and so we end up talking past one another in our national conversations to the extent we have them. and then that is a problem. and i'm not sure how that's going to play out. but it could get worse before ii gets better. the nice thing about the internet and social media is the access to information. but the downside is we are not sharing a source of information, we can often just wind up talking right past one another. all medicine we see a lot of today unfortunately. >> that is a very important message i think to conclude with. thank you for a really powerful book and taking your time to talk to us. >> thank you i enjoyed it. ♪ weekends on cspan2 are an

intellectual feast. every saturday in american history tv documents america's story and on sunday @booktv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for cspan2 comes from these television companies and more including buckeye broadband. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ buckeye broadband along with these television companies support cspan2 as a public service. >> host: clary code that we be writing a book about your time the trump administration? >> i do not have anything planned at the moment. i am a very busy. i am a loving life. never say never. but no not at the moment. see what how jobs you have? >> well, of course there's

foxbusiness show every day. if i can plug it four -- 5:00 p.m. i love that, that's the bulk of what i do. i also do a lot of different segments for fbn and also fox news people. in fact they did when 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 wabc radio. but we live string we are also syndicated. write op-ed pieces pretty much constantly. and some informal political consulting with my friends on policy, pretty much anybody who asks. so i'm a busy camper i'm a grateful camper life after the white house has been terrific. it is a real blessing for me, a real blessing. >> is your second stint in the

white house correct? the first being? >> just a few years ago, 40 yearss ago it was a somewhat lower position i was economics deputy at the office of management and budget during the reagan administration. the director was a fellow maine named david stockman remains a friend of mine. that was my first job. it wasn't reagan's first term. they went lyric about your 2016 book connects the reagan revolution withhe jfk. what is that policy connection? brexit is a story i wanted to tell for years has been the back of my head. i woke with my pal who is a terrific researcher and co-author. basically in a nutshell john f. kennedy was a progrowth

democrat. he was a taxcutting democrat. he was a supply-side democrat. and when he ran in 1960 he really ran as they grow sky and richard nixon kind of ran as the status quo. in those day the republican party was okay with very high tax rate. eisenhower had noo interesting cutting the tax rate they inherited from fdr's new deal. and kennedy did not explicitly runnic it but said i want 5% growth. i went low unemployment. there had been three recessions during the eisenhower years. three recessions. it's a little-known factoid but it is true. connection to reaga5 years later was reagan lowered

marginal tax rates and helped reignite a more abundant ony. i would argue, as i do quite a bit on our show that the reagan tax cuts launched almost a three decade prosperity. the jfk tax cuts launched a decade-long prosperity, but unfortunately unfortunately was unwound and undermined by lbj's society that richard nixon, gerald ford, jimmy carter none of them understood tax cuts or the incentive effects of lower marginal taxf rates. maybe we can talk about thatca o some more and some very smart thankfully my dearest friend and mentor and robert mondale, nobel prize winner and

jack kemp and others brought to the supply side. essentially the kennedy tax cuts to reagan and reagan looked at them and thought about and ram on them and it was controversial just as it was in jfk's day and it worked in fact reagan had two rounds of tax cuts. ir was there for the first round involved in the campaign to promote. >> in 1961 you quoted jfk as saying it will be a major aim of the tax reform program to broaden the tax base and reconsider the structure. >> absolutely. and there's some really juicy quotes that could have easily applied to reagan and fact kennedy was the first guy to use the phrase the rising tide lifts all boats. that phrase was used later by jack kemp who was a very dear

friend and also a mentor by reagan. i used it all the time. trump used it. the trump tax cuts which were more on the w corporate side wee 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 reagan white house, that's a joke. and if i may i want to go back because i'm reading a book the title of which is the jazz age but it's about warren g harding, way too far maligned but in the

1920s, harding, his vice president coolidge, and importantly his treasury secretary andrew mellon who was a great figure from pittsburgh and an entrepreneurial banker, they put together huge reduction in marginal tax rates. the income tax i believe 1913 started out as 17% and when woodrow wilson left office it was over 70%. we went into a recession after and those guys brought tax rates with a tremendous boom and prosperity in the 1920s and i'm going to go one more another favorite figure is ulysses s grant.

