free black brotherhood i urge you to. it is a treasure. thank you again and i hope you all have a wonderfulnight . >> if you're enjoying book tv sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive a schedule of author discussions, book festivals and more . book tv every sunday on c-span2 or anytime online at booktv.org: television for serious readers. >> larry kudlow will you be writing a book about your time in thetrump administration ? >> i don't have any time at the moment. i'm very busy. i'm loving life. never say never but not at the moment. >> how many jobs do you have? >> of course there's fox and friends show, if i can plug

at 5 pm. that's the bulk of what i do. i also do a lot of segments for espn and also fox news. in fact i did one this morning on fox and friends. i do a radio show every saturday morning for three hours. the national radio show runs you're on w abc radio. but where live streams and also syndicated. and i .also do some ... well, i write and pieces 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 househas been terrific so it's a real blessing for me . >> this is your second stint in the white house, your first being. >> 40 years ago.

it was somewhat lower position. i was an economic deputy at the office of management and budget duringthe reagan administration . the director of omb in those days was a fellow named david stockton who remains a friend of mine. and that was my first job. it was in reagan's first term . >> larry kudlow, your 2016 bookconnects the rate reagan revolution with jfk . >> it's the story that i've wanted to tell for years, then in the back of my head. i worked with my pal brian kenny, he's a researcher and co-author so basically in a nutshell john f. kennedy was a progrowth democrat. he was a task cutting democrat.

he was a supply-side democrat . and when he ran in 1960, he was, he really 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 the tax rate they 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 had been three possessions during the eisenhower years. that's a little known facta but it is true . and the connection to reagan some 25 years later was reagan lower marginal tax rates also and help reignite

a more abundant economy. in fact i would argue as i do quite a bit on our doshow that the reagan tax cuts once all of a three decade prosperity. the jfk tax cuts launched a decade-long prosperity but unfortunately was unwound and undermined by lbj's great society richard nixon, jerry ford, jimmy carter, none of them understood tax cuts. none of them understood the incentive effects,economic growth effects, bolower marginal tax rates, maybe we can talk about that some more . and some very smart people, loeffler who is still around and robert window, nobel prize winner and jack kent and others brought the

supply-side. essentially the kennedy tax cuts to reagan and raven looked at them and thought about them and ran on them and it was very controversial just as it was in jfk's day . and it worked. in fact reagan had two rounds of tax cuts. i was there for thround and i was involved in the campaign to promote it. >> you quote jfk as saying it will be a major aim of our tax reform program to broaden the tax base and reconsider the rent structure. >> absolutely. and there's some really juicy jfk quotes that could have easily applied to reagan. in fact, listen. kennedy was the first guy to use the phrase ta rising tide lifts all boats. that phrase was used later by jack kent.

the late jack kemp who was a very dear friend and also a mentor by reagan. i use it all the time. from used it. the trump tax cuts which were more on the corporate side but were enormous tax cuts were cut from the same cloth as the reagan and jfk tax cuts . so i was able to bridge reagan to trump on those policies. i was too young for jfk, just barely too young. i was really only 17 when i went into the rreagan white house . but tax cuts and if i made, i want to go back . 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, in the 1920s harding is vice president

calvin coolidge and importantly his 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 amendment was i believe 1913.the 16th amendment started at seven percent. when woodrow wilson left office it was over 70 percent . we went into recession after world war i, those guys brought tax rates down to 25 percent and launched a tremendous boom, prosperity boom in 1920s. and i am going to go one more. you're going to go give me one more on this and that is another of my favorite figures is ulysses s rent rent was arguably america's greatest general or one of

its greatest generals his formations at west point grant as president also much-maligned soand my friend and colleague at fox baer wrote a book good book. but grand did two things. economic things in his administration.he never gets credit. the liberal historians will never give him credit but the fact is grant and it the civil war income tax. and it. and grant restored the greenback to coal. so we had massive wartime inflation.ve and i wore time taxes and grant ended both. also helped launch this second industrial revolution. which is sometimes referred to disparagingly as the gilded age but it was phenomenal. in american life. just to be consistent, i'm here, here's my god grant. he's cutting taxes.

