered marginal tax rates also and help reignite a more abundant economy. in fact i would argue as i do quite a bit on our show that the reagan tax cuts launched almost a three decade prosperity . the jfk tax cuts launched a decade-long prosperity but unfortunately were unwound and undermined by lbj's great society but richard nixon, jerry ford, jimmy carter. none of them understood tax cuts. none of them understood the economic growth effects of lower marginal tax rates. maybe we can talk about that some more.. and some very smart people,

my dearest friend aand robert mondale, nobel prize member brought the supply side. essentially the kennedy tax cuts to reagan and reagan looked at them and thought re about them and ran on them . and it was verycontroversial just as it was in jfk's day . and it worked. irin fact reagan had two rounds of tax cuts. i was there for the first round and involved in the campaign. >> in 1961 you quote jfk in saying it will be a major aim of our tax reform program to broaden the tax base and reconsider the rate structure . >> absolutely. and there's some really juicy jfk quotes that could have easily applied to reagan. in fact, kennedy was the first guy to use the phrase a

rising tide lifts all boats and that phrase was used later by jack kemp, the late jack kemp who was a dear friend and also a mentor by reagan. i use it all the time. trump used it. the trump tax cuts which were emphasis more on the corporate side but were enormous tax cuts were cut from the same cloth as the reagan and jfk taxcuts . so i was able to bridge reagan to trump on those policies. i was too young for it for jfk but just barely too young . i was really only 17 when i went into the reagan white house but tax cuts and if i may, i want to go back because i'm reading a book the title of which is the jazz age but it's about warren g harding, a

much-maligned us president. way to farm aligned but in the 1920s, and in the 1920s harding, his vice president calvin coolidge and most importantly is treasury secretary andrew mellon who was a great figure from pittsburgh, an entrepreneurial banker they put together huge reductions in marginal tax rates. the income tax that was 1913 is 16 amendment guarded out as seven percent but when woodrow wilson leftoffice it was over 70 percent . we went into a recession after world war i. those guys wa brought tax rates down to 25 percent. and launched a tremendous boom of prosperity in the 1920s. and i'm going to go one more. that is s another of my

favorite figures is ulysses s grant. he was arguably america's greatest general or one of its greatest generals and he still keeps some formations at west point but grant also much-maligned and my friend and colleague wrote a good book about grant as a matter of fact but grant did two things. economic things in his administration and he never gets credit for this. liberal historians will never give him credit but the fact is grant and the civil war income tax, ended it. and grant restored the greenback to gold. so we had massive wartime inflation and high wartime taxes and grants ended both and also helped launch the second industrial revolution which is sometimes referred

disparaging way as the gilded age but it was a phenomenal period in american life so just to be consistent , here's my guide grant whose cutting taxes. harding is cutting taxes. kennedy is cutting taxes. reagan is cutting taxes. trump is cutting taxes. i'm honored to serve under the last two, which i hadbeen around for the others . >> in all of your books in your work on foxbusiness etc. , you talk about some economic terms and i was hoping we could maybe have a broader discussion about how they allwork together . tax cuts. growth. the bond market, the stock market. what's the interplay between all these. >>. >> i would say the absolute basic key elements of

economic growth and prosperity, let me set back a moment . i'm for growth. i'm for prosperity. in my whole career that's been my raison d'ctre. it seems to me dand i mean i see certain government and the first job i ever had was at the federal reserve rain new york, federal reserve bank in new york. i served in open market regulations and i was a secretary to paul broker who was president of prthe new york fed so i've had three government assignments. seems to me if you do nothing else, you should promote policies that will generate growth, prosperity, jobs, optimism. that's our job. and i'm a free-market capitalist. i believe in free market,

free enterprise capitalism. i think it's the surest path i to growth. when i was in the cnbc days i have my show there formany years . i used open up the show every night by saying free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity. i've set for many years. i believe that. i still believe that so coming back to your points, your questions. essentially you need the lowest possible tax rates and the least possible government intervention. think of it as minimal regulations. you need a sound currency which i call king dollar. that was my phrase years ago. and if you break that, if you move to a policy regime of hightax rates . excessive government intervention and regulation and a key dollar depreciated dollar you will find yourself

with high inflation, high unemployment and recession. and i argued down through the years that there are almost no exceptions to that. almost no exceptions to that. this is a controversial point . economics profession nowadays which like everything else in the academy has moved way far to the left doesn't agree with that. there's i will say this modern monetary theory has taken it neglecting now with high inflation but i'm prepared to argue in historical terms as well as economic policy terms that those are the essential ingredients. lowest possible tax rates, minimal government and government regulation and a sound reliable king dollar. >> is the fed to powerful? is it necessary? >> well, i won't argue the

necessity part . although it's interesting. in the gilded age j.p. morgan rescued the monetary system a couple oftimes . but ois the fed to powerful right now it is . the most troubling part of ro the fed to me is is lost he sight of its principal mission which is to keep the currency sound and the price level stable. i mean, nowadays with all this talk of woke culture and woke economics, the fed and some of its appointees are talking more about climate change than oiprice stability. diversity. i'm not opposed to diversity,

lord knows i don't think that's the mission of the fed . the fed should manage its own human resources without any .rejudices but the idea it was to equalize the economy, but it takes this left-wing socialist view that we should all be equal at the finish line when in fact in a free society like ours what we want is equal opportunity at the starting line and then the finish line we will exercise our god-given talent in many different ways but i think the fed is way too much geared towards something called equity and of course climate change which i'm not a climate denier. i'm just saying you do not have a climate emergency. we do not have alsome existential climate risk. factually even you and reports don't show this.

this has become a political obsession, almost a religion and i think the fed completely, utterly missed the boat on this inflation problem we are experiencing today and that last one is really on par. >> one of the other issues brought up in this genre is income inequality. is that concern? should we be concerned that person makes 10 times as much western mark. >> know we should not. >> why. >> again, i think the idea here for me is we should by law have equality of opportunity. at the starting line. absolutely by law. but we cannot guarantee the quality of results. we cannot.

i mean, even in communist countries, even in the old soviet union and look, i grew up during the cold war and particularly in the reagan years when we fought soviet communism . the only equality that they had in the soviet union was the quality of poverty and then the nomenclature of who ran the place, they were the rich guys. there was no widespread deprosperity ever and that is true for all socialist or communist countries it seems to me sono, we should not strive to and something called inequality . we shouldstrive for growth and prosperity . we shouldmaximize opportunities . we want to have unlimited opportunities. that's why argue the government cannot manage the economy. the government cannot manage the price system. the government cannot manage

markets. you have literally thousands and millions of people operating in a free economy and i want the economy to be free and i want them to all o have their own personal freedom but that is a job for the so-called private sector. that is why i say free-market economics is the best road to prosperity. i want individual freedom inside the economy. freedom to fail. freedom to succeed. one of the great aspects of america and it's still true to this day is you got an entrepreneurial story where people have an idea. they might scratch up some money and it may not work, it may fail. it may fail several times.

