serious readers. >> weakens on c-span2 on an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents american stories, and on sundays booktv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 come from these television companies and more including buckeye broadband. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> buckeye broadband, along with these television companies supports c-span2 as a public service. >> host: larry kudlow, we have you writing a book about your time in the trump administration? >> guest: i don't have anything planned at the moment. i'm very busy.

i'm loving life. never say never but no, at the moment i don't. >> host: how many jobs do you have? >> guest: well, of course there's foxbusiness show every day. if i can plug it, 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. i love it. the bulk of what i do. i also do a lot of different segments for fbm and also fox news people. in fact, it did one this morning on "fox and friends." i also do a radio show every saturday morning for three hours, it's a national radio show that runs here on w abc radio but we are live stream and were 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 a busy camper. i'm a grateful camper. life after the white house has been terrific. it's a real blessing, a real blessing. >> host: this is your second stint in the white house, correct? >> guest: yes. >> host: your first being? >> guest: just a few years ago, 40 years ago, it was somewhat lower position economics deputy office of management and budget during the reagan administration. the director of omb in those days was a fellow named david stockman who remains a friend of mine. yeah, that was my first job. it was in reagan's first term. >> host: larry kudlow, your 2016 book connects the reagan revolution with jfk. what is that policy connection? >> guest: well, it's kind of, it's a story that i wanted to tell for years, been in the back of my head, and i worked with my

pal, a terrific researcher and co-author. so basically in a nutshell, john f. kennedy was a pro-growth democrat. he was a taxcutting democrat. he was a supply-side democrat. and when he ran in 1960 he was, he really ran as the growth of guy, and richard nixon kind of ran as the status quo, in those days republican party was, was ok with very high tax rate. eisenhower had interest in cutting the 91% tax rate they inherited from fdr's new deal, and kennedy didn't explicitly run on it but he said i want 5% growth. .. recessions

during the eisenhower years. that is a little-known factoid, but it is true, factually. the connection to reagan some 25 years later >> later, reagan lowered marginal tax rates, also, and helped reignite a more abundant onomy. in fact, i would argue as 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 was unwound and undermined by l bj's great society, but richard nixon, jerry ford, jimmy carter, none of them understood tax cuts, the incentive effects, the

lower marginal tax rates and maybe we can talk about that some more and some very smart people, arthur laffer, who is still around, thankfully, my dearest friend and mentor, and robert munndale a nobel prize winner and jack kemp and essentially brought the kennedy tax cuts to reagan and reagan looked at them and ran on them and it was controversial just it was it was in jfk's day and it worked. it worked. in fact, reagan had two rounds of tax cuts and i was there for the first one and involved in the campaign to promote it. >> in 1961 you quote jfk in saying, it will ab major aim of our tax reform program to broaden the tax base and reconsider the rate structure. >> yes, 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 a rising tide lifts all boats. now, that phrase was used later by jack kemp, the late jack kemp, who was a very dear friend and also a mentor, by reagan. i use it all the time. trump used it, i mean, look 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 it for jfk, just barely too young. i mean, i was really only 17 when i went into the reagan white house. that was a joke. but tax cuts were -- and if i may, i want to go back because i'm reading a book, the title

of which is "the jazz age" about warren g harding, a much maligned u.s. president, way too far maligned. but in the 1920's, in the 1920's harding, his vice-president, calvin coolidge and importantly, his treasury secretary andrew melon, a figure, they put together marginal tax rates and the 16th amendment, it started out at 7%. when woodrow wilson left over over 70%. we went into a recession after world war 1. those guys brought tax rates down to 25% and launched a tremendous boom, prosperity boom in the 1920's.

and i'm going to go one more. you're going to give me one more on this, and that is another of my favorite figures is ulysses s. grant. now, he was arguably america's greatest general or one of its greatest generals and they still teach some of his formations at west point. but grant as president, also, much maligned and my friend, and my colleague hat friend bret baier wrote a pretty good book about grant. he never gets credit for this the liberal historians will never give him credit, but the fact that grant ended the civil war income tax, ended it, okay? and grant restored the greenback to gold, so we had massive war time inflation and high war time taxes and grant ended both and also helped

launch this second industrial revolution, which is sometimes referred disparagingly as the gilded age, but it's a phenomenal period in america. so, just to be consistent, i'm-- here is my guy grant. he's cutting taxes and harding, he's cutting taxes. kennedy is cutting taxes, and reagan is cutting taxes and trump is cutting taxes and i served under the last two, if i would have been around for the others would have been great fun. >> mr. kudlow in your book, working on fox business, et cetera, et cetera, you talk economic terms and i was hoping we may have a broader discussion how they all work together. tax rates, growth. >> yes. >> the bond market, the stock market, what's the implant play-- what's the interplay between all of these, the dissertation.

>> look, i would simply say the absolute basic key element to economic growth and prosperity. let me step back a moment. i'm for growth. i'm for prosperity. in my whole career, that's been my detra. the first job i had was at the federal reserve and in that new york federal reserve bank of new york and i served in open operations and a secretary to paul volker who was president of the fed. i've had three government assignments, it seems to me if you do nothing else in government you should promote policies that would generate growth, prosperity. jobs. optimism, that's our job.

i'm a free market capitalist and i believe in free enterprise capitalism. i think it's the surest path to growth. and when i was in the cnbc days and i had a show there i used to open up the show, free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity. i said that many years and i still believe that. 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, and king dollar, that was my phrase years ago, king dollar. if you break that, if you move to a policy regime of high tax rates, excessive government intervention and regulation,

and it's a cheap dollar, debased dollar, depreciated dollar, you'll 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 now days, 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 with high inflation. the point i'm making, is 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 too powerful? is it necessary? >> well, i won't argue the necessity part, although that's interesting, the golden age, jp morgan was its own fed and rescued the monetary system a couple of times. but is the fed too powerful? yes, right now, it is. troubling to me, the most troubling part of the fed to me that's lost sight of its principal mission, which is to keep the currency sound and the price levels stable. okay. it-- i mean, now days, with all of 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 i don't think that that's the mission of the fed. 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 hours what we want is equal opportunity at the starting line and then the finish line, we will exercise our god given talents 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 that we do not have a climate emergency, we do not have some

extension climate risk factually and even the u.n. 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're experiencing today. and that last one is reason unpardonable. >> and 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 10 times as much as person-- >> no, we should not, 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. i mean, absolutely by law. but we cannot guarantee

equality of results. we cannot. i mean, even in communist countries, even in the old soviet union, i mean, look, i grew up during the cold war and techly in the reagan years when he fought soviet communism, i mean, the only equality that they had in the soviet union was equality of poverty and then the nomenclature who ran the place, they were the rich guys, but there was no widespread prosperity ever. that's true for all socialist or communist countries, it would seem. we should not strive to end for something called inequality. we should strive for growth and prosperity. we should maximize opportunities. we want to have unlimited opportunities. that's why i argue, the