harding is cutting taxes. kennedy's cutting taxes. from, reagan is cutting taxes trump is cutting taxes . i'm as honored to serve under the last two which i've been around for the others, would have been great fun. >> in all of your books in your work on foxbusiness etc., you htalk about some economic andi was hoping that we could maybe have a broader discussion about how they all work together . >> .. i'm for growth. i'm for prosperity.

in my whole career that's been my raison d'être. it seems to me, i me, served in government by the way, my first job event was at the federal reserve in new york, federal reserve bank in new york. i served it open market operations and i was a secretary to paul volcker who was president of the new york fed. so i have had three government assignments. seems tohave me if you do nothig else in government, you should promote policies that would generate growth, prosperity, jobs, optimism. that's our job. our job, i'm j a free market capitalist. i believe in free markets, free enterprise capitalism. i think it's the surest path to growth. whenwh i was in the cnbc days ad had my show there for many years, i used to open up theth show every night by saying free

market capitalism is the best path to prosperity. ii set it for years. i believe that. i still believe that. so coming back to your points, your questions, essentially you need the lowest possible tax rates, the least possible government intervention. think of it as minimal regulations. and you need a sound currency which i call king dollar. that was my phrase years ago, king dollar. and if you break that, if you move to a policy regime of high tax rates, excessive government intervention and regulation, and it's cheap dollar, depreciated dollar, you will find yourself with high inflation, high unemployment and recession. and i've 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. although i will say this modern monetary theory has taken a pretty big licking right now with high inflation. but the point i'm making is i am prepared to argue in historical terms as well as economic policy terms that those are t the essential ingredients, lowest possible tax rates, minimal government and government regulation, and a sound, reliable king dollar. >> host: is the fed to powerful? is it necessary? >> guest: newell, i won't argue the necessity part, although it's interesting in the gilded age jpmorgan was his own fed,

rescued the monetary system as couple of times. but is the fed to powerful? yes. right now it is. troubling to me, the most troubling part of the fed to meet is it has lost sight of its principal mission, which is to keep the currency sound and the price levels stable, okay. i mean, nowadays with all this talk of woke culture and woke economics, i mean, the fed and some of its appointees are talking more about climate change than price stability. diversity, , i'm not opposed to diversity, lord knows, but it don't think that's the mission of the fed.ed the fed should manage its own human resources properly without any prejudice at all. but the idea that it wants to

equalize the economy, that 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 will exercise our god-given talents in many different ways. but i think the fed is way too much geared toward something called equity and, of course, climate change which i'm not a climate denier. i'm just saying that we do not have a climate emergency. existentialve some climate risk factually, even you in 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 that we are

experiencing today, and that last one is really unpopular. >> host: one of the other issues that's brought up in this genre is income inequality. is that a concern? should we be concerned that person x makes ten times as much as -- >> guest: no, we should not. again, i think, the idea here for me is we should, we should, by law, have equality of opportunity at the starting line. line. absolutely by law. but we cannot guarantee the quality of results. we cannot. cannot. even in communist countries, even in the old soviet union -- i grew up during the cold war and particularly in the reagan

years, when we fought soviet communism, the only equality they had in the soviet union was equality of poverty, and the end the nomenclature who ran the place, they were the rich guys but there was no widespread prosperity ever, and that's true for all socialist or communist countries, it seems to me. we should not strive to end something called inequality. we should strive for growth and prosperity. we should maximize opportunities. we want to have unlimited opportunities. that is why i 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 have their own personal freedom. that's a job for the so-called private sector. free-market economics is the best path to prosperity. i want individual freedom inside the economy. freedom to fail and freedom to succeed. one of the great aspects of america, and it is still true to this day, you have an entrepreneurial story where people have an idea, they might scratch up some money to finance it, 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 you become a massive success.