you may go bankrupt but at some point you may get it right and then you become a massive success. a massive success. that's what's so brilliant about the gilded age. the industrial revolution, second industrial revolution. the informationrevolution in our lifetime . the stuff that we routinely use today didn't exist when i was in prep school or college or starting out. all thatstuff . if you have a spare mimeograph machine, all that's gone. we are we hardly even xerox anymore so you're running the show on a little iphone for heavens sakes and i love it and even an old guy like me i figured out most of this stuff. my point is you got kids dropping out of college working in garages trying to put things together. they fail, they fail and hethen they succeed and hit it big.

that's the american story but behind that story, that's the alter this story but behind that is freedom. and again, if we lose that we will lose everything i've spent a lifetime trying to promote freedom frankly in the economic sector where i know something about it but bfrankly all throughout the country. freedom of speech now, there's a biga debate . there's misinformation, government bureaus. this s stuff drives me crazy but i won't call them my friend but i have dealings with elon musk when i was in the white house. he calls himself the free speech absolutist. free speech, freedom of religion and i want a free economy. a free economy will produce every state run centrally planned economy. and i will sit here, we're on for a couple of hours.

i sit here all day and tomorrow and show you historical examples of why a free economy outperforms a statist economy. >> before we get too far from jfk and the reaganrevolution , we talked about the three recessions in the 50s. that kind of surprised me, what happened was it government policy or was it relaxing and waiting. >> there are a lot of factors after world war ii and a lot of factors after the korean war. i would just say principally, you have 91 percent tax rate. very high taxes which were very onerous. some critics of this view will say high taxes but you have pay. you had some loopholes. some very famous loopholes. from hollywood studio owners and stuff like that. but most people particularly

the entrepreneurs had to pay a high income tax. the more they earned the more punitive the tax rate was. capital gains taxes are high, gains were high so the economy was smothered. the incentive affect which was so prominent during the harding coolidge tax cuts of the 20/20 for example where were delivering us grant tax cuts. thoseincentives work around so it was a highly controlled economy . very government run economy so highlyregulated . the federal reserve properly i think kept the dollar stable so inflation you had episodes of inflation but basically we were under the old bread and woods dollar gold exchange system and the federal reserve principally under william barnes did a

good job holding that back but anytime the fed tried to tighten the economy had no other toutlet because again it was so tirelessly controlled by high taxes and regulations . those are important issues and i who has many wonderful qualities i generalize president eisenhower. economics wasn't one of them. it just wasn't one of them. there's a long story there. his top advisor was arthur burns. burns advised nixon. pushed the ball down the road during the reagan years burns was a passenger to germany under reagan and a very good ambassador in his later years . he and i became friendly and he became a mentor of mine. >> ..

and this is what gave kennedy a step up in the election. he ran as a growth guy, and nixon didn't really do with much on economic policy, domestic policy. and i remember nixon's son-in-law, by the way, is a very dear personal friend of mine, very dear friends of ours. i met nixon in the middle 80s. i was out of office back on wall street. he had his old office down at one federal plaza, whatever it was, , down ten new york in thoe days. his son-in-law ed cox would bring in various policy people before president nixon would go on foreign trips. so i had at least one visit

maybe two. by the way it was very charming. one i had written numerous op-ed pieces in the "wall street journal" criticizing nixon's economics as president. you did everything wrong, everything wrong, raise taxes, at paris, took that all of the gold standard and with looming inflation. the first time i met him he comes in and just looks at me and says, you don't think much of my economics, do you, mr. kudlow? [laughing] and i said, no, sir, with respect i don't. [laughing] and it was a a very cool moment. as i sit this is in the mid-'80s. i had served in reagan's first term. but nixon acknowledged in his books and later that reagan tax cuts work. you acknowledge that because he was intellectually honest. >> host: insanity once more is

a collection of your columns, came out in 2018. i wanted to quote from them. this is on election day 2016, november 88, 2016 column. enforcing trade deals is spot on. acting in interests of american workers is correct. but large-scale tariffs are a terrible idea. >> guest: yes, yes. and believe it or not i still, that is stillt my mantra. so this is a good story. trump e attuned to tariffs than i was or that i am. before i went into office, i became his nec director in march of 2018. he had just put through steel and aluminum tariffs. i did not agree and art die, i

think steve moore may have been on that, but we wrote an op-ed piece criticizing this -- criticizing the steel and aluminum tariffs. president trump knew all about it. he read it when he was calling me secretly. the subject came up once or twice. we agreed to disagree. it is interesting. i'm not a fan of tariffs. tariffs are international taxes. they tax work and production just as much as direct -- as the mistake tax rates. so i regard myself as a free trader. but i'm going to make two qualifications on this. one is you do have two think about the issue of reciprocity.

what's the other side doing to you on trade? this was an important point trump made. he and i, it is sort of interesting -- the only two op-ed pieces i wrote in his administration both preceded drew -- both preceded g7 meetings. in those, i quoted a conversation he and i had where he believed he was a free trader and under ideal circumstances, that is to say no tariffs, no non-tariff barriers, and no subsidies. that is the world trump yearned for. those were his goals and they are classic free-trade goal -- no tariffs, zero non--tariff

barriers, and zero subsidies for favorite industries. i wrote that and quoted that. one op-ed was in the washington post, the second was in the wall street journal before a g7 and i remember, at the g7 we had in canada, which i think was 2018 in the north of quebec. we were in a bilateral with justin trudeau and president trump and your senior advisers lined up on both sides and they were talking about trade because trump was threatened to impose car tariffs on canada, which would have devastated canada. trump said you know, justin, if we had no tariffs and no

nontariff barriers and no subsidies, we would all be in great shape as free traders. trump looks at me, i'm sitting one or two or three down from him. he said you've said that your whole career, 30 years. he knew that because we had talked about it. but, he expressed publicly that view and he did it later. so he had a lot of free-trade blood in him. his trade representative, a deer friend of mine and a brilliant guy, he was just on my tv show. we were in atlanta for an america first policy conference. people forget we had usmca, which was not perfect free-trade but it was a good free-trade deal. we had free-trade deals with

japan, brazil, south korea, where both sides in the spirit of reciprocity gave up some protections. the biggest one was china and the most controversial one was china. trump had big tariffs on china. we still have them. 365 billion some odd. so far, biden has not taken them off and i hope he doesn't. i would argue, and as president trump argued, we needed those tariffs to bring china to the table, to get their attention. i will give you another view -- i completely agree.

one of trump's greatest achievements as president was he rang the bell on china correctly. he made it very clear to people in this country and around the world that china is an adversary, they are not our friend, they are an economic adversary, they are a foreign policy adversary. so his rhetoric was tough, his tariffs were tough, but we did bring them to the table. no one had been able to do that. we got a bunch of concessions and i was on that china trade team and it was hard going. beijing and washington, beijing and washington. this was the so called one deal. the phase one free-trade deal was rooted in tariffs.