government cannot manage the economy. the government cannot manage the prices, the government cannot manage markets, okay? 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 have their own personal freedom. but that is a job for the so-called private sector. that's why i say free market economics is the best path to prosperity. free market capitalism is the best. i want individual freedom inside the economy. freedom to fail and freedom to succeed. you know, one of the great aspects of america, and it's still true to this day, you've got 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 then you become a massive success, a massive success. you know, that's what's so brilliant about the gilded age. the industrial revolution, the second industrial revolution. the information revolution in our lifetime. i mean, the stuff that we routinely use today didn't exist when i was in prep school or college or you know, starting out, all of that stuff. you know, do you have a spare mimeograph machine in the truck? [laughter]. and we hardly xerox anymore. and even an old guy like me, i figured out most of the stuff, how to use it. and the point is, you've got kids dropping out of college, working in garages, trying to

put things together fail, fail, succeed and hit it big. that's the american story, but behind that story, you know, that's the history of it, behind that story is freedom. it's freedom. and again, if we lose that, we will loose everything. so, i've spent a lifetime trying to promote freedom, frankly, in the economic sector where i know something about it, but frankly, all throughout-- all throughout the country. i mean, freedom of speech now, there's a big debate, you know, we've got misinformation, government bureaus, this stuff drives me crazy, but i won't call him my friend, but i had dealings with elon musk when i was in the white house, what he's trying to do he calls himself a free speech absolutist, i love that. free speech, freedom of religion, i want a free economy. a free economy will outproduce every state-run centrally

planned economy and i will sit here-- we're on for a couple of hours, i'll sit here all day and tomorrow and show you historical examples of why a free academy outperforms the statist economy. before we get too far from jfk and that fact of the three recessions in the go-go 50's. what happened was that the government policy, the waxing and waning? the supply and demand? >> there are a lot of factors after world 2 and a lot of factors after the korean war, but i would just say principally, you had 91% tax rate. you had very high taxes, which were very onerous. now, some crit exof this view will say, yeah, you had high taxes, but you had loopholes and nobody paid them. and you had some loopholes, some very famous loopholes from

hollywood studio owners and stuff like that. but most people, particularly the entrepreneurs, had it 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. so the economy was smothered and the incentive effect, which was so prominent during the harding, coolidge, mellon tax cuts, or the u.s. tax cuts, those incentives weren't around and it was a titlely controlled economy, a very government-run economy, a highly regulated economy. the federal reserve properly, i think, properly kept the dollar stable so inflation, you had episodes of inflation, but basically we were under the old

bret woods dollar gold exchange systems and the federal reserve principally did well under martin, and the fed had no other outlets, it was so controlled by high taxes and regulations, and those are really important issues and now ike, who had many wonderful qualities, general eisenhower, president eisenhower, economics wasn't one of them. just wasn't one of them. there's a long story there, too. you know, his top eyeser was arthur byrnes, one of them. byrnes advised nixon. pushed the ball down the road during the reagan years. byrnes was ambassador to germany under reagan and a very good ambassador in later years and he and i became very, very friendly and he became something of a mentor of mine.

and arthur agreed that i had a point about tax rates, he opposed it throughout all of those years. eisenhower, nixon, but he saw them work during the reagan years, so anyway, there were three recessions under ike and this is what gave kennedy a step up in the election. he ran as the growth guy and nixon, you know, didn't really deal with much on economic policies, domestic policy. and i remember, nixon's son-in-law a very dear personal friend of mine. daughter and son-in-law friends. and i met nixon in the '80s, and he had his old office one federal plaza, whatever it was downtown new york in those days, and his son-in-law, ed

cox, would bring in various policy people before president nixon would go on foreign trips. so i had a -- at least one visit, maybe two, and by the way, very charming, but once i had written numerous op-ed pieces in the wall street journal criticizing nixon's economics as president. i mean, he did everything wrong, everything wrong. raised taxes, had tariffs. took the dollar off the gold standard and we had booming inflation, so the first time i met him, he comes in and he just looked at me and he said you don't think much of my economics, do you, mr. kudlow? [laughter] >> and i said, no, sir, with respect, i don't. [laughter]. >> icht and it was a very cool moment. and this was mid '80s and i had served in reagan's first terms and nixon acknowledged in later books, that reagan tax cuts

worked. he acknowledged that because he was intellectually honest. >> insanity once more as a collection of your columns and 2018. november 8th, 2016 column, enforcing trade deals is spot on. acting in the interest of american workers is correct. but large scale tariffs are a terrible idea. >> yeah, yes. and believe it or not, i still -- that's still my mantra. so this is a good story. president trump was much more attuned to tariffs than i was or than i am and before i went into office i went in and became his nec director in march of 2018. he had just put through steel

and aluminum tariffs and i didn't agree, in fact, art laffer and i, i think, steve may have been more on that. in other words, we wrote op-ed piece on aluminum tariffs and president trump was calling me secretly to come in as nec director and the subject came up once or twice and we agreed to disagree. you know, it's interesting, i'm not a fan of tariffs. tariffs are international taxes, tax rates, they tax -- look, they tax work and production just as much as domestic tax rates are taxed. so i regard myself as a free trader. but i'm going to make two qualifications on this. one is you do have to think

about the issue of reciprocity. what's the other side doing to you on trade. and this is an important point that trump made. now, he and -- it's sort of interesting. the only two op-ed pieces i wrote when i was in his administration, just two, and they're both preceded g7 meetings and in those, i quoted a conversation that he and i had had where he believed that he was a free trader and under ideal circumstances, that is to say, no tariffs, no nontariff barriers, and no subsidies. and that is the world that trump yearned for.

those were his goals. and they're classic free trade goals. no tariffs, zero tariffs, zero nontariff barriers and zero subsidies for industries, and i wrote that and quoted that in i think one op-ed was a washington post before g7 and the second was in the washington journal before g7 and i remember at the g7 we had in canada, which i think was 2018, in north of quebec we were in a bilateral with justin trudeau and president trump and you know, your senior advisors line 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 and trump said, you know, justin, i

think he said, you know, if we had no tariffs and no non-tariff barriers and no subsidies, we would call be in great shape as free traders. and trudeau-- and then trump looks at me, i'm sitting maybe, one, two, three down from him. you've said that your whole career 30 years, haven't you? and of course he knew that because we'd 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. people don't understand that and i just had bob, his trade representative, a dear friend of mine, a brilliant guy and bob was just on my tv show, we were in atlanta for america first policy conference and we talked about this. and people forget we had usmca, which wasn't perfect free

trade, but it was a good free trade deal. we had free trade deals with japan, with brazil, with south korea, all freeway trade where both sides, in the spirit of reciprocity, you know, gave up some protections. now, the biggest one was china and the most controversial one was china and trump had big tariffs on china and i believe we still have 365 billion some odd. so far biden hasn't taken them off and i hope he doesn't. i would argue, and as president trump argued, as lighthizer argued, we needed those tariffs to bring china to the table if you will, to get their attention. and i'll give you another view from lighthizer's point of view, which i completely agree.