that is what is so brilliant about the gilded age, the industrial revolution, the information revolution. the stuff we routinely use today did not exist when i was in prep school or college or starting out. do you have a spare mimeograph machine in the truck? all of that is gone. we don't even hardly xerox anymore. you are running the show on an iphone and i love it. even an old guy like me, i've figured out most of the stuff. you've got kids dropping out of college, working in garages, trying to put things together, they fail, they fail and then succeed and hit it big. that's the american story, but behind that story is freedom. if we lose that, we will lose

everything. i spent a lifetime trying to promote freedom, frankly in the economic sector where i know something about it but all throughout the country. freedom of speech, there's a big debate with misinformation, government bureaus, this stuff drives me crazy. i won't call him my friend, but elon musk, he calls himself a free speech absolutist -- i love that. free speech, freedom of religion, i want a free economy. a free economy will out produce every state run, centrally planned economy and i will sit here for a couple of hours all day and tomorrow and show you historical examples of why a free economy outperforms a state economy. host: before we get too far from

jfk and the revolution, the fact about the recessions in the go get them 50's, what happened? was that government policy, just the waxing and waning? supply and demand? larry: there are a lot of factors after world war ii and after the korean war. but i would say principally, you had a 91% tax rate, very high taxes, which were very onerous. some critics of this view would say you had high taxes but you had loopholes and nobody paid it. 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 very high income taxes. the more they earned, the more punitive the tax rate was. capital gains taxes were very

high, corporate taxes were very high. the economy was smothered. the incentive effect which was so prominent during the harding, coolidge, mellon tax cuts, those incentives were not around. it was a tightly controlled economy, very government-run to economy, a highly regulated economy. the federal reserve properly, i think cap the dollar stable so you had episodes of inflation, but we were under the old bretton woods dollar-gold exchange system and the federal reserve did a pretty good job. but any time the fed tried to tighten, the economy had no other outlets because it was so

tightly controlled by high taxes and regulations. those are really important issues. pike has many wonderful qualities, general eisenhower, president eisenhower. economics was not one of them. there's a long story. his top advisor was arthur burns . he advised nixon. push the ball down the road during the reagan years. he was ambassador to germany and a very good ambassador. he and i became very friendly and he became something of a mentor of mine. arthur creed -- i had a point about lower tax rates. he opposed it -- eisenhower, nixon -- he saw them work during the reagan years.

there were three recessions and this is what gave kennedy a step up in the election. he ran as a growth guy and nixon did not deal with much economic, domestic policy. i remember nixon's son-in-law, a very dear personal friend of mine, his daughter and son-in-law are very dear friends of ours. i met nixon in the middle 80's. i was out of office, back on wall street. he had his old office down at one federal plaza, whatever it was in downtown new york those days. his son-in-law would bring in various policy people before president nixon would go on foreign trips. i had at least one visit, maybe two, and it was very charming -- but what i had written, numerous

op-ed pieces criticizing his economics as president. he did everything wrong. raised taxes, had tariffs, took the dollar off the gold standard and we had booming inflation. the first time i met him, he comes in and looks at me and says you don't think much of my economics, do you? [laughter] and i said net -- i said, no sir, with respect, i don't. it was a very cool moment. this was the mid 80's. i had served in reagan's first term, but nixon acknowledged in his books that the reagan tax cuts worked. he acknowledge that because he was intellectually honest. host: insanity once more is a collection of your columns that came out in 2018. i want to read a quote from them -- this is election day 2016.

enforcing trade deals is spot on . acting in the interest of american workers is correct. but large-scale tariffs are a terrible idea. larry: yes. and believe it or not, that is still my mantra. this is a good story. president trump was much more 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

the point is we have to come up with no new spending at all, period. that's why i've been so emphatic about this .that's why i have concerns about raising marginal tax rates and economic growth effects, we just can't keep doing this . it's a matter of common sense. let me put it to you that way. i know i'm arepublican . i know i'm a reagan guy, a trunk guide, supply side. i get that. i'm not masquerading as anything else but i want to say i think what you're seeing in the polls, in the run-up to the midterms a matter of common sense. people do not want to go out this far to the left on everything. whether it's government i spending or ending fossil fuels or taking parents out of the classroom or the open border. oror the foreign policy in afghanistan.