if there is a certain inconsistency there, i understand the point, but the one was necessary to get to the other and i think the deal is holding up the good. it ain't perfect, lots and lots of progress on international -- on intellectual poverty theft. they bought a lot of our commodities, not perhaps as much as we want, but a lot, and we ought to be selling much more lng exports. forced transfer of technology, still a work in progress, but on the whole, phase one was a great success and if trump had been reelected, we would have moved to phase two. so far, nothing has happened. a bit long-winded, but i am a free trader. is trump a free-trade or? he would not say it the way i say it, but in a perfect world,

he would agree with me -- no tariffs in a perfect world. he liked that. somewhat pollyanna. host: good afternoon and welcome to book dvds in-depth program. our guest is larry kudlow, the author of american abundance, which came out in 1997, jfk and the reagan revolution came out in 2016 and a collection of his columns from creators syndicate came out in 2018 and that is called insanity once more. for regular viewers, you know this is our monthly call in program. one author, his or her body of work and your calls, text messages, tweets, etc. here is how you can get a hold of us if you have a question or comment. for the eastern and central time zones -- and in the mountain and pacific time zone. if you want to send a text

message, 202-748-8903. include your first name and your city. we will also scroll through our social media addresses. just remember at book tv is the handle there. we will begin taking those in just a few minutes. what was the reaction from a lot of your long-time republican friends when you joined the trump administration? larry: it was pretty good, actually. very positive. people encourage me to do it. for a variety of reasons. i was pretty busy, tv on a different network and a radio show and consulting. i had worked with candidate

trump, we worked on the tax-cut plan quite a lot. occasionally i was a spokesperson for him. he invoked my name several times in some of the debates, much to my astonishment. and i knew him in new york city for many years. new him, like him, he had been a guest on my tv show and radio show. i knew his family a bit. i thought he was a major force. i was not looking for a job. but if you have a second, i will tell you how it started. it is honey. in march of 2018 is how this got started. we were up here in connecticut for a weekend and i was coming back from indoor tennis. the phone rings in my car and it is the president.

i had spoken to him. i had seen him in 2017, and been in the oval with him and talked to him. he calls me and i pulled over, i had pretty good reception, i pulled over so we could have a conversation and he just starts talking about one thing or another. he mentioned the national economic council, but nothing terribly specific. i thought he was calling to yell at me because we had written an op-ed piece against the steel tariffs. but i don't think it came up in that conversation. he just wanted to talk about things and i think he mentioned the nec. it was a sunday afternoon. he said i will call you back tomorrow night. i said ok, sir. host: when the phone rings from

the white house, is it please hold for the president? larry: yes. monday night, i'm home in new york and he did call. that was when we had a more earnest, direct conversation about the national economic council. he was about to make a change and we talked about a bunch of policies. these were very good conversations. what do you think about this, what do you think about that? what should i do here question mark as you know, i'm not bashful about my views and he said no one knows we are having this conversation. ok. he said i will call you tomorrow night. i said yes. the next night, we are having

dinner. we have a dinner group with some dear friends in new york city in midtown. i had the cell phone in my back pocket just in case and the phone rang and it was him. i walk out onto fifth avenue, it was cold and drizzly, but i wasn't going to take the call in the restaurant. he got much more specific on that call. it's amusing because my wife came out to get me. we had to go home and i had to do a radio show. every tuesday night, we would do an hour. so we were talking and going up madison avenue. finally i said sir, are you offering me a position? yeah, you are my guy. no one knows we are having this

conversation. you are my guy, congratulations. he said would you take the job and i said yes, i would. i'm honored, and i was honored. i love government service and i love him. so that was that. i went and did the radio show and a very dear friend of mine, a radio man, mark simone, who is part of the dinner group said kudlow takes a call from the president at dinner, gets up and walks out of the restaurant and we don't see them for four years. [laughter] that's sort of how that happened. then in that call tuesday night, some people said he offered me the job the night before but i didn't get it, i don't know. in any case, he said you will

come down here thursday or friday and we will have a press conference. no one knows this. the next morning, which is a wednesday morning, i'm sitting at home preparing for my tv show . he calls me and says you look so handsome. he said turn on the tv. and the news at broke and everyone was running this thing. [laughter] to me -- those are in during qualities. he's just natural and flows and maybe he could say some things differently, but he is who he is and i remains -- i remain loyal to them. host: did you know him is donald? larry: yes. host: once he got elected, did you call him by his first name? larry: never.

when he was president elect and while i serve there, he was either mr. president orser, always. -- mr. president or sir, always. host: we are in larry kudlow's library up in the wilds of connecticut. back to your insanity once more book. this is your october 2016 column -- i want to thank melania trump for starting me on the path of restored confidence in donald trump. larry: president trump, then candidate trump had said a couple of things that did not thrill me. i never left him, just things that did not throw me. things came up in that campaign -- you look back and it wasn't very important but during the

campaign, it became a big deal and i had to talk about on the air and i recall milani a who is a wonderful, wonderful woman. we got to be good friends in the white house. she went on tv and defended president trump. she made it very clear she was a thousand percent behind him and that these things were passing and it was no big deal. so i wrote about that. it's funny. that column, he told me later that he was personally not thrilled about that column, but that milani loved me.

he says milani loves you. i don't think you had to write it but -- it was a column about her. i'm not one of her intimates, but i have great respect for her and i watched her on a couple of cable tv shows and it was very impressive and clear to me that her support was unwavering. those columns were written to some extent tongue-in-cheek. but she liked it more than he did. host: let's hear from our viewers. let's begin with monte in spring, texas. you are on with larry kudlow. go ahead and make your comment or question. caller: i had a short question for mr. kudlow about the comments president trump made on may 3 2019 when he said we are

taking billions of dollars in china from tariffs. we've never taken tariffs from china -- now we are taking billions of dollars. were these both false statements? we have been taking billions but china is not paying the tariffs. it is american consumers. host: i think we got the idea. he referenced may 3, 2019, but tariffs on china and taking in billions of dollars. is there something you can extrapolate from that. it was a little difficult to hear. larry: i'm not sure -- in economic terms, the tariffs imposed a significant burden on china. they experienced it and they

sought because prices went up and the demand for chinese currency went down. their inflation rate went up, interest rates went up and it is true those tariffs would be paid , imports, rather, in that tariff world would be paid by u.s. companies. but the key point it was minimal impact. our economy was booming. their corporate tax cuts were so important and gave us such a big advantage and that deregulation, but particularly in the world of trade and tariffs because, as we discussed earlier, tariffs are tax rates. we did increase tariff rates on certain chinese imports, particularly technology-related imports, what i call the family jewels, which we had to protect.