i agreed then and i grow now. one of trump's greatest achievements as president was he rang the bell on the china threat. 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're an economic adversary, they're a foreign policy adversary, and 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. no one before. and we got a bunch of concessions from them and i was on that china trade team and it was hard going in beijing and washington, beijing and washington. this is the so-called phase one deal. the phase one free trade deal

was rooted in tariffs. yes, it was. and there's a certain inconsistency there, i had the point, but one was necessary to get to the other and i think the deal is holding up pretty good. it ain't perfect. lots and lots and lots of progress on intellectual property theft. they've set up institutional mechanisms to reduce it. they've bought a lot of our commodities, a lot, not perhaps as much as we want, but a lot and we ought to be selling them nor lng experts. and technology, still a work in progress, but i think on the whole, phase one was a great success and if trump had been reelected we would have been moved on to phase two, so far nothing's happened. a bit long-winded, but i'm a free trader.

is trump a free trader? he wouldn't say it the way that would i say it, but in a perfect world he would agree with me no tariffs in a perfect world. and he liked the idea, somewhat pollyannish. >> well, welcome to book tv program, our guest this month is larry kudlow, the author of "american abundance" which came out in 1997. jfk and the revolution, 2016 and a collection of his columns came out in 2018 and that's called "insanity once more." for regular viewers of book tv. call-in. one author, his or her body of work and your calls, text messages, your tweets, et cetera. and here is how you can get a hold of us if you have a question or comment for mr. kudlow. 202-748-8200 for those of you east and central time zone.

8201 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zone. if you want to send a text message, text messages only 202-748-8903 is the number for you. and please include your first name and city if you would and we'll scroll through social media addresses, just remember, @book tv is the handle there. we'll begin taking those in just a few minutes. mr. kudlow, what was the reaction from a lot of your long time republican friend when you joined the trump administration? >> it was pretty good, actually. yeah, it was very positive. people encouraged me to do it for a variety of reasons. i wasn't looking for it. i was, again, pretty busy with tv on a different network and radio show and lots of speeches and so forth, consulting.

i had worked with candidate trump in the campaign. we'd worked on the tax cut plan in particular quite a lot. occasionally, i was a spokesperson for them on economics during that campaign. he invoked me, he invoked my name several times and much to my astonishment. of course, i knew him in washington-- in new york city for many, many years, knew him, liked him. he had been a guest on my tv show, and my radio show. and i knew his family a bit, but you know, i knew him, always liked him and thought he was a major source. i wasn't looking for a job, but, i don't know, if you have a second, i'll tell you how it started. >> sure. >> i mean, it's funny, in early 2018, 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 and the

phone rings in my car and it's the president. well, i mean i had spoken to him and seen him in 2017 and we'd kept in touch. i'd been in the oval with him a bunch of times and talked about one thing or another. and anyway, he calls me and i pulled over, i had pretty good reception and i pulled over so to keep the conversation going and he just starts talking about one thing or another, and mentioned the national economic council, that nothing terribly specific, it was a good-- i thought he was calling to yell at me because laffer and i had written this op-ed piece against the steel tariffs. but never really-- i think it came up in the conversation, maybe it did once, but he wanted to sort of talk about things and mentioned -- i think he mentioned the n.e.c. this is a sunday afternoon and he said i'll call you back tomorrow night, he said.

and i said, okay, sir. very kind of you. [laughter] >> when the phone rings from the white house, it says, please hold for the president? >> yes. >> so anyway, i'm-- monday night i'm home in new york and he did call. [laughter] >> and 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. and it was a very good conversation. i enjoyed it, what do you think about this, what do you think about that? what should i do here, what should i do there? i'm not bashful about my views and he knows that, too, and he said, no one knows we're having this conversation, that's what he said to me, no one knows we're having this conversation. and i thought, okay. he said, you know, i'll call you tomorrow night.

call you tomorrow night and we'll talk some more. >> and i said yes. so the next night, we're having dinner out with -- we have a dinner group with a dear friend from new york city, midtown and i had the cell phone in my back pocket just in case and he-- the phone rang and it was him and of course, i had to walk out onto fifth avenue, and it was cold and drizzly out and i wasn't going to take the phone call in the restaurant. he got much more specific in the call and sort of amusing because my wife came out to get me, we had to go home and i had to do a radio show with my pal john bachelor and every tuesday night we'd do an hour. we were talking going up madison avenue and he's talking and talking, and finally i just said, i said, sir, are you offering me a position?

he said, oh, yeah, oh, yeah. you're my guy, you're the only guy here, no one knows we're having the conversation, you're my guy, congratulations. and he said, you know, will you take the job? and i said, yes, i will, sir, i'm honored and i was honored, okay? i was honored, i love government service and i loved him. and so that was that and then went and did the radio show a dear friend of mine, fabulous radio man mark simone part of that dinner group he tells the sorry later. he said, you know, kudlow takes a call from the president at dinner, gets up, walks out of the restaurant, and we didn't see him for four years. [laughter] >> so, that's just-- that's sort of how that happened and then it gets better, then in that call tuesday night where he offered me the job, some people said he'd offered me the job the night before, but i didn't get

it. i don't know, in any case, he said, you know, you'll come down here thursday or friday. we'll have a press conference. no one knows this. so the next morning, which is a wednesday morning, i'm sitting at home preparing for my tv show and stuff, and i'm not watching tv. and he calls me and he says, you look so handsome. and i-- sir? >> turn on the tv. >> and of course, the tuesday had broke and everybody was running this thing and, you know, he leaked it. it wasn't supposed to go out until thursday. but to me, those are endearing qualities, one of the reasons why i really like the guy. he's just -- he's just natural and flows and, you know, maybe he could say some things differently, but he is who he is and i remain very loyal to him. >> did you know him as donald? >> i did, yes. >> once he got elected did you ever call him by his first

name? >> never. never, in fact when he was president-elect and president and while i served there, he was either mr. president or sir, always. >> back to insanity once more, by the way, if it looks different, our set here, it's because we're at larry kudlow's in the wilds of connecticut. appreciate you letting us back up here. back to your book, 2016 column. >> oh. >> i want to thank melania trump for starting me on the path of restored confidence in donald trump. >> well, president trump, then candidate trump had said a couple of things that did not thrill me. i never left him, they're just things that did not thrill me.