he was arguably america's greatest generals or one of its greatest generals. they still teach some of the formations at west point. grant did two things in his administration he never gets credit for this but the fact is grant ended the civil war income tax, ended it and grant restored the greenback to gold so we had massive wartime inflation and high wartime taxes and grant ended both and also helped launch the second industrial revolution which is sometimes referred to disparaging lead to the gilded age but it was a phenomenal period in america, so justen to be consistent, here is

my guy grant. harding is cutting taxes, kennedy is cutting taxes. the last two i've been aroundrv for the others and it would have been great fun. >> in all of your books in your work on foxbusiness et cetera, you talk about some economic terms and i was hoping we could have a broader discussion about how they all work together. tax rates, growth, the bond market, the stock market. what's the interplay between all these? >> i think i would simply say the absolute basic key element to economic growth and prosperity let me step back a

moment. my whole career it seems to me i served in government by the way but the first job i had was at the federal reserve federal reserve bank of new york i served in open market operations and it was a secretary to paul volcker who was president so i've had three government assignments. it seems to me if you do nothing else you should promote policies that would generate growth, prosperity, jobs. i am a free-market capitalist. i think it's the shortest path to growth when i was in the cnbc days and i had my share for many

years i use to open up the show every night by saying free-market capitalism. 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 called king dollar. if you break that and move to a policy regime of high tax rates, excessive government regulation and innovation and it's a cheaper dollar depreciated, you will find yourself with high inflation, high unemployment and recession. and i've argued that through the

years that there are almost no exceptions to that, almost no exceptions. this is a controversial point. the economics profession nowadays which like everything else in the academy's move to far to the left and doesn't agree with that. although i will say this modern monetary theory has taken a pretty big looking and high inflation but i am prepared to argue in historical terms as well as economic policy terms those are the essential ingredients lowest possible tax rates and a sound reliable king dollar. >> is the fed to powerful and is it necessary?

they lost sight of the principal mission which is to keep the currency sound and the price level stable. the cultural in the world economics and some of its appointees are talking more about climate change and price stability. i'm not opposed to diversity, but i don't think that's been the tip of the mission.

the idea that it wants to equalize the economy and takes this left-wing socialist view that t we should all be equal at the finish line when in fact in a society like ours all we want is equal opportunity at the starting line and the finish line we will exercise our god-given talent in many different ways but that is way too much gear to something called equity and of course climate changehi which i am nota climate denier i'm just saying we do not have a climate emergency or some existential climate risk. factually, even un reports don't show this has become a political obsession and i think the fed completely utterly missed the

boat on this inflation problem that we are experiencing today. >> one of the issues that's brought up in this genre is income inequality. no, we should not. the idea here for me is we should, by law, have a quality of opportunity at the starting point. absolutely. even in communist countries in the old sovietes union i go up during the cold war and

particularly in the reagan years the only a quality they have is the quality of poverty and then the nomenclature of the random placebu but there was no widespread prosperity and that is true for all socialist or it seems tountries me. with the thought prosperity that's to maximize opportunities that's whyhy i argue the government cannot manage markets.

we have thousands of people operating in a free economy. i want them to have their own personal freedom. but that is a job for the so-called private sector. that is free-market economics. that's prosperity, free-market capitalism. freedom inside the economy, freedom to fail and succeed. one of the great aspects in america and it's true to this day you've got an entrepreneurial story where people have an idea they might scratch up some money to finance it and it may not work. it may fail several times. you may go bankrupt but at some point you may get it right then

you become a map of success and that is what is so brilliant about the gilded age, the industrial revolution. the information revolution and higher lifetime of stuff that we routinely use today didn't exist when i was in prep school or church starting out who they thl and succeed and that's the american story but behind that story, that's the elder his story but behind that it's

freedom. so i spent a lifetime trying to promote freedom frankly in the economic sector where frankly all throughout, freedom of speech now, there's a big debate, there is misinformation, government bureaus. this stuff drives me crazy. he calls himself a free speech absolutist or something like that. free speech, freedom of religion. i will sit here for a couple of hours all day and tomorrow and show you the historical examples of why the free economy outperforms the status economy.e

>> it kind of surprised me. what happened was that government policy. was that of supply and demand? >> there's a lot of factors in world war ii and after the korean war but i would just say principally you had 91% tax rates, very high taxes. some critics of the view will say hi taxes and nobody paid them. have some very famous loopholes fromfr hollywood studio owners.

capital gains were high, so that economy was smothered. the incentive effect which was so prominent during the harding and coolidge tax cuts of the 20s for example or the liberating u.s. grant tax cut,se those, it was a very tightly controlled economy. very government run economy, so highlyla regulated. properly i think kept the dollar stable so you had episodes of inflation but basically we were up at the old brentwood staller exchange system and the federal reserve principally did a pretty good job on that. but anytime the fed was so

tightly controlled by high taxes and regulations those are really important issues and with many wonderful qualities, general eisenhower, president eisenhower, economics wasn't one of them, just wasn't one of them. there's a long story. the top advisor. during the reagan years, burns was ambassador to germany and a very good ambassador in his later years he and i became very friendly and something of a mentorme of mine. all of those years, eisenhower,

nixon so anyway there were three recessions and this is what gave kennedy a step up. nixon by the way a dear personal friend of mine the daughter and son-in-law, very dear friends of ours, i met nixon in the middle 80s. i was out of office back on wall street. he had his old office at the federal plaza and they would bring various policy people read before president nixon would go on foreign trips, so i had at least one visit, maybe two.