i'm not a campaign commercial, i'm just saying what you have here is an administration that has departed from traditional democrat concerns. this is why i love joe manchin so much. i acknowledge as a former democrat 50, 40 years ago. i worked for donald trump, a formerdemocrat . i've often said that althe best republicans are former democrats. not every republican editor agrees withme . i say that tongue-in-cheek but this extremism in the biden administration is being rejected. it just lacks common sense, that's all. you're sitting there and you see an inflation rate that has jumped before the invasion in ukraine. the inflation rate went from two percent to seven percent

before ukraine and here they come back with a new proposal which the congressional budget office prices out at $5 trillion of spending at another $3trillion of debt . you say to yourself, we can't do this. and joe manchin was the standup guy along with kiersten sinema and i know other moderate democrats starting to line up. the stuff going on at the border is not sustainable and you see a whole bunch of democrats. i know there from swing states but i don't mean to question their motives. the fact is we can't just have people illegally cross the border every year. we just can't do that. it's not sustainable. just like we're not going to and natural gas and fossil fuels in the next 8 to 10 years because there's nothing to replace it and people know that.

we have a lot of work to do. and i think you'll see a big change but the congressional changes coming. i think the biggest change and most important change will be 2024 because in order to effect major reforms, in any of these areas whether it's taxes or spending or inflation or the border or education or civil rights or what have you need the white house. and i believe you're going to see different occupants in the white house >> july 9, 2019, talking to business insider this is a quote. i don't see this as a huge problem right now at all. it's quite manageable. talking about the $22.5 trillion debt at that point. >> yes. i mean, as a share of gdp,

this was 2019? so we're still under 100 percent of gdp. i didn't see it as a big . problem. actually it's funny. i have a long history of not being that monger. and some of my traditional conservative friends don't like that . i'm much more interested. here's where my theme of economic growth comes from . are you growing the economy, that's my first question. now, let's go back. this was true in the reagan tax cut debate but 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

growth impact. d at 1.5 trillion. and of course you have democrats said oh my god. that will raise the deficit and the debt. of course e they never cared about it before. tax cuts i might add did not only promote growth. brought unemployment to record low levels. brought minority unemployment to record low levels. brought nepoverty to record low levels. they also paid for themselves . now, they didn't in year one. never said they would. they didn't in year two and yes, there was a debt increase to finance those tax cuts but here we are even through the pandemic where all these numbers are coming in from the irs and treasury show record revenues.

they show that the corporate tax cuts paid for themselves. this is has been the subject of a couple of programs on my foxbusiness so show. the laffer curve worked. you're not going to get a share. so in the first year or two, you may have to borrow money to finance lower tax rates. but what i would say is whether their individual rates or corporate rates, business rates, you'remaking an investment . you're making an investment in future growth and prosperity and jobs including minority, especially minorities. you're making an investment in middle-classworking folks, blue-collar folks . so it's worth it to incur a temporary deficit. which will increase the debt because down the road, everybody will benefit. studies show for example

studies on the left of center. the brookings, they're not crazy leftists but just left of center. 80 percent of people had tax relief. and kevin assets work and i supported him in 50, 70 percent of the benefits of the corporate tax cut went to working folks. middle income typical families. that was worth it. when i made that statement in 2019, and i stick to it. didn't bother me. what bothers me is that you're going to spend a lot of money that will not enhance growth.that bothers me. so i'll go back to my experience as a young man in the reagan budget office. reagan wasn't particularly

worried about deficits. he would say so a little bit. he had two options, two priorities. one was to cut /tax rates to rejuvenate the economy. second was to put money into defense to defeat soviet communism. he did both. deficits temporarily went up. so did defense but he achieved his ends. the economy grew as i said before. just nearly 3 decades worth of prosperity with very small interruptions that we defeated soviet communism. growth, peace through strength. strong at home. strong abroad. we get home always weak abroad. those are the victims that i learned that from reagan and i've neverforgotten in 40+ years .