but, we slashed the marginal corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, which more than offset any tariff rate impact. as i was mentioning earlier, even though i don't like tariffs in an ideal world, perhaps president trump doesn't either in an ideal world, he rang the warning bell and we brought them to the table and it wasn't until 2019, early 2020 that we finally consummated what became known as the phase one china trade deal. i think, on balance, even though i am a free trade are, i think those tariffs were necessary and any time -- there is a lot of talk about the biden edits

ration about raising the corporate tax rate, it would put us at tremendous disadvantage and would damage the tough position we had staked out on china. i would urge them to keep those tax rates low. we want to be as competitive as we can and money flowed back to the u.s. just as an aside, it turns out corporate tax rates, the reduction in corporate tax rates pay for themselves. we've been getting irs data on this and i've talked quite a bit about this on my show with arthur laffer. the laffer curve work. -- laffer curve worked. tax collections went up as tax rates went down. why? because you had more economic activity, more people working,

earning more income. so, they paid more tax collections even though the rates were down and income was up. and, by the way, tax avoidance is much less. there's no point in looking for tax shelters if you have a low tax rate. it's just not worth the effort. so we were able to withstand any to minimize native impacts of the chinese tariffs. it was well offset by corporate tax rates. host: let's hear from george in hudson, florida. caller: good afternoon. how are you today. host: go ahead with your question or comment. caller: i watch your show religiously on foxbusiness channel because i don't have a nine-year-old around to set the dvr for me. [laughter] larry: thank you.

caller: i have to do it myself. what i was going to ask you is where are we going to be next year when we still have joe biden in office whose cognitive values is craziness or however you want to call them. there's something wrong with him and i can't see anything happening with kamala harris or anybody in the government now that can take care -- where are we going to be next year? larry: i can't comment on the cognitive problems. i see what i see and i see what lots of other people see and i will leave that to doctors. this is my own personal view --

as i have said many times, cavalry is coming. i think the midterm elections are going to be a gop sweep in both houses and i think that will stop some of the economic and social excesses of the biden administration. just giving my own personal views here. i think the biggest problem we are going to have in the next couple of years is getting high inflation down. i think high inflation was a big mistake by the biden administration. too much spending, too much borrowing, and the federal reserve missed the inflation boat. too much money printing. so we are paying for that now. the good news is it's not a 12 year thing the way it was back in the 70's. the bad news is getting 8% to

10% inflation back to 2% inflation will not be pain free. hopefully a republican congress will move to reduce spending and reduce borrowing. hopefully a republican congress will open the spigots toward oil and gas production and pipelines, all of which had been closed by biden. and hopefully a republican congress will keep a sharp eye on the federal reserve to make sure they slow down the money supply and move their interest rates up accordingly and protect the value of the dollar. i think you will see policy changes, but it's not going to be easy. and i don't think it's going to be pain free. host: for those who do or don't watch your show, there is something else you have been saying recently and we are going to play a quick montage.

you will see it, but you will hear it. larry: save america killed the bill. save america killed the bill. save the bill -- save america and kill the bill. that wisdom is simple, save america, kill the bill. save america, kill the bill. save america, kill the bill. tonight, i'm lunching a slightly new mantra, kill any new bills that may come next year. [laughter] that's great. there it was. the good news is, we killed the bill, at least so far. it keeps coming back. it became a rallying cry. that bill, depending on its

iteration would've been another five or $6 trillion of additional federal spending with massive inflationary consequences. and also, hidden in that bill, very huge tax hikes which would have done great damage to the economy and incentives to work, save and take risks. there was a save america coalition that developed among conservative groups. i was a supporter of democrat joe manchin, constantly supporting mention. i thought he was a very brave democrat. he's somebody who would save the democratic party from themselves if they ever gave him the chance. i wish you would run in primaries for the presidential run in 2024.

joe is a friend of mine. he's been on the show. i don't talk politics with them, talk policy but i think he did a heroic job. i think kyrsten sinema has done a terrific job fighting off the tax increases and so far, we have killed the bill. i don't want any more bills. by the way, i want to add one thing -- there is another bill sometimes called the china compete bill which has nothing to do with competing with china. it would be as much as 300 billion dollars of additional federal spending, industrial policies, corporate welfare, bailing out a chip industry that doesn't need bailouts. and i've got to tell you, a dozen republicans voted for it in the senate and should not have. host: richard is in brentwood, maryland. caller: you are still in the top

three interviewers in the country. i appreciate your efforts. mr. kudlow, you mentioned to the previous caller about nonclinical comments about mr. biden's cognitive abilities and i listen to you on the forum with stephen forbes and you called our president an idiot. so enough of that. but my question is this. you did -- you referred to reagan's tax policy of three decades -- as three decades of prosperity. his policies cost george bush the first a second term because it was economics clinton ran on and the state of our country's economy.

30 years would have taken us to the second bush which was an economic debacle as well. host: a lot on the table there. mr. kudlow -- first of all the idiot remark and we will go into the economics. larry: i'd don't think i've said that. perhaps i did and passing, but i don't believe that. i've been critical of biden. idiot, i doubt it. putting that aside, poppa bush temporarily reversed a small part of reagan's tax cuts and it was a mistake. we went into recession and he lost the election. but the bulk of reagan's tax cuts state and bill clinton, who continued to raise the income tax -- when reagan came in, it was 70%. when reagan left, it was 28.

poppa bush raised it to 31 with other tax hikes. bill clinton took it to perhaps 40. still below 70. george w. bush brought it back to 35. basically, the tax cuts stayed intact. they were not as low as 28 but basically stayed intact. but look -- with poppa bush, so many of us who helped vice president bush and tried to talk him out of raising taxes -- he said don't do it, don't do it, he did it and he lost the election. host: richard in brentwood, maryland. if you want a fuller, longer answer of that, this trick kudlow writes about that extensively in jfk and the

reagan revolution. you and i were talking yesterday and you kind of have this happy warrior persona on the air. i was surprised you had called mr. biden. guest: it's just not my way. i gave him a chance and then i looked at thehost: our book tv h program continues from larry kudlow's library in connecticut. we want to hear from you. 202 is the area code. 202-748-8201 if you live in mountain and pacific time zones. if you want to send a text, 2027 488903.