i had written numerous op-ed pieces in the journal criticize everything. he did everything wrong. took the dollar off the gold standard, we had booming inflation so the first time i met him he comes in and looks at me like d you don't think much f my economics, do you. [laughter] and i said no, sir, with respect, i don't. [laughter] it was a very cool moment and this is the mid 80s. i have served but nixon acknowledged in his book the reagan tax cuts were acknowledged. >> in sanity once more as the collection of the column that came out in 2018 and i want to do a quote from them. this is election day 2016 and

forcing trade deals is a spot on. acting in the interest of american workers is correct. but large-scale tariffs are a terrible idea. before i became the nec director in march of 2018, he had just put through steel and aluminum tariffs and i didn't agree. in fact i think that he may have been on that but we were on the

piece criticizing the steel. president trump knew all about that. w he knew when he was calling me secretly. the subject came up once or twice but we agreed to disagree. it's interesting. i'm not a fan of tariffs. they tax the work and production just as much as domestic 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 to think about the issue of reciprocity, what is the other side doing to you on trade and this is an important part that trump made.

now it is so interesting the only two pieces i wrote when i was in his administration, and they both preceded g7. in those i quoted a conversation that he and i had where he believed he was a free trader and under ideal circumstances no s.nontariff barriers or subsidis and that is the goal. no tariffs, zero barriers and a

zero subsidies. at the g7 i think it was 2018 north of québec we had a bilateral with justin trudeau and president trump and the advisors on both sides trump said you know, justin if we had no barriers or subsidies, we would be in great shape and then

trump looks at me sitting may be two or three down from him and he says you've said that your whole career, and of course he knew that because we talked about it. but he expressed that view and did it later so a lot of free-tradede blood in him, peope didn't understand that. so. paul was on my tv show. we were in atlanta for the policy first conference and we talked about this. with brazil, south korea, all free-trade 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 a big tariffs on china. so far biden hasn't taken them all and i hope he doesn't. i would argue, and as president trump argued we needed those to bring china to the table, if you will, to get their attention. and i will give you another view from the point of view which i completely agree. i agreed then and i agree now. one of the greatest achievements 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.y. they are not our friends. there an economic adversary and foreign policy adversary. so his rhetoric was tough. but we did bring them to the table. no one had been able to do it, and the one before. and we got a bunch of concessions from them. i was on that team and it was hard going. beijing, washington. this was a phase one deal. i understand the point but it's necessary to get to the other

end of the deal is holding up pretty good. they've set up institutional mechanisms. they brought a lot of commodities not as much perhaps as we want, but a lot and we ought to be selling them for much more experts. the transfer of technology, still ans work in progress but i think on the whole, phase one was a great success and we would have moved on to phase two. so far, nothing has happened. i am a free trader. he wouldn't say it the way i say it but in a perfect world he would agree with me. he liked to that. it was a great idea.

>> good afternoon and welcome to booktv in depth program. our guest this month is larry, the author of "american abundance," that came out in 1997, "jfk and the reagan revolution," and then the collection of his columns came out and that's called "in sanity once more." for the regular viewers you know this is our monthly call-in program with one author, his or her body of works and your calls, text messages, tweets et cetera. here's how you can get a hold oe us if you have a question or comment. the 202748 each 200 for those of you in the east of central time zones, (202)748-8201 for those of you in the mountain at pacific time zones. if you want to send a text message, text messages only, (202)748-8903 is the number for you.

please include your first name and the city if you would. we will also scroll through our social media addresses. just remember@booktv is the handle so 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? >> it was pretty good actually. a very positive. people encouraged me to do it for a variety of reasons. i wasn't looking at it. i was pretty busy with a tv network and a radio show and speeches and so forth consulting. i had worked with the candidate in the campaign we worked on the tax plan quite a lot. occasionally i was a

spokesperson for the economics and he invoked my name several times. of course i knew him for many years and liked him. he had been a guest on my tv show. i knew his familykn f a bit and always thought he was a major force. i wasn't looking for a job, but if you have a second i will tell you how it i started. march of 2018 is how this got started. we were up here in connecticut for a weekend. i was coming back from indoor tennis. the phone rings in my car. we had kept in touch and talked about one thing or another.