i will say to you as a senior thtrump advisor he believed the same thing. weakness at home breeds weakness abroad. strength at home reads abroad. what did trump do? he/corporate and small business tax rates, grew the economy, reinvigorated the at economy. unemployment fell. put a lot of money into the defensebudget . we had to do that at that point it wasn't so much russia, it was china. so i think you go back. john f. kennedy talked about strength at home, strength abroad. kennedy was a firm anti-communist. people forget this. i know it's a long time ago. if kennedy were alive today he have been all reagan pro. just saying. kennedy wanted growth at home, five percent growth which he got posthumously from his tax cuts and he brought the soviet union to

hang. these are not historical produces, these are historical principles that work whether you're a democrat or a republican. one of my arguments today and i'm going to be honest with you again as a longtime democrat.pat moynihan was the last democrat i worked for. he was asked republican but the point is this. there was a time when the two parties were a lot closer together. then they are today. this farm left stuff is being rejected. by common sense people throughout the country and you know, i have so much faith in america. i'm hopeless optimist, you know that a hopeless optimist about this country. as long as we protect those freedoms . this little farm left woke aberration aswill not last. that's my take.

>> next call for larry comes from martin in dayton ohio. >> thank for having me on. i'm really grateful. and with low for a long time going back to the kramer nbc days and i generally would always listen to him, not always agree with him that i always listen to him. i want to touch on three things, immigration and tax. immigration first of all there's a great podcast called macro with david bessler and here's a little homework. listen to that because that can help us. immigration is chaotic right now but we don't have, we don't replace our people. our erate is way too low so we need immigration to make this a bigger stronger place and so you can listen to people like for corey and want to have maybe 200 million people in america we would be just fine with 350 free hundred 60 people in america. that would make us better if you're talking about growth that's where you get it and then those people you get

them on the path to citizenship, a green card. that's how you solve that problem. for some reason people on the right, you talk about the people on the left that are extreme but there's nda lot of extreme wackos on the right to. you've got the american firsters, no nothing people and that's going nowhere. secondly inflation. trump printed money to. >> host: my martin, there's a lot there to play with and we appreciate youcalling in . >> very well done. one of the three. that's even better. i want to make a point about inflation because i at least part of what the college has said i agree with. i think cimmigration is a good thing. not a bad thing. courseamerica has a great long tradition of inflation . here's what we don't like. i don't like illegal immigration.

i don't like open borders. and i think that's kind of where we are . my own views have changed or evolved in the last 10 years over this question. because i am am a strong pro-immigration reform are quote unquote. but the border crisis, the catastrophe of the border is something that cannot be allowed to continue. it's not sustainable. in all its many forms. president trump on this basically did two things. one is the 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 . illegal immigration is damaged.

illegal immigration by the way includes the drug trafficking is again a crisis point. sex trafficking. kids trafficking. the narco terrorists run these borders. we cannot allow that. i guess my views have been tougher on the border as i've been looking at what's happened veon the border in recent years. i think the bidens have just made a terrible mistake over the border. title 42, if you're going to get rid of that place it with something else on fentanyl emergency. the other part of the presidents on policy were what i call legal immigration reform . we had very good plans which we could never get through congress. and it will require more elbow grease and it will require probably new white house and a new congress. there are a number of ways that we can legally productively consistent with economic growth allow

millions million plus perhaps legal immigrants per year. i don't have any problem with that our economy could do it. course america was founded on immigrants. and they were gigantic contributors to our fabulous economic growth. over the last several centuries. but today's situation cannot lastin my judgment . >> about his comment that martin's comment about right-wing wackos as he called them. the american firsters. >> i'm not sure. i don't know. you mentioned mark gregorian, i know mark is a responsible guy. i'm not sure what the right wing wacko is. >> let's hear from tom in phoenix, go ahead . >> thank you for taking my call. mister kudlow, you seem to be a person respectful to everybody. but these comments were made

my assessment is there accurate and true. so how bad can they be. at any rate, save america kill the bill. your education is a service to this country. and will help change things around from the disaster that we have now . and there's a lot of people on the right are writing books and talking and their service is greatly appreciated. we need to seize out on tv like cnn or i'm sorry, not cnn. but the program where on. and i used the right 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 used it to refer to them as the president and teacher and the way he spoke people understood. they got it and it wasn't any fancy stuff. i see you do lots of the same

with on the economic side and i appreciate that. thank you t. >> thank you tom. that's very kind. i have a long history with c-span, proud of it. and actually in my book america abundant i have hats off to brian lamb. i think is just a giant iconic figure. so i'm honored to be on this show today. love to be of service to c-span. >> ,asked about the president and access or hearing from the public. how often. you've been in the oval office twice now. how often does it become a problem's actually, with president trump i would say he kept in touch with more people, more frequently.