things came up in that campaign and you look back on it and it wasn't very important, but at the moment during the campaign, they became big deals and i had to talk about it on the air and i recall melania was a wonderful, wonderful woman and we were-- got to be good friends in the white house. she went on tv and just defended president trump and just, you know, kept -- made it very clear that she was thousand percent behind him and that she is things were passing and it was no big deal. so, i wrote about that. and it's funny, that column, he told me later, he told me later that he was personally not

thrilled about that column, but that melania loved me. he said, melania loves you. i didn't think you had to write it, but she said -- and it's a column about her. i'm not one of her intimates, but i had great respect for her and i watched her on a couple of cable tv shows and it was very impressive and very clear to me that, you know, her support was unwavering and so i said, you know, this column was written to some extent tongue in cheek, but, yeah, i did. i did. and she liked it more than he did. [laughter] >> well, let's hear from our viewers, begin with monty in spring, texas. monty, you're on with larry kudlow. go ahead and make your comment or question. >> hello, yes, i had a short question for mr. kudlow about the comments of president trump made on may 3rd, 2019 where

president trump said we are taking in billions of dollars from china in the form of tariffs. as you know, charging-- we've never taken from china and now we're taking in billions and billions of dollars. that had a very positive effect. is it false staples we have been taking in ballots from china and china didn't pay the tariffs, they're paid by the american customers and consumers. >> monty, i think we got the idea. this is-- he referenced may 3rd, 2019. it was about tariffs on china and taking in billions of dollars. so is there something you can extrapolate from that? it was difficult to hear, i agree. >> yeah, i'm not sure. in economic terms, the tariffs impose a significant burden on

china and you know, they experienced it, they saw it because prices went up and the demand for chinese currency went down, and their inflation rate went up. interest rates went up. it's true that those tariffs would be paid, and import companies. the key point there was din dim min nuss impact. and the deregulation, but particularly in that world of trade and tariffs because as we discussed earlier, tariffs are tax rates. so we did increase tariff rates on certain chinese imports, absolutely, pickly technology

related imports, what i call the family jewels, which we had to protect. but we have slashed the marginal corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. the federal rate. which more than offset, more than offset any tariff rate impact. so, again, as i was mentioning earlier, i think that even though i don't like tariffs in an ideal world, perhaps president trump doesn't either in ideal world. he rang the bell. he rang the warning bell and we brought them to the table. and it wasn't until late 2019, early 2020 that we finally consummated what became known as the phase one china trade deal. so i think on balance, even though i'm a free trader, i think those tariffs were

necessary, the chinese tariffs were necessary. and so, anytime, i mean, there's a lot of talk about biden administration 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. so, i would-- with all of my heart to keep those tax rates low, we want to be as competitive as we can, and we, you know, money flowed back to the u.s. actually, the court just as an aside, turns out the corporate tax rates, the reduction in corporate tax rates paid for themselves. we just have been getting irs data on this, and i've talked quite a bit about it on my show with arthur laffer, the laffer curve worked. lower marginal tax rates created higher tax revenues. 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, their 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 deminimus of those offset by the lower corporate tax rates. that's the way i would put it. >> let's hear from george in hudson, florida, good afternoon, george. >> good afternoon, how are you today? >> please go ahead with your question or comment, sir. >> sure, mr. kudlow, i'm a -- i watch your show religiously on fox business channel because i don't have a nine-year-old around to set the dvr for me, so you're great and my

favorite. [laughter] >> thank you. very good. >> i have to do it myself. i just don't know how to operate those things. anyway what i was going to ask you, where are we going to be next year if we still have these-- we still have joe biden in office with his cognitive values or his craziness or however you want to consider, there's something wrong with him and i can't see anything happening like with kamala harris or anybody in that -- in the government now that can take care of our economy. where are we going to be next year if things keep going this way. >> george, thanks for calling in, larry kudlow? >> well, look, i can't -- i can't really comment on the cognitive problems, you know, i see what i see. i see what lots of others see, i'll leave that to doctors.

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

12-year thing the way it was back in the '70s. the bad news is, getting 8 to 10% inflation back to 2% inflation, will not be pain-free. now, 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 have been closed by biden. and hopefully a republican congress will keep a sharp eye out on the federal reserve to make sure this they slow down the money supply and move their interest rates up accordingly and protect the value of the dollar. so, i think you're going to see policy changes, but i don't think it's going to be easy. you know, i don't think it's going to be easy and i don't think it's going to be pain-free. >> well, for those who do or

don't watch your show, there's something else that you've been saying recently and we're going to play a quick montage. you won't be able to see it, but you'll hear it. >> so save america, kill the bill. >> well, listen save america, kill the bill. that's still my motto. save the bill, no, so america. and save america and kill the bill. the wisdom is simple. save america, kill the bill. save america, kill the bill. save america, kill the bill. and tonight i'm launching a slightly new mantra, kill any new bills that may come next year. [laughter] >> that's great. well, there it was. the good news is, we killed the bill. at least so far. it keeps coming back. no, it became a rallying cry. it became a rallying cry.

i felt that bill, depending on its iteration would have been another 5 to $6 trillion of additional spending with massive inflationary consequences and also, hidden in that bill were very huge tax hikes, which would have done great, also, done great damage to the economy and done great damage to incentives to work, save, invest, grow, take risks. you know, on that, it became the-- there was a save america coalition among conservative growths, and i was a supporter of democrat joe manchin, constantly supporting man chin, and i thought he was a very brave democrat and i think he is somebody who would save the democratic party from itself if they ever gave him a chance. i frankly wish he would run in

primaries for the presidential run in 2024. joe is a friend of mine, he's been on the show, we've spoken on the phone. i don't talk politics with him, i talk policies with him. he think he did a heroic job. i think that kyrsten sinema has done a great job fighting off the tax increases and so far we've killed the bill. i don't want any bills. i don't want any more bills. and by the way, i want to add one thing here, there's another bill out there, sometimes called the china compete bill, which has nothing to do with competing with china, would be as much as 300 billion dollars of additional federal spending, industrial policies, corporate welfare, bailing out a chip industry that does need bailouts and i've got to tell you a dozen of republicans voted for it and shouldn't have. >> richard is in brentwood,

maryland. good afternoon. >> good afternoon, peter the great and as usual the top three interviewers in the country. appreciate your efforts. mr. kudlow, you just mentioned to that previous caller about making nonclinical comments about mr. biden's cognitive abilities and you know, that's-- of' listened you with steven forbes and sununu, i think it was, steven moore and you actually called our president an idiot. so, enough of that. but my question is this, you referred to-- >> i don't believe i've ever called the-- >> yeah, you did say it, but please, not to remembrances, but anyway you referred to the reagan's tax cut and tax policies of three decades of prosperity. in fact, his policies cost george bush the first a second term because it was economics that clinton ran on and the

state of our country's economy and 30 years would have taken us up to the second bush which you know was an economic debacle-- >> we've got a lot on the table there. mr. kudlow, first of all, the idiot remark and then we'll go into the economics. >> you know, if i don't think i said that. perhaps i did in passing, but i don't believe that. i've been critical of biden. idiot, i doubt it. putting that aside, look at papa bush temporarily, temporarily reversed a small part of reagan's tax cuts and it was a mistake. we went in the recession and he lost the election. but the bulk of reagan's tax cuts stayed and bill clinton who continued to raise the income tax, again, when reagan

came in it was 70%. when reagan left it was 28. papa bush raised it to 31, with other tax hikes and clinton 40, i believing, still below 70 and then george w. bush brought it back down to 35. so, you know, basically the tax cuts stayed intact. okay, they're not -- they weren't as low as 28, but they basically stayed intact and the incentive stayed in tact with papa bush, so many of us who helped vice-president bush and tried to talk him out of raising taxes when he was president, i mean, we said don't do it, don't do it. he did it and he lost the election. >> richard in brentwood maryland, if you want a fuller explanation, a fuller longer

answer of that, mr. kudlow writes about that pretty extensively in jfk and the reagan revolution. larry kudlow, it's funny because you and i were talking yesterday and you kind of have this happy warrior persona on the air and so that's why i was little surprised if you had called mr. biden-- >> it's just not my way. i'm very critical of biden. it's funny, i wasn't at the beginning. i gave him a honeymoon open chance and then i took a look at the left ward lurch in his policies, but for me to get personal like that is very unusual. >> and our book tv in depth program continues from larry kudlow's library in connecticut, we want to hear from you as well. and how you can participate 202-748-8200. 2 in the eastern time zone.