-- 202-748-8903. mr. kudlow, where did you grow up and who are your parents? guest: i grew up in inglewood, new jersey. irv and ruth kudlow. he was a businessman. she became a very good real estate agent. and i have one younger brother who has lived in hollywood, los angeles, hollywood for many decades. i love him to death. he is my favorite hollywood liberal. host what does he do in hollywood? guest: he is a scheme -- screenwriter, postproduction. younger brother. host: i want to read a quote from "american abundance." this

was in the introduction "in late november 19 905i had no prospects, no confidence, no ambition, and know since i could do the job." what was going on? guest: well, i had had my crash and burn sort of hopeless addictions to alcohol and drugs. it was the worst time of my life . it had been building up for several years. it went away -- i went away to a treatment center in minnesota for five months to get well. my saintly wife, judy, whom you have meant, sent me up there to long-term care. november 1995 is when i got out. basically what i wrote was kind of true. i was not really sure what was

going to happen. the most important thing was staying sober. which, i have managed to stay sober now for 27 years, coming up on 27 years. that is through god's grace and is the greatest blessing of my life. those were tricky times. it seems like a long time ago. things have, in almost every way, worked out better than i ever dreamed possible or ever dared dream possible. judy and i will have, i guess, i had better remember this. i think, 35 years married this summer. 27 years of sobriety. god has been very good to me. god has been very good to me.

at that point when you read that, and i was being honest in that book, who knew? i did not know. i had no idea. host: what do you remember about the last, or, first few months of 1995 at the end of your using. guest: blessedly, very little, to be honest with you. look, i still go to 12 step meetings. i'm still very active in 12 steps. i am very active in my church. i think about that stuff from time to time. every now and then, you know, the way it works in the 12 step. may be on your anniversary or maybe not you are asked to tell your story in front of the group . i don't want to bore the viewers but, you kind of go back in time a little bit.

you never really want to lose that. because, they were terrible days, terrible days. i will spare the quantification here. on c-span. i will just say that it was the worst moments of my life without any question. i do not think -- i mean, i returned to faith. i returned to a more spiritual way of looking at the world. i would also say, peter, things that i have learned from the 12 step group have served me very well in my career these last three decades. very well. of course, i have been honest about all of this. president trump new. i have never withheld that and it has come up from time to

time. i have done interviews. in the white house, the trump white house, on my 25th anniversary melania was hosting a conference on alcohol and drugs. it so happened that they found out, i do not know how, maybe one of my ladies, but that it was my 25th anniversary coming up. she asked me to speak, which i did in at least a general way. but, you know, i mean, think about it. from that point in 1995 to being a very senior presidential advisor it is a very long stones

throw but one could not have happened without the other. i'm very grateful for that. god has been very good for me -- to me and i tried to follow his path. i and perfect, but i tried. host: jim in rochester, new york you are on with larry kudlow. caller: mr. kudlow, i am wondering what your opinion is on the u.s. debt of $30 trillion, the unfunded liabilities we have in social security, medicare coming up getting closer and closer. also, the $9 trillion balance sheet the fed has. what kind of effect will that have when interest rates begin to turn to -- return to anything close to normal?

it seems to me there is a growing concern, i think, the cato institute published a booklet of various editorials called the fiscal cliff. it is very concerning. i'm wondering what your opinion of it is. guest: those a very good questions. one is the entitlement question on social security and medicare. the second one is the balance sheet of the fed, called the monetary base which is just briefly for viewers, essentially, printing money. all right? said, the government spends money. the federal government spends money. it borrows to finance its spending. that all too frequently -- then

all too frequently the federal reserve purchases the bonds uncle sam sells. there is fullface faith in credit but when the fed buys those bonds they literally create money. that is what central banks do. i could go on and on about it. i actually started my entire career at the new york fed back in 1973. but in any case, the entitlement problem is an issue. look, i do not believe there will ever be a default of social security obligations or, for that matter, medicare obligations. i mean, at the end of the day, it is the government that sells bonds to raise the money. yes, we pay taxes and we have payroll taxes for social security and medicare. but, really, there is a certain fiction about that,

particularly, on the medicare side. medicare really is not funded anymore by payroll taxes. it is mostly just funded out of general obligations. those are financed by selling bonds. so at some future point, somebody in power, in congress are the white house, will have to look at that. they will just have to look at that. there are very valuable systems that need to be preserved in my judgment. they could be reformed. there are a number of decent proposals out there to reform social security and to reform medicare. but, we spend more than we take in. that is a generic program -- problem throughout the entire government. it includes entitlements and will have to be looked at. and the other point the viewer made, interest rates will return to something more normal. they will not be zero anymore. already mortgage rates are up to 5%.

10 year bond rates are moving to 3%. in my view both will go higher because of inflation and the federal reserve's attempts to stop inflation. so that will add to the burden. the financing of federal debt in general will be more expensive. i will add one other point, peter. these are all reasons why i do not want any more federal spending. on domestic discretionary programs. that is why i said save america kill the bill. we don't need another $5 trillion worth of domestic spending. we cannot afford it. it will be extremely costly to finance. and ultimately, it is inflationary. i want to say, although, i has been an opponent of the biden administration's policies, by the way, not alone. some democrats like larry summers and jason furman, honest democrat economists, have also.

but the point is, we have to come up with no new spending at all, period. that is why i have been so emphatic about this. secondary from my concern about the negative economic growth effects we cannot keep doing this. it is a matter of common sense. let me put it to you that way. i know i am a republican, a reagan guy, a trump guy, a conservative, a supply side. i get that. i am not masquerading as anything else. i think what you are seeing in the polls, in the run-up to the midterms, it is a matter of common sense. people do not want to go out this far to the left on everything. whether it is government spending more ending fossil fuels or taking parents out of

the classroom more the -- or the open border or the file is -- foreign policy the afghanistan. i mean, this is not a campaign commercial. i am just saying that what you have here is an administration that is departed from traditional democrat concerns. this is why i love joe manchin. i speak as a former democrat. many years ago. i'd knowledge it was 45, 50 years ago. i worked for ronald reagan, a former democrat. i worked for donald trump, a former democrat. i have often said the best republicans are former democrats. not every republican senator agrees with me on that and i say it somewhat tongue in cheek. but the extremism in the biden administration rejected. it just lacks common sense, that

is all. you are sitting there and you see an inflation rate that has jumped. this was before the invasion in ukraine. the inflation rate has gone from less than 2% to 7% before ukraine. now here they come back with a new proposal. the congressional budget office prices it out at $5 trillion in spending and another $3 trillion in debt. you can do this. -- cannot do this. joe manchin was the standup guy along with kyrsten sinema and i noticed some other moderate democrats beginning to line up behind it. the stuff going on on the border is not sustainable, alright? you see a bunch of democrats, and i know they are from swing states. but i don't need to question their motives. directors, -- the fact is, we cannot just have a couple million people illegally cross the border every year. it's just not sustainable. just like we will not end

natural gas and fossil fuels in the next eight to 10 years. because, there is nothing to replace it. people know that. so, entitlement. i mean, we have a lot of work to do, ok. a lot of work to do. i think that you will see a big change. but i think the congressional changes coming. but i think the biggest change and the most important change will be 2024. because in order to effect major reforms, in any of these areas whether it is taxes or spending or inflation or the border or education or civil rights or what have you, you need the white house. you need the white house. i believe you will see different occupants in the white house. host: ok. july 9, 2019 talking to business insider this is a quote. "i do not see this as a huge problem right now at all, it is

quite manageable talking about the $22.5 trillion debt at that point. guest: as a share of gdp host: july 9, 2019. guest: it was still under share of gdp. i did not see it as a big problem. it's funny. i have a long history of not being a debt monger. some of my traditional conservative friends don't like that. i am much more interested -- here is where my theme of economic growth comes into play, ok? are you growing the economy? that is my first question. now, let's go back. this was true in the reagan tax cut debate. let's go back to the trump tax cut debate.