his custody on the phone. that's the thing. which made it veryinteresting . let's say we're having a big highfalutin policy meeting. let's say the economy. so we have a meeting in the oval. minute and is there and i'm there. like kaiser is there. others are there. chris lindell is there. anyway. important meeting with the boss and some subject would,. i mean it could be taxes, could be trade. to be housing. could the fossil fuel. no end to it. so you'd start off by raising the top over here. and he listen and the next thing he'd yell out at the

outer oval office canyou give me some or so? get , me so or so on the phone, i want to talk to her . and it would be his mind would associate somebody new from outside the government who might have some interesting thing to say about the topic. and he would put that person on the phone. put the speakerphone on and they would join our meeting. this would happen. this with regularity. i know also even when we are 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. he wanted to get as many inputs as he possibly could. he's not giving away trade secrets. it's not like he tiwould start randomly calling people for

national securitymeeting, none of that some of these , i'll just call themopen ended discussions . not necessarily decision discussions. which would be governed by various executive ordinances. rather open ended discussions. kicking stuff around. he loved to bring in people. ceos. sometimes broadcasters. friends. one of the great things in that trumpet tradition is you know what, the so-called experts including us i guess were not always right. we don't have all the wisdom. t this sort of don't beltway thing credentials and degrees and length of service and all my gosh. nonsense. trump was great at bringing in new blood andtrump was

great at staying in touch with people who were not in the government . i don't know. some people in the administration were frustrated by that. i thought it was great. i would do the same thing in my own level. if i have something cooking i'd like to hear from so-and-so. i've been around the block for a long time. i know people out there who have opinions and i'm interested in hearing so i loved it when he did that. we used to have an ec, national economic council would have cabinet lunches every 2 weeks throughout all the cabinet agencies on economic policy and we would invite my predecessors. when i did it we would invite people outside the government to speak. during lunch we go down to the boardroom and the white house mess and it was refreshing. inbig they do anything with a want and we need to hear it.

trump was the same way.th experts will be be the death of us. experts, number too many experts . just saying. >> author who appears on in-depth we ask him or her for their favorite books and what they're currently reading. here is larry's list. his favorite books include john sanford theinvestigator. brett bear, to rescue the republic. brian kill me, president and the freedom fighter . currently reading or just read steve forbes on inflation. ryan demetra vick, the emergence of arthur laffer. charles morris tycoons and ryan walters, the jazz age president. which of those would you like to bring up specifically. >> i want to say two things. not necessarily my favorite books of all time but it's what i either have read or am reading now. i want to say john john sanford. i love to read.

this by the way, these are fiction.on john sanford book the investigator. he has written 1 million wbooks about a great friend. i love mystery, tops, cia. sanford writes his favorite copies lucas davenport. and down through the years i've read so many john sanford books i believe that i know lucas davenport very well. i have been intimately involved with lucas davenport's family and this is a book about lucas davenportáletty davenport about halfway through so i t want you to know how that works. the other one is i want to say jamie lee brooks who is has written about my other favorite cop , a guy named david robichaux in the louisiana, southern louisiana. i don't have a copy of any jamie lee burke stuff.

i've never met james lee burke, never met john sanford. i'd love to meet both of them. lucas davenport should actually meet david robichaux. david is a rirecovering alcoholic and actually goes and in some of his books go into aa meetings. that's how good they are. so i think it's great fun. the other stuff, enjoyed steve for is a very dear friend. longtime collaborator. his book on inflation is terrific. i think it's a must read because inflation is so very very important. i wanted to say that brett bear a good book about us grant. i had brett on my tv and my radio shows. excellent book about grant whose as i said earlier is one of my favorite presidents . brett bear, brian kill me wrote a terrific book about abraham lincoln and frederick douglass .