202-748-8903 for text messages only. please include your first name and your city if you would. mr. kudlow, where did you grow up and who were your parents? >> grew up in inglewood, new jersey, herb and ruth kudlow. he was a businessman. she actually became a really real estate agent and i have one younger brother who has lived in hollywood, los angeles, hollywood for many, many decades. i love him to death. and he's my favorite hollywood liberal. >> what does he do in hollywood? >> he's a screen writer, post production, done very well for himself. and as i say, he's my favorite hollywood liberal.

[laughter] >> younger brother. >> i want to read a quote from american abundance, you can take it where you want and this was in the introduction. in late november, 1995, i had no prospects, no confidence, no ambition, and no sense i could do the job. what was going on? >> well, i had had my crash and burn, sort of hopeless addiction to alcohol and drugs and that was the worst time of my life. it had been building up several years and i went away to a treatment center in minnesota for five months to get well. my saintly wife, judy, whom you've meant, sent me up there, long-term care. and november of '95 is when i

got out and basically what i wrote was kind of true. i wasn't really sure what was going to happen. the most important thing was staying sober, which i managed to stay sober now for 27 years, coming up on 27 years, which is through god's grace and the greatest blessing of my life. and those were tricky times. i mean, i-- 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 better remember this, 35 years married this summer, 27

years sobriety. and god has been very good to me and at the point you read that, i was being honest in that book, who knew? i didn't know, i had no idea. >> what do you remember about the last few months of-- or the first few months of 1995, the end of your using. >> blessedly very little, toboggan -- to be honest with you. and i still go to 12 step meetings, very active in 12 steps and very active in my church. and i think about that stuff from time to time and every now and then, you know, the way it works in the 12 step, you maybe on your anniversary or maybe not, you're asked to tell your story in front of the group, called qualification.

i don't want to bore the viewers, but you kind of go back in time a little bit and think about that. you in he ever really want to lose that because they were terrible, terrible days. terrible days. i will spare the qualification here on c-span, but i will just say, it was the worst moments of my life, without any question, and i don't think-- i mean, i returned to faith. i returned to a more spiritual way of looking at the world, and i will also say, peter, i mean, things that i had learned from the 12-step group have served me very well in my, you know, career these last three decades. ...

on my 25th anniversary melania was hosting a conference on alcohol and drugs. and it so happened they found out, i don't know how, maybe one of my ladies, but it was my 25th 25th anniversary coming up, and actually, she asked me to speak, which i did at least in a general way. but you know, i mean, you think about it, from that point in 1995 to being a very senior

presidential advisor it's a long stones throw but one could not have happened without the other. could not have happened. and i'm very grateful for that. and as i say, god has been very good to me, and i try to follow his path. i ain't perfect, but i tried to follow his path. >> host: let's go back to calls. jim in rochester, new york, you are on with author larry kudlow. >> caller: mr. kudlow, i'm wondering what your opinion is on the u.s. debt of 30 trillion, the unfunded liabilities that we have in social security, medicare that's coming up, getting closer and closer. also the $9 trillion balance sheet that the fed has. i mean, what kind of effect of a

going to have when interest rates begin to return to anything close to normal? it seems to me there's a growing concern, i think it's the cato institute, that published a booklet of various editorials called fiscal cliff, and really very concerning and i'm just wondering what your opinion of it is? i'll take my answer out there. >> host: thank you. >> guest: those are very good questions. i mean, they are different. the one is the entitlement question on social security and medicare. i mean, and the second one is a balance sheet of the fed called the monetary base which is just briefly for viewers, it's printing money. like the fed, the government spends money. the federal government spends money. it borrows to finance its

spending, and then all too frequently the central bank, the federal reserve, purchases the bonds that uncle sam cells. now, that full faith and credit but when the fed buys those bonds they create money. they literally print money. that's what central banks do. i could go on and on about it. i actually started my entire professional career in open market operations at the new york fed, so i learned it back in 1973. but in any case, the entitlement problem is an issue. look, i don't 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's a certain fiction about that, particularly on the medicare side. medicare really is not funded anymore by payroll taxes. it's mostly funded out of general obligations, and those general obligations are financed by selling bonds. so at some future point somebody in power, in congress or the white house, will have to look at that, just going to to look at that. they are very valuable systems. they need to be preserved, in my judgment. they could be reformed. there are a number of decent proposals out there to reform social security, reform medicare, but we spend more than we take in, and that's a generic problem throughout the entire government, includes the entitlements and is going to be looked at. and as a point that the viewer made, interest rates will return

to something more, not will be zero anymore. already mortgage rates are up to 5%, ten year bond rates are moving to 3%. in my view both will go higher because of the inflation and the federal reserves attempts to stop the inflation. so that will add to the burden. the financing of federal debt in general is going to be a lot more expensive. i just will add one other point, peter. these are all reasons why i don't want anymore federal spending on domestic discretionary programs. that's why i said save america, kill the bill. we don't need another $5 trillion worth of domestic spending. we can't afford it. it's going to be extremely costly to finance, and ultimately it is inflationary. i want to say, although i haven't, i have been an opponent of the biden administration policies, by the weight not

alone, some democrats like larry summers and jason furman, some honest democrat economists have also. but the point is we have to come up with no new spending at all, period. that's why i have been so emphatic about this. separate from my concerns about raising marginal tax rates and the negative incentive and economic growth effects, we just can't keep doing this. it's a matter of common sense. okay, let me put it to that way. i know i'm a republican. i know i'm a reagan guy, a trump guy, i'm a conservative guy, a supply said. i get it. i'm not as great as anything else but i just want to say i think what you are seeing in the polls, in the run-up to the midterms, and matter of common sense, people do not want to go out this far to the left on

everything. whether it's government spending or ending fossil fuels or taking parents out of the classroom or the open border or the foreign policy, you know, the. i mean, it's not a campaign commercial. i'm just saying what you have here is an administration that is departed from traditional democrats concerns. this wind of joe manchin so much. by the way, i speak as a former democrat. many years ago i acknowledge it, 45, 50 years ago. i worked for ronald reagan, a former democrat. i worked for donald trump, a former democrat. i've often said that the best republicans are former democrats. not every republican senator agrees with me on that but i say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but but but this extremism in