so, his tax cuts were priced out by the congressional budget office and the joint tax committee on a static basis meaning no economic good -- growth impact. at $1.5 trillion. of course, you have democrats that said, oh my god, that will raise the deficit and the debt. of course, they have never cared about that before. tax cuts not only promoted growth but brought unemployment to record low levels, brought minority unemployment to record low levels, brought poverty to record low levels. they also paid for themselves. now, they did not in year one and i never said they would. they did not in year two. yes, there was a debt increase

to finance those tax cuts. but here we are, through the pandemic and all of these numbers are coming in from the irs and treasury. they show record revenues. they zero -- show that the corporate tax cuts paid for themselves. this has been the suspect or subject of a cup -- been the subject of a couple programs on my fox business show. the laffer curve works. in the first year or two, you may have to borrow money to finance lower tax rates. but whether they are individual or corporate rates, you are making an investment. you are making an investment in future growth and prosperity and jobs including minorities, especially minorities. you are making an investment in middle-class working folks, blue-collar folks.

so it is worth it to incur a temporary deficit. that will increase the debt. it is worth it because down the road everybody will benefit. studies show for example, studies on the left of center. you know, the brookings. they are not crazy leftists, but left of center. i don't know. 80% of the people got tax relief. 60%, 70% of the benefits of the corporate tax cuts went to working folks. middle-income typical families. that was worth it. when i made that statement in 2019, you know, i stick to it. it did not bother me. what bothers me is if you are going to spend a lot of money that will not enhance growth, that bothers me. ok?

so, i will go back to my experience as a young man in the reagan budget office. reagan was not particularly worried about deficits. he would say so a little bit. but he did not care. he had two priorities. one was to cut tax rates to rejuvenate the economy. second, to put money in defense to defeat soviet communism. ok? he did both. deficits temporarily went up. so did the debt. but he achieved his ends. the economy grew. nearly three decades worth of prosperity with very small interruptions and we defeated soviet communism. growth, peace through strength, strong at home, strong abroad.

we get home, always weak abroad. those are the dictums. i learned that from reagan and i have never forgotten it. it has been 40 plus years. i will say as a senior trump advisor he believed the same thing. weakness at home breeds weakness abroad. strength at home breeds strength abroad. what did trump do? he slashed corporate and small business tax rates and grew the economy and reinvigorated the economy. unemployment fell. he put a lot of money into the defense budget. we had to do that at that point. it was not so much russia as it was china. john f. kennedy talked about strength at home, strength abroad. kennedy was a firm anti-communist. people forget this. i know it was a long time ago. if kennedy were along -- alive today he would be a reagan trump

republican. kitty wanted growth at home, 5% growth. which he wanted -- which he got posthumously from his tax cuts. and he fought the soviet union to send mail. these are not historical coincidences. these are historic principles that work whether you are a democrat or a republican. one of my arguments today as a former longtime democrat. pat moynihan was the last democrat i worked for and he was half republican. the point is this, there was a time when the two parties were a lot closer together. then they are today. this far left stuff is being rejected. i common sense people through the country. you know what? i have so much faith in america. i am just a hopeless optimist about this country. as long as we protected these

freedoms, this little far left woke aberration will not last. that's my take. hosts: host: next call comes from martin in ohio. caller: i have been listening to kudlow a long time, going back to the cnbc days. i generally would always listen to him. not always agree, but i always listen to him. i want to touch on immigration, inflation, and tax. immigration, there is a podcast called macro musings, so here is homework, listen to that because that can help us. immigration is chaotic right now but we don't have birth rate -- we don't replace our people -- our birthrate rate is too low. we need immigration to make this a bigger, stronger place. if you can listen to people like her koran who want to have to hundred million people in america, but we would be fine

with 360 people in america. that would make us better. if you are talking about growth, that is where you get it and those people, you get them on a pathway to citizenship, they start paying into the system. that is how you solve that problem. for some reason, people on the right -- you talk about the people on the left of that are extreme, and there are extreme wackos on the right. you have these know nothing people and that is going nowhere. secondly, inflation. host: you know what, martin? there's a lot there to play with and we appreciate your calling and. -- in. guest: it is very well done. the third-best interview on tv? host: one of the three. guest: that is even better. i want to make a point about immigration. part of what the caller said i agree with. i think that immigration is a

good thing, not a bad thing. of course, america has a long tradition of immigration. here is what i don't like, illegal immigration. i don't like open borders. i think that is where we are. my own views have changed, revolved in the last 10 years over this question. because i'm a strong pro-immigration reform or. but the border crisis, the catastrophe at the border, is president trump basically did two things. one is he got control of the border through the remain in mexico policy, through building a wall policy and through basically a policy, i mean, remain in mexico was

essentially catch and deport. because illegal immigration does damage. illegal immigration by the way includes the drug trafficking is again a crisis point. sex trafficking, kids trafficking. narco terrorists run these borders we cannot allow that rs . i guess my views have been tougher on the border because i've been looking to what's happened on the border in recent years. i think the vitamins have just made a terrible mistake with this title 42. he's going to get rid of that, replace it with something solike this. until emergency so the other part of the presidents policies were what i'll call illegal immigration reform. we have very good lands which we could never get through commerce and it will require more elbow grease and require probably a new white house

and a newcongress . there are a number of ways that we can legally productively consistent with economic growth allow 1 million million plus perhaps legal immigrants per year. i don'thave any problem with that. our economy could do it . of course america was founded on immigrants. and they were a gigantic contributors to our fabulous economic growth . but today's situation cannot last in my judgment >> what about his comments, martin's comment about right-wing wackos as he called them, theamerica firsters . >> i'm not sure what. he mentioned mark (and he mentioned mark, he's a pretty smart guy and i'm not sure what a right wing wacko is. >> let's hear from tom in

phoenix, go ahead. >> thank you for taking my call and mister kudlow, you seem to be a person respectful of everybody but my assessment is they are accurate and true so how bad can they be? at any rate, save america, killed the bill. your education is a service to this country and will help change thingsaround from the disaster we have now . and there's a lot of people on the right that are writing nd books and talking and their service is greatly appreciated and we need to seize out on tv like cnn or i'm sorry, not cnn but the program whereon. i used it to write to the white house office of

correspondence. i don't know if the president ever gets to read them, maybe you can tell me but i use to refer to him as the president teacher and the way he spoke , people understood. they got it and there wasn't any fancy stuff and i see you doing lots of the same on the economic sideand i appreciate that . thank you. >> thank you tom. >> it's very kind, i appreciate. i have a long history with w c-span and actually in my book america abundance i have the brian lamb who i think is just a giant iconic figure so i'm honored to be on this show today. i'd love to do service with c-span. >> i don't know if you like you can answer this but tom asked about the president and access or hearing from the public. how often, you've been in the oval office twice now. how often do you, does it become a burden . >> with president trump, i

would say he kept in touch with more people, more frequently. his is constantly on the phone. that's the thing. which made it very interesting. let's say we are having a big highfalutin policy hearing. let's say the economy. sowe're having a meeting in the hole with the boss . knutson is there and i'm there like kaiser is there and others are there. anyway, very important meeting and some subject would come up. it could be taxes, couldbe trade . could be housing, could be fossil fuel. there's no end to it. you sstart off by raising the

top, sir, we're here. and he'd listen and the next thing he yell out can you get me so-and-so,give me so and so on the e phone, i want to talk to her . and it would be his mind would associate somebody new from outside the government might have some thing to say about the topic. and he would put thatperson on the phone . put the speakerphone on and they would join our meeting. this would happen. this is with regularity. i know also even when we are non-in non-formal meetings that he was constantly on the phone with people and people that you might be surprised. not everyone was a trump supporter, not everyone was a republican t.