two opponents of slavery, different styles. different positions. very very important. he did a good job. brian kill mead antithetical guy, so is brett there. i'm keen on the books i brought here. i wasn't sure what the assignment was going to be. i like the two books that i'm really keen on one is a book about the gilded age. which is the charlie morris. that's the jazz age. >> the tycoons. it's been e waiting for you. >> therdtycoons. that links to the jazz age. the jazz age book is about warren harding . but i want to group them altogether because i'm going to get an opinion here.

left-wing historians have destroyed these presidents. and 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, you di ulysses grant has been moving steadily . >> deservedly so. not only did he win the civil war but as i said. to you yesterday, grant was the guy who tried to enforce reconstruction. grant was the guy who took on the ku klux klan and by the way, grant and the civil war and restore the value of the dollar, stop the civil war inflation . liberal historians don't like grant. they don't likewarren g harding. they don't like calvin coolidge . they used not like ronald reagan but so much material has come out, written in his own hand, they realized reagan was quite a policy intellectual.

so let's go to the gilded age. the gilded age was, i'm going to define it as kind of like 1870 to 1910or something . give me some running room on that. i'm going to include us grant . grant was president from 68 to 76. the gilded age was the second industrial revolution.the gilded age was a phenomenal period of inventions, railroads across the country. airplanes. oil, applications of oil. i just brought a list because iwas hoping we could go into this stuff . steel, electricity, telegraph , rail lines, automobiles, airplanes. the red cross. come on. and they're badmouthing everything about the gilded d

age. this tv show made them all out to be the ones. it's all about social climbing. so they completely miss the big picture. this was a period of unheralded prosperity for the unitedstates . america became the greatest country in the world economically during the so-called gilded age and it was the second industrial revolution. my family life is also a terrific joartist, peter. you have thehudson river painters camethrough. thomas deakins, john singer sargent . tremendous stuff . stephen crane, elizabeth worden, horatio alger. the chicago expense exhibition of 1893. i hope i get this right. if i don't she will correct me. 1893 or 1896. the wright brothers, 1903 was during the gilded age. what charles morris does is

he chronicles a few of these guys. rockefeller, carnegie and j.p. morgan. i'm saying this was not an era of robber barons. this was an era of america american greatness and prosperity with tens of millions of people getting higher paying jobs. you can't ask for more. it was a tremendous period of literature and a tremendous period of art and that's why i wanted to bring that up. there's lots of good books about this. the tycoons is a good place to start. lots of good books about this . >> the jazz age. and again you get people like to kill harding. there was corruption in the

harding administration as mister walters shows, ryan walters it 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. although conservative senator and newspaper editor but here's the thing about it. return to normalcy. harding again i said this earlier. working with calvin coolidge coolidge was another guy.. liberals hate coolidge. maybe the first law and order guy, he was the guy that stopped the police strike in massachusetts . it was up on crime, that's a big issue today and andrew mellon was the quarterback. they slashed tax rates and slashed spending. and pethey even slashed the federal debt even though i don't care about about that

as much as some people do and we had unbelievable prosperity inthe 1920s . again anotherindustrial age . literature, art, everything exploded. and unfortunately herbert hoover came in and even though he was a republican and he served in, coolidge called him wonder boy. coolidge was a very good businessman. he was a miningengineer . and he was a great humanitarian in world war i but as secretary of commerce coolidge had no time was he was a big government guy. even though we have to hoover institution in stanford which is a free market, hoover took the tax rate from 25 to 65 percent. and he signed the smoot holly terrace and i know there were restrictivetariffs . it turned what was a modest

downturn into a major suppression. and then fdr in my view made it all worse adbecause he kept raising taxes and kept regulating andcontrolling . i like to classify aboutthese books . i love the gilded age. personally. you can plot me, i would have liked to have been i don't know. grover cleveland, a democrat is one of my favorite presidents. he was a pro- growth spending cutter. wouldn't fathom the income t tax. he was mayor of buffalo, governor of new york. i think they were all in about five or six or eight years and he was the only guy to come back and be president again i think i like grover cleveland and i like us grant . i like warren harding. i especially like calvin coolidge i like ronald reagan

. and i like donald trump. >> wasn't grover cleveland the father of little babyruth ? let's hear from. >> 's opponents after these guys. grover cleveland was the last gold democrat. you know, anyway. william jennings bryan. >> we have time i think for one or two more calls. jonathan lakewood florida, you're on. you with us? let's try john. >> this is john. i want to know if you think john kennedy, the senator from louisiana would be a good presidential candidate in 2024?