the biden administration is being rejected. it just lacks common sense. that's all. you are sitting there and you see an inflation rate that has jump, this was before the invasion of ukraine. inflation rate has gone from less than 2% to 7% before ukraine, okay? and ensure they come back with a new proposal which the congressional budget office prices out of $5 trillion of spending. and another $3 trillion of debt. you say to yourself, what? you can do this. and joe manchin was a standup guy along with kyrsten sinema, and i notice a the democrats, moderate democrats, beginning to line up behind them. the stuff going on at the border is not sustainable, right? you a whole bunch of democrats, i i know there from swing states but i don't, i don't need to question their motives. the fact is we can't just have a couple million people illegally

cross the border every year. we just can't do that. it's not sustainable. just like we're not going to in natural gas and fossil fuels in the next eight to ten years. because there's nothing to replace it. and people know that. so entitlement. i mean, we have a lot of work to do, okay? a lot of work to do. and i think you'll see a change but i think -- congressional changes coming but i think the biggest change in the most important change will be 2024. because in 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, you need the white house. you need the white house. i believe you're going to see different occupants in the white house. >> host: okay. 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. >> guest: yeah, yeah. i mean, i'm not come as a share of gdp this is when? >> host: july 2019. >> guest: still under 100% of gdp. i don't, i didn't see it as a big problem. actually, you know, it's funny. i have a long history of not being a debt monger. and so my conditional l conservative friends don't like that. i am much more interested, here's what theme of economic growth comes into play, okay? 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 on a static bas, meaning no economic growth impact at $1.5 trillion. and, of course, you have democrats said oh, my god, that will raise the deficit and the debt. of course they never cared about that before but they did care about because they are against tax cuts. tax cuts i might add that 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 didn't in year one,

never said they would. they didn't in year two, and yes, there was a debt increased to finance those tax cuts, but here we are even through the pandemic all these numbers come in from the irs and the treasury shall record revenues. they show that the corporate tax cuts pay for themselves. this has been the subject of a couple of programs on fox business show. the laffer curve worked. you are not going to get -- 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 for corporate rates, business 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 investment in the

middle class working folks, folks. so it's worth it to incur a temporary deficit which will increase the debt. it's worth it because down the road everybody will benefit. study show, for example,, studies on the left of center, the brookings, they are not crazy leftist but it's just left of center. i don't know, 80% of people got tax relief. kevin hassett, and i supported him in this and stephen you can support him on this, 60, 70% of the benefits of the corporate tax cuts went to working folks, middle income typical families. that was worth it. so when i i made that statemen 2019, you know, i stick to it. it didn't bother me. what bothers me is if you are going to spend a lot of money that will not enhance growth,

that bothers me, okay? so i'll go back to my experience as as a young man in the reagan budget office. reagan wasn't particularly worried about deficits and debt. he would say so a little bit. he had two priorities. 11 was to cut slash tax rates to rejuvenate the economy. second, was to put money into defense to defeat soviet communism. okay? he did both. deficits temporarily went up, so did the debt, but he achieved his inns. the economy grew, as i said before, just nearly three decades worth of prosperity with some very small interruptions. we defeated soviet communism.

growth, peace through strength. strong at home, strong abroad. week at home, always weak abroad. those are the victims. i learned that from reagan. i've never forgot it. it is been 40+ years. i will say to you as a senior trump advisor the same thing. weakness at home creates weakness abroad. strength at home breeds strength abroad. what did trump do? he slash corporate and small business tax rates, grew the economy, , reinvigorated the economy, unemployment fell, put a lot of money into the defense budget. we had to do that, at that point wasn't so much rush as it was china. so i think, gender, you go back, john f. kennedy go back straight at home, strength abroad. kennedy was a firm as as a

calmness. i know it's a long time ago. if kennedy were alive today he would been a reagan trumper. kindy 15% growth which he got posthumously from his tax cuts and he fought the soviet union to send mail. i mean, these are not historical coincidences. these are historical principles that work whether you're a democrat or republican. one of my arguments today, i will be honest with you again as a former democrat, is a longtime democrat. pat moynihan was the last democrat i i worked for and he wasn't -- he was half republican. the point i want to make is this. there was a time when the two parties were a lot closer together than they are today. this far left stuff is being rejected by common sense people throughout the country. you know what? i have so much faith in america. i mean i am a hopeless optimist

you know this. i'm a hopeless optimist about this country. as long as we protect its freedoms this little far left woke aberration will not last. that's my take. >> host: next call for larry kudlow comes from martin in dayton, ohio. >> caller: thanks for having on. really grateful. i been listening to lay for a long time going back to the cramer cvc days. i generally would always listen to the not always agree but always listen to. i want to touch on three things. emigration, inflation and tax. immigration, first of all, there's a great podcast called macro musings with david beck worth a sizable homework come listen to that because that can help us. first of all emigration is chaotic right now but we do have growth rate can we don't replace our people with -- our birth rate is way too low. we actually need immigration to make this a bigger, stronger

place. and so you can listen to people like kerkorian for want of maybe 200 think people in america, but we would be just fine with 350, 360 people in america. that would make us better. so if you're talking about growth that's where you get it and that those people you get them on a pathway to citizenship, a green card come they start paying into the system. that's how you solve that problem. for some reason people on the right, you will talk about people in the left that are extreme, as are, but there's a lot of extreme lockers on the right, to get you got these american first, these know nothing people and that's going nowhere. secondly, inflation. trump printed money, to. >> host: you know what, martin? there's a lot there to play with and we appreciate your calling in. >> guest: it's very well done. here's the third -- con one of the three. >> guest: oh, good. that's even better. i want to make a point about inflation because i at least

part of what the card you said i agree with. i think immigration is a good thing, not a bad thing. and, of course, america has a great long tradition of immigration. here's what he don't like. i don't like illegal immigration. all right? i don't like open borders. and i think that's kind of where we are. my own views have changed, evolved over the last ten years over this question because i'm a strong pro-immigration reformer, quote-unquote. but the border crisis, the catastrophe at the border is something we have, cannot you let to continue. it's not sustainable. in all of its many forms. and 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 we, illegal immigration is -- illegal immigration by the way includes the drug trafficking which is just again crisis point sex trafficking, kids trafficking, the narco terrorists run these borders. we cannot allow that. i mean i guess my views have been tougher on the border because i've been looking at what's happened on the border in recent years. i think the biden's have just made a terrible mistake over the border. this title 42, if you're going to get rid of that replace or something else like that no emergency. now, the other part of president trump's policies, however, were what i will call legal immigration reform. we had very good plan which we could never get through

congress, and it will require more elbow grease and it will require probably a new white house and the new congress. there are a number of ways that we can legally, productively, consistent with economic growth, allow 1 million, and million plus perhaps legal immigrants per year. i don't have any problem with that. our economy could do it. i mean of 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 last, in my judgment. >> host: what about his comment about right wing wackos, as he called them, the america firsters? >> guest: i'm not sure what he mentioned mark kerkorian. i know mark, he's a pretty smart guy.