he wanted to get as many inputs as he possibly could . he's not giving away trade secrets. it's not like he would start randomly calling people for a national security meeting, none of that i'll just call them open-ended discussions, notnecessarily , not decision discussions which would be governed by various executive ordinances but rather open-ended discussions . kicking stuff around. he loved to bring in people. ceos, sometimes broadcasters. friends. one of the great things in that trump tradition is you know, the so-called experts including site were not always right. you know what i mean? and it's a sort of beltway thing, credentials and length of service and oh my gosh.

nonsense. trump was greatat bringing in new blood and trump was great touch with in people who were not in the government . i don't know. some people in the administration were frustrated by that. i thought it was a great idea. i would do the same thing at my level if i think cooking. i'd like to from so and so. i've been around the block a long time. i knowpeople out there who have opinions and i'm interested in hearing them i loved it when he did . we used to have an ec, national economics council and have cabinet lunches every two weeks. throw out all the cabinet agencies involved in economic policy and my predecessor did this, gary: and i did. we wouldinvite people outside the government to speak . we go down to the board room

in the white house mess and it was refreshing. they could say anything they want and we need to hear it and trump was the same way i thought it was fabulous. experts will be the death of us. no experts, too many experts . >> every author who appears on in-depth we ask his or her favorite book and what they'recurrently reading . here is larry kudlow's list. his favorite books included john sanford the investigator . red bear, to rescue the republic. brian kill me, the president and the freedom fighters. just read c forms on inflation. brian dimitri bank, the emergence of laughter. charles morris, tycoons and e ryan walters, the jazz age president. which of those would you like to bring up specifically any of them?

>> i want to say two things, they're not necessarily my favorite books of all time is what i have read or am reading now . i want to say on john sanford, i love to read. this by the way these are fiction. john sanford's book the investigator. he has written 1 million books about a great, i love mystery. tops. m cia. spies. sanford writes his favorite copies lucas davenport. and down through the years i've read so many john sanford books that i believe that i know lucas davenport very well and i've been intimately involved with lucas s davenport's family and this is a book about lucas davenport's daughter lenny davenport and i'm about halfway through so i'll let you know how that works. the other one is i want to say jamie lee burke who has written about my other favorite cop, a guy named

in louisiana.ux southern louisiana. i don't have a copy of any jamie lee burke. sanford, r met john i love to meet both of them. their fabulous writers. lucas davenport should sometime meet david robichaux. he by the way is a recovering alcoholic and actually goes some of his books go into aa meetings. that's how good they are. so i think it's very fun. the other stuff, i enjoyed steve forbes whose ia longtime collaborator. his book on inflation is terrific. i think it's a much must read because inflation is sovery important . i want to say that brett bear wrote a book about us grant. i had on the tv i have my radio shows. excellent book about grant as i said earlier as well one of

my favorite presidents. brett bear, brian kill me wrote a nterrific book about abraham lincoln and frederick douglass. two opponents of slavery, different style, different positions . very very important book. he did a good job. brian kill me is a great guy, so is brett tbear. i am keen on the books i brought here with you. i wasn't sure what the assignment was going to be . the two books i'm teen on, one is the book about the gilded age which is the charlie morris book wherever i put that. that'sthe jazz age . >> i've been waiting for you to say that the tycoons and that links tothe jazz age .

the jazz age book is about warren harding. i want to group them together and i'm going to give an opinion here . left-wing historians have destroyed these presidentsand by the way they tried to destroy grant although i think it was you who told me grant is starting to move up the list again . >> on the quadrennial list of presidential rankings , ulysses grant has been moving up steadily . >> deservedly so. not only did he win the civil war on the battlefield but as i said grant was the guy who tried to enforce reconstruction. grant was the guy who took on the plant and by the way, grant and the civil war in context restore the value of the dollar. liberal historians don't like grants, they don't like orangey harding or calvin coolidge. they used to not like ronald reagan but so much material

has come out about reagan from his own hand. they realized reagan was going to win on policy so let's go to the gilded age. i'm going to define it as like 1870 to 1910 or something. give me some running room on that. i'm going to include us grant into this. so grant was president from 68 to 76. the gilded age was the second industrial revolution. the gilded age was a phenomenal period of edinventions, railroads across the country. airplanes, oil, the applications of oil. i just brought a list and i was hoping we could go into this stuff.

electricity, telegraph rail lines. oil, automobiles and airplanes, the red cross u. come on and they're badmouthing everything about the gilded age. the tv show, made them all out to be villains. it's all about social climbing and stuff like that so they completely miss the big picture. this is a period of unheralded prosperity for the united states. america became the greatest country in the world economically during the so-called gilded age and it was the second industrial revolution. my saintly wife is also a terrific artist, painter. you have the hudson river painters came through, winslow homer. tremendous stuff. stephencrane, elizabeth fortin, horatio outer . the chicago exposition of

1893. i hope i get this right. i know she'll correct me. it was 1893 or 1896. the wright brothers 1903 was during the gilded age. what charles orson does is he chronicles a few of these guys. rockefeller, carnegie and j.p. morgan. i'm just saying this was not an era of robber barons. this was an era of american greatness and prosperity with tens of millions of people getting higher-paying jobs. you just can't ask for it. it was a tremendous period of literature and a tremendous period of art and that's why i wanted to thbring that up. there's lots of good books about this. the tycoons is a good place to start. lots ofgood books about this . bill rent at the university of texas has written about this.liberal historians haveslaughtered this age in the wrong. they just missed the point . the progressive period cannot

post anything like this. the other thing is the 1920s the jazz age, and again you get people like to kill harding. there was corruption in the n harding administration. but as mister walters showed, had nothing to do with harding. the people that were corrupt got busted. they were thrown in jail. the teapot dome scandal, harding had nothing to do with it . he was a good middle-of-the-road conservative republican senator from ohio but here's the thing about harding. return to normalcy.harding again, i said this earlier in the show. working with calvin coolidge who is another guy liberals hate coolidge. coolidge by the way made it the first law and order guy. he was the guy that stopped the police strike in massachusetts . that's a big issue today and andrew mellon was a quarterback. they/ tax rates.