>> host: going to leave it right there, we're running short on time. >> guest: john kennedy is va very smart man. very smart man. >> how often did you talk with senators or congressmen? >> i had a lot of dealings with senator kennedy. i introduced him and he spoke here at the big state party fundraiser. introduced him. he was on my tv show recently, very smart guy. >> frank kirkland, florida. you're on the air. >> that's kurt in washington. peter, you asked a wonderful question ouand i happen to enjoy it. i happen to enjoy watching mister kudlow. one of those i do not agree with his leaving them behind had mentioned about the

spending of the trump administration. and that's always been a bugaboofor me . and people in the state of washington always think these republicans dried up with that. the democrats come in and try to fix that mess. what's mister kudlow's position on that and one more. elon must made a great argument that robots come in and would take the place of ad workers and you've 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 very much. >> that was a little hard to hear. did you getanything out of that ? >> robots cannot replace the workforce. that's the most overstated argument . robots will help grow the

economy and create jobs. just like all these industrial revolution improvements do. trumpeter called the gales of creative disruption. i'm not sure i heard his first question. >> i just couldn't hear it clearly enough . i don't want to put words in his mouth but i want to do something last five minutes. i want to go through some headlines and get your quick take on these . these arefrom recent newspapers . here's a new york times w. a story on tucker carlson, american nationalist. >> i read it quickly. as a longtime friend of mine. he's a very smart guy. he's done a fabulous job. as a broadcaster and just looks like a new york times political hit jobto me . >> wall street journal, us economy shrinks 1.4 percent

over here, amazon loses money . >> high inflation again, high inflation but that's going to have to take away the principle . this 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 some more which i think is likely because i think the economy is going through stagflation, people should buy the dip and hold on. do not try to out trade the market. >> washington post, biden aid plan for ukraine signals the bidding war. >> i did not read that. i will say my view is joe biden has been a dollar short

and a daylight on helping ukraine. but i oowill 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 i think the united states should do everything it can. everything it can to help the ukrainians win the war in ukraine. not american troops on the ground but if anything we should help ukraine when the war and drive the russians out of their territory. >> tim murdoch media reaction . conservatives right. >> i didn't read tim's article. i haven't really like elon must. kei like what he's doing and i respect his crusade for free speech and i think he's a brilliant guy. happy to have him on board. >> and one final story, this is from the washington opost.

proud boys number pleads guilty in january 6 cooperation deal. january 6. >> guest: i was in my office on the second floor. i didn't read that. i'll just make one comment. january 6 was a rough day for everybody but i'll say this. people accuse my former boss donald trump somehow plummeting insurrection or revolution. you know, they want to go back and look at some facts and my friend roy murdoch has written about this but others have to. 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 washington and by the speaker of the house. for a guy who has said, he's

trying to promote insurrection don't you think, don't people think it's odd that you wanted 20,000 national guard people to protect the city and the capital? i'll just leave that there. >> from insanity once more which is a collection of larry kudlow's comments i columns, 2017 there's not a racist people what supremacist bonein donald trump's body .t, and when we're finished with this quote from larry kudlow to people magazine i don't believe in retirement. i don't understand the word. i just enjoy working 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 and the opportunity i will continue to work. i love it so much. you'll have to carved me. i'll just keel over on the

set of some tv show and you'll card me away and we will bedone with it . >> thank you for being on book tv. thank you to both you and your life you need for hosting us here.your saintly wife judy for hosting us up here in the library of connecticut. >> weekends are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's stories and on sundays book tv bringsyou the latest in nonfiction books and authors . ending comes from these television companies and more including charter communications. >> charter has invested buildings upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter along with these television companies supports c-span2 as a public service.