i'm not sure what a right wing wacko is. i don't know. >> host: let's hear from tom in phoenix. go ahead. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. mr. kudlow, you seem to be a person respectful to everybody, but if comments were made, my assessment is they are accurate and true so how can that 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 that writing books and talking, and their service is greatly appreciated and we need to seize out on tv like cnn or not, not cnn, but the program we are on. you know, i used to write to the

white house correspondent, office of correspondence. i don't know if the president ever gets to beat them, maybe you can tell me, but are used to refer to as the the presidet teacher. and the way he spoke, people understood. they got it and there wasn't any fancy stuff. i see do lots of the same around the economic side, and appreciate that. thank you. >> guest: thank you. it's very kind. i appreciate it. by the by, i have a long history with c-span, proud of it. and actually in my book, american abundance of my hats off to brian lamb who i think is just a giant iconic figure, so i'm honored to be on the show today. love to do service with c-span, i don't know if you can answer this, but tom asked about the president and access or hearing from the public. how often, you have been in the

oval office twice now. how often -- does it become a bubble? >> guest: well actually with president trump i would say he kept in touch with more people, more frequently, i mean he is constantly on the phone. that's the thing, which made it very interesting. so let's say we're having a big meeting, right? let's say the economy, okay? so we have a meeting in the oval with the boss. mnuchin is there and i'm there and lighthizer is there and others are there. chris lindell is there. anyway, very important meeting with the boss. some subject would come up. i mean could be taxes, could be trade, could be housing, could be fossil fuel, no into it, okay?

so you would start off by raising the topic, we're here, i've launched a lot of these meetings, and he would listen and next thing he would yell out to the outer oval office, get me so and so are giving so-and-so on the phone. i want to talk to him, want to talk to her. and it would be, his mind would associate somebody he knew from outside the government who might have something interesting to say about the topic. and he would put that person on the phone, put the speakerphone on, and they would join our meeting. okay? this would happen. this is with regularity. i know also even when where not informal meetings that he was constantly on the phone with people, and people, you might be

surprised. not everyone is a trump supporter, not everyone was republican. he wanted to get off, as many inputs as he possibly could be i mean look, he's not giving away trade secrets. it's not like you would start randomly calling people for national security beating. none of that. but some of these, i'll just call them open into discussions, not necessarily, not decision discussions which would be governed by various executive ordinances, but rather open into discussions, taking stuff around. he would love to bring in people from ceos, sometimes broadcasters, friends, you know? one of the great things in that trumpian tradition is you know what, the so-called experts, including us i guess, we are not always right. we don't have all the wisdom,

you know what you mean? this sort of beltway thing, credentials and degrees and length of service and oh, my gosh, nonsense. and trump was great bring in new blood, and trump was great at giving and staying in touch with people who were not in the government, you know? and i don't know, some people in the ministry were frustrated by that. frankly i thought it was a great idea. by the way i would do the same thing in my own nish, my level a fight something cooking i would like to from so-and-so or so-and-so. i've been around the block for a long time. i know people out there that have opinions. i'm interested in hearing. so i'd love it when you did that. loved it. we used to have national, nec, national economic council, without cabinet lunches every two weeks throughout all the cabinet agencies involved in economic policy, and we would invite my predecessor is gary

cohn, and i did it. we would invite people outside the government to speak to us during lunch. we would go down to the board room in the white house mess and it's refreshing. they get to anything they want. we need to hear it. trump is the same way. i thought it was ciders. experts, experts, no, i what experts. too many experts. just saying. >> host: every author who appears on "in depth" ask him or her for their favorite books, and what they are currently reading. here is your last. his favorite books include john sanford, thenvestigator rett mayer, to rescue the republic. brian kilmeade, the president and the freedom fighter. currently reading o just rea steve forbes on inflation. brian tamika 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? anything traffic i i just wano say two things. they are not my favorite books of all time but it's what i either have read or am reading now. i want to say on john sanford, i love to read, this by the way, these are fictions. john sandford, the investigator, he has written 1 million books about a great, i lov mystery, cia, spies. sanford writes his favorite cop is lucas davenport. and down through the years i've read so many john sandford books that are visibly that i know lucas davenport very, very well, and i've been intimately involved in lucas davenport family and this is a book about lucas davenport daughter. i'm about halfway through it. so i'll let you know how that works. the other one is a want to say

jamie lee burke who has written about my other favorite cop, a guy named david robichaux in louisiana, southern louisiana. i do have a copy of any change lee burke. i've never met him. i love to meet both of them. they are fabulous writers. lucas davenport should sometime actually meet david robichaux. david robichaux by the way is a recovering alcoholic and actually goes, some of his books go into aa meetings. that's just how good they are. so i think it's great fun. the other stuff, look, i enjoy steve steve forbes, his book on inflation is terrific. i think it's a must-read becse inflation is so very, very important. i wanted to say that bret baier wrote a book about u.s. grant. i had brett on my tv and my

radio shows, it's an excellent book about grant process it earlier was one my favorite presidents here bret baier wrote a terrific -- bret baier. brian kilmeade wrote a terrific book abo abraham lincoln a frerick douglass, okay? two opponents of slavery, different styles, different positions. very, very important book. he did a good job. brian kilmeade. i really am very keen on the books that i brought here with you. i wasn't sure what the assignment was going to be. i like, the two books i'm really keen on, what is the book about the gilded age which is the charlie morris book, wherever i put that. that's the jazz age one. >> host: the tycoons try to the tycoons. you know, that links to the jazz

age. the jazz age book is about warren harding, okay? i want to group them altogether because, and in going to give an opinion here, so left-wing historians have destroyed these presidents pick up by the way they tried to destroy grant,, although i think it was you told me grant this trend to move up the list again. >> host: on the c-span quadrennial list of residential ratings, ulysses grant has been moving steadily. >> guest: deservedly so. i mean, not only did he win the civil war on the battlefield but as i said to you yesterday, i mean, grant was the guy who tried to enforce reconstruction. grant was a guy took on the ku klux klan. and by the way grant into the civil war income tax and restore the value of the dollar to stop the civil war inflation. liberal historians don't want -- they don't like grant. they don't like warren g. warreg

harding. they don't like calvin coolidge. they used to not like ronald reagan but so much material has come out, reagan and his own hand, they realized reagan was quite a policy intellectual. so look, let's go to the gilded age. the gilded age was, i'm going to define as kind of like 1870-1910, or something, you know, give me some running room on that. i actually going to include u.s. grant into this so grant was president from 68 to 76. the gilded age was a second industrial revolution. the gilded age was a phenomenal period of inventions, railroads across the country, airplanes, oil i mean, i just bought a list

because gosh i was hoping we would go into the stuff. electricity, telegraph, rail lines, telephones, oil, automobiles, airplanes, the red cross. i mean come on, and their bad mouthing everything about -- this tv show made them all out to be villains. it was all about social climbing and stuff like that. so they completely missed the big picture. this was a time 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. i married, my saintly wife is also a painter, you have hudson river painters came through. palmer, john singer sargent tremendous stuff. stephen crane, elizabeth warren, horatio alger, the chicago

exposition of 1893, i hope i get this right, if i don't she will correct correct me, use the 1893 or 1896. by the way, the wright brothers 1903 was going to gilded age. what charles morrison does is he chronicles a few of these guys, rockefeller, carnegie, and jp morgan. i'm just saying this was not an error 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 more. it was a tremendous period of literature and tremendous period of art, and that's what i wanted bring that up there's lots of good books about this. the tycoons is a good place to start. a lot of good books about this. bill brandt county university of texas has written about this, a number of greatest ruins of an about liberal historians have

slaughtered this age. they just missed the point. i don't know why the progressive period under woodrow wilson cannot boast of anything like this. the other thing is the 1920s, the jazz age, again you get people like to kill harding. there was corruption in the harding administration, but as mr. walters chose, brian walters, had nothing to do with harding, and the people that were crap got busted. they were thrown in jail. the teapot dome -- harding had nothing to do with that. he was 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 college who is another guy liberals hate coolidge, coolidge by the way, may be the first law and order guy can use a guy who stopped the police strike in massachusetts. people forget about that.