and they/ spending. and they even slashed the federal debt. i don't care about that as much. and we had unbelievable prosperity in the 1920s. again, another industrial age . literature, art, everything. and unfortunately herbert hoover came in and even though he wasn't republican and the circuit coolidge called him wonderboy . hoover was a very good businessman, he was a mining engineer. and a great humanitarian but as secretary of commerce, coolidge had no time for him cause he was a biggovernment. coolidge was a big government guy even though he had the hoover institution , hoover himself took the tax rate from 25 to 65 percent.

and he signed the smoot-hawley tariff and i know there was restricted terrace during the republican years but not like that . it was a terrible mistake. and it turned what was a modest downturn into a major depression and fdr in my view made worse because he kept raising taxes and kept regulating and controlling prices so i'm reading these books and i can proselytize about these books . i love the gilded age stuff personally. if i had it to do over again i would like to have been i don't know. grover cleveland the democrat was one of myfavorite . he was a pro- gold spending cutter. it wouldn't fathom the income tax from buffalo new york. he was governor of new york and president and all in about five or six or eight years. he's the only guy to come

back and the president again t i think. i like grover cleveland, i like us grant. i like warren harding andi especially like calvin coolidge. i like ronald reagan . >> wasn't grover cleveland the father? let's hear from, see. >> 'sopponents go after these guys on those grounds. grover cleveland was the last gold democrat. anyway, william jennings bryan. >> you have time i think for one or two more calls. john in lakeland florida, you are on with larry kudlow. you with us? let's strike john. >> caller: this is john from connecticut. i want to know if you think that john kennedy the senator

from louisiana would be a good presidential candidate in 2024. >> are going to leave ouit right there. we're running short on time john kennedy is a very smart man. very very smart man. >> is he somebody you know? when you were on the white house how often did you talk to senators or congressmen constantly. >> i had dealings with senator kennedy. i introduced him and he spoke here at the big state party fundraiser. i introduced him, he was on my tv show recently. he's a very smart guy. >> frank kirklandflorida, you're on the air . >> that's kirk in washington. how are you? peter, you asked a wonderful question of mister kudlow and

i having to enjoy watching mister kudlow. i disagree with some of his positions but one of them is i think the caller or two behind mentioned about the spending of the trump administration. that's always been a w for me and in washington we always think republicans drive up the debt. the democrats come in and try to fix that mess. what's been ikudlow's position on that and elon musk made a great argument about robots coming in to take the place of workers. and he made a position that they would start having to pay workers just a salary because there would be no more jobs and i'll take my question, thank you both. >> that was a little hard,

could you get anything outof that ? >> robots are not going to replace the workforce. that's the most exaggerated overstated argument. robots will help grow the economy and create jobs. just like all these industrial revolution improvements do. trump recalled the gales of t. creative destruction and i'm a great advocate of that i'm not sure i heard this first question . >> i just couldn't hear it clearly enough to put words in his mouth buti want to do something here in our last five minutes . i want to go through some headlines and just get your take on these. these are from recent newspapers. years the new york times, the story on tucker carlson on american nationalists. >> i read it quickly. target is a longtime friend

of mine. he's a very smart guy. he's done a fabulous job as a broadcaster. and it just looks like the new york times politicalhit job to me . >> wall street journal, us economy shrinks 1.4 percent over here, amazon loses. >> high inflation again, high inflation the fed is going to have to take away the punch full. the stock market is going to be in for a rough time the next 6 to 9, maybe 12 months but i do want to say this. people should buy and own stocks for the long run. and in fact if the market does go down tomorrow which i think is likely because the economy is going to stagflation, people should buy the debt and hold on to the indexes forever. the capital is coming. >> washington post, and a

plan for ukraine signals war. >> i did not read that. i will say my view is joe biden has been a dollar short and a daily on helping ukraine but i will also say it looks like there catching up to where they need to be. i'm very impressed with defense secretary lloyd austin about this and the united states should do everythingit can , everything it can to help the ukrainians win the war in ukraine. not american troops on the ground but everything we should help ukraine when the war and drive the russians out oftheir territory . >> tim murtaugh, media reaction to elon musk. >> i didn't read his article. i happen to reallylike elon must . i like what t he's doing with

respect to twitter and his crusade for street free-speech and i think he's a brilliant guy. happy to have them on board. >> one final story from the washington post. cowboys number pleads guilty in january 6 cooperation m. genuine six where were you? >> i was in my office on the second floor. i didn't read that. i just wait one comment, january 6 was a rough day for everyone but i'll say this. people who use my former boss donald trump of some out for minting insurrection or revolution, they want to go back and look at some facts. and my friend troy murdoch has written about this. it was president trump who ordered 10 to 20,000 national guard people to police the capital and the city of

washington and that order was rejected by the mayor of washingtonand by the speaker of the house . so for a guy who's trying to promote insurrection don't you think it's or do people think it's you want 20,000 national guard people to protect the city so i'll just leave that there. >> from insanity once more which is a collection of his columns september 16, 2017 there's ptnot a racist, hateful supremacist bone and donald trump's body. thfinished with this quote from larry kudlow to people magazine. idon't believe in retirement .work is a virtue, what else am i going to do?>> i don't believe there's a racist bone in donald trump's body. i'll repeat that and i couldn't imagine not working and as long as the lord gives me the strength to work i

will continue to work. i love it too much. i'll just kind of keel over on the set of some tv show and you'llcarve me away . >> thank you for being on book tv. thank you to you and your wife judy for hosting us. your saintly wife judy for hosting a severe in the library of connecticut. >> at least six presidents recorded conversations while in office. here many of those conversations on the new podcast presidential recordings. >> season one focuses on the presidency of lyndon johnson. earlier about the 1964 presidential campaign, goal of tonkin incident, marched on selma and war in vietnam. not everyone knew they were being recorded. >> certainly johnson's secretaries new because they were tasked with transcribing many of those conversations.

in fact they were the ones who made sure the conversations were take as johnson would signal to them through an open door between his office and there's. >> you also your blunt talk. >> i want a report of the number of people assigned to kennedy when the day he died. the number assigned to me now mine are not blessed i want them blessed right quick . >> presidential recordings, find it wherever you get your podcasts . >> c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what's happening in washington live and on-demand.

keep up with today's biggest events on live streams of hearing from congress, white house, the courts, campaigns and more from the world of politics all at your fingertips. stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and live scheduling information for c-span radio plus a variety of podcast. c-span now isavailable at the apple store and google play . downloadit for free today . c-span now: your front row view of washington anytime, anywhere. >> next on book tvs author interview program "after words", a editor greg bluestein looks at the events that led to georgia turning in the 20/20 presidential election and talks about significance in future state and national elections. he's interviewed by washington post national political reporter eugene scott. "after words" is a weekly