he was tough on crime. that's a big issue today. and andrew mellon was a quarterback. they slashed tax rates and they slashed spending and the even slashed the federal debt, even though i don't care about that as much as some people do. and we had unbelievable prosperity in the 1920s, again another industrial age. literature, art everything exploded. and, unfortunately, herbert hoover came in, and even though he was a republican and he served in coolidge -- coolidge called him wonder boy. hoover was a very good businessman. he was a mining engineer andy did great humanitarian things in world war i, but as secretary of commerce, coolidge at no time because he is a big government guy. hoover was a big government guy even though he had the hoover institution at stanford which is all that free market. hoover himself, hoover took the

tax rate from 25 to 65%. and he sign the smoot-hawley tariff and you know there was restrictive terrorist during the republican years but not like that. it was a terrible mistake. and it turned really was a modest downturn to a major depression. and then fdr, in my view, made it all worse because he kept raising taxes and kept regulating and kept controlling prices. so i'm reading these books and i like to talk about these books. i love the gilded age personally. if i had to do over again you could kind of plot me, i would've liked to have been, i don't know grover cleveland, a democrat is one of my favorite presidents. he was a pro-gold spending cutter wouldn't fathom the income tax buffalo, new york. he was mayor of buffalo, mayor

of new york and present i think all and about five, six or eight years. and he's only guy to come back and be president again i think. i like grover cleveland. i like u.s. grant. i like warren harding and especially like calvin coolidge. i like ronald reagan and unlike donald trump, wasn't grover cleveland the father of little baby ruth? [laughing] let's hear from -- >> guest: that's, that's, his opponents go after these guys and they -- grover cleveland was the last bowl democrat. you know, i will come anywhere, william jennings bryant. >> host: we have time i think for about one or two more calls. john is in florida. you were on with larry kudlow. john, are you with us? let's try john in -- >> caller: yes, this is john

from connecticut. i want to know if you think that john kennedy, the senator from louisiana, to be a good presidential candidate in 2024? >> host: thank you. we leave it right there. we are running short on time tracking i have know, john kennedy is a very smart man. very, very smart. i will just leave it there. >> host: is he someone you know -- when you you in thee house how often did you talk with senators or congressman, constantly? >> guest: constantly. had a lot of dealings with senator kennedy. i actually introduced him. he spoke at the big state party fundraiser. i introduced him. he was just on my tv show recently, a very smart guy. >> host: frank, kirkland florida. frank, you're on the air. >> caller: it's its currenn washington. >> host: i apologize. >> caller: that's fine.

you asked a a wonderful questn mr. kudlow and happen to enjoy watching. i somewhat agree with some of its positions but some i do not. one of them that i think the caller behind mentioned about the spending of the trump administration. and that's always been -- [inaudible] and people here in the state of washington always think the republicans track of the debt and the democrats come in and try to fix the mess. watch her take on those positions on that? in just one more thing. elon musk made a great argument about robots come in to take the place of workers. he made a position that they would start having to pay workers just a soured because there will be no more jobs i'll

take my question off the air. thank you both very much. >> host: that was a little hard to hear. did you get anything out of that that you can respond to? >> guest: robots replace the workplace. that's most exaggerated overstated argument. robots will help grow the economy and create jobs, just like all these industrial revolution programs deal. shall put her called it creative destruction, and a great advocate of that. i'm not sure i heard his first question. >> host: i just couldn't hear it clearly enough to put words in his mouth. i want to do something here at our last five minutes. i want to go through some headlines and just get your quick take on these. these are from recent newspapers. here's the "new york times," a story on tucker carlson, american nationalist. >> guest: you know, i read it

quickly. tucker is 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 job to me. >> host: "wall street journal," u.s. economy shrinks 1.4% over here at amazon loses money. >> guest: well look, high inflation, again high inflation, the fed is going to have to take away the punch bowl. the stock market is going to be in for a rough time the next six to nine maybe 12 months. but but but i do want to say this. people should buy and own stocks for the long run. you know, in fact, if the market does go down some of which i think will be like because i think the economy is going through stagflation, we may be on the front end of the recession next year. people should buy the debt and then hold on, by the indexes and hold them forever.

do not try to out trade the market. again the cavalry is coming. >> host: "washington post," biden a plan for ukraine signals deepening war. >> guest: well look, i did not read that. i will say my view is joe biden has been a dollar short and a day late on helping ukraine. but i will also say it looks like they are catching up to where the need to be. i'm very impressed with defense secretary lloyd austin about this, added 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 everything. we should help ukraine when the war and try the russians out of their territory. >> host: ten murtaugh media reaction to elon musk proves conservatives right.

>> guest: i didn't read that article. i like elon musk. i really like what he stood with respect to twitter and his crusade for free speech, anything, he's a brilliant, brilliant guy. happy to have him on board. >> host: and one final story. this is from the "washington post." bad boys member pleads guilty to january 6th cooperation deal. january 6th, where were you? >> guest: i was at my office on the second floor. i don't, i didn't read that. i am just make one comment to january 6th was a rough day for everybody, but i'll say this to people who accuse my former boss donald trump of somehow fomenting insurrection or revolution, you know, they have to go back and look at some facts. and my friend murdoch has written about this but others have, , too. it was president trump who

ordered ten-20,000 national guard's 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. so for a guy who has said him is trying to promote insurrection, don't you think it's auto don't people think it's odd that he wanted 20,000 national guard's people to protect this city and the capital? so i will just leave it there. >> host: and from insanity once more which is a collection of your columns, september 16, 2017, there's not a racist, hateful, white supremacy bone in donald trump's body. we're going to finish with this quote from larry kudlow. i don't believe in retirement. i don't understand the word. i just adore working. work is a virtue. what else am i going to do? tried to i don't believe there's a racist bone in donald trump's

body. i couldn't imagine not working. and as long as the lord gives me the strength to work at the opportunities, i will continue to work. that's just, i love it too much. you have to dash but but i d of q over on the set of some tv show and you will cart me away and will be done with it. >> host: larry kudlow, thank you for being on booktv. thank you to both you and your wife judy for hosting us here comes your saintly wife judy for hosting us here in the library of connecticut. >> if you are enjoying booktv then sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive a schedule of upcoming programs, author discussion, book festivals more. booktv, every sunday on c-span2 or anytime online at booktv.org, television for serious readers.