anyway, he calls me and he starts talking about one thing or another and mentioned the national economic council, nothing terribly specific. i thought he was calling to yell at mell because we had written this op-ed piece. i don't think it came up in that conversation. maybe you did but he just wanted to talk about things and mentioned the nac. he said call me back. i said i will call you back tomorrow night. >> when the phone rings do they say please hold for the

president? that was when we had a more earnest direct conversation about the national economic council. it was about to make a change and we talked about a bunch of policies. it was a very good conversation i enjoyed. we think about this way, that. what shouldd i do here and ther. as you know i'm not bashful about my views and then he said no one knows we are having this e conversation. what he said no one knows we are having this conversation. okay. i will call you tomorrow night and we will talk some more. so the next night, we are having dinner with a group, dear friends in new york city,

midtown. i had a cell phone in my back pocket just in case. the phone rang. it was him. to walk out on fifth avenue i wasn't going to take the call in the middle of the restaurant and he got muchh more specific on that call. it was sort of amusing because my wife came out to get me. we had to go home, i had to do a radio show. i think every tuesday night we do an hour and a so we are talking, going up madison avenue and he is talking and talking and finally i said are you offering me a position? yeah, you are the only guy here, congratulations. and he said will you take the job i said, yes, i will, sir and

i was honored. i love to government service and i loved him. so that was that and went and did the radio show. a very dear friend of mine who was part of that dinner group tells thee story later kudlow takes a call from the president at a dinner, gets up, walks out of the restaurant and we didn't see him for 40 years. [laughter] then in that call some people said he offered me a job the night before but i didn't get it. in any case, he said you will come down here thursday or friday at a press conference. no one knows this because of 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 and turn on the tv. then of course the news broke and everybody was running this thing. those are enduring qualities and one of the reasons i like the guy. he's just natural and flows. >> once he got elected, did you ever call him by his first name? >> never. in fact when he was president and while i served their, he wah either mr. president or sir.

>> back to in sanity once more, by the way if it looks different, it's because we are at his library up in the wilds of connecticut, so we appreciate you allowing us to come up here. back to your in sanity once more book, 2016 column i want to thank malani a trump first started me on the path of restoredor confidence, donald trump. >> president trump then candidate trump said a couple things that did not thrill me. things came up in that campaign. you look back and it wasn't that important but at the moment during theg campaign it becamei

recall she was a wonderful, wonderful woman. we got to be good friends in the white house. she went on tv and just defended president trump and made it very clear she was a thousand% behind him and that of these things were passing and it was no big deal. he told me later that he was personally not thrilled about that column but that she loves me. he said she loves you. i i don't think you had to write it but she really loves you. >> i don't know, i'm not one of

her intimates but i had a great respect for her and i watched her on a couple cable tv shows and it was very clear to me that she, her support was unwavering so i said as a columnist, written to some extent tongue-in-cheek, but yeah, i did. she liked it more than he did. let's hear it from our viewers in spring texas, you are on with larry kudlow make your question orue comment. >> i had a comment about where president trump said we are taking billions of dollars from china in the bill of tariffs.

now we are taking billions and billions of dollars. that's had an effect on things. is it false statements we've been taking billions and china didn't pay these, these are paid by the american companies and consumers that are forced to pass -- >> i think we got the idea. he referenced i me third, 2019 about the tariffs on china and taking in billions of dollars. so, is there something you can extrapolate from that? it was a little difficult to hear that one, i agree. >> in economic terms, the tariffs imposed a significant burden. they experienced it and they saw it because prices went up and the demand for chinese currency went down.

the inflation rate went up, interest rates went up. it is true those would be paid by u.s. companies. but the key point there it was a tremendous impact. our economy was booming during the period. the corporate tax cuts were so important and gave us such a big advantage, but particularly in that world of trade because again, as we discussed earlier, they are tasked on certain chinese imports absolutely, particularly technology-relatedl imports, what i call the family jewels which we had to protect. but wewe had flashed the marginl corporate tax rate from 35% to

21% which more than offset so again as i was mentioning earlier, i think even though i don't like the tariffs in an ideal world, perhaps president trump doesn't either, he rang the bell and we brought them to the tableland 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, ion think that those wee necessary. any time, there's a lot of talk about the biden administration and raising the corporate tax rate, it would put us at a tremendous disadvantage. and it would damage the tough position we had staked out on

china. so i would urge them with all my heart to keep the tax rates low we want to be as competitive as we can. with money flowed back to the u.s., the court as an aside it turns out the corporate tax rates, the reduction in corporate tax rates paid for themselves. we've just been getting irs data on this. i talked quite a bit about it at my show with arthur. the curve worked the tax collections went up as tax rates went down 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 the income was up and by the way, the tax avoidance is much

less. there's no point in looking for taxno shelters if you have a low tax rate it's just not worth the effort. so we were able to withstand any de minimis negative impacts, well offset by the corporate tax rate. >> let's hear from george in hudson, florida. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. how are you today? >> host: please go ahead with your question or comment, sir. >> caller: sure. i watch your show religiously on fox business channel because they don't have a 9-year-old around the.

where are we going to be next year with our cognitive values and crazinesses were however you want to call them. where are we going to be next year. i see what's lots of other people see and i will leave that to doctors. my own personal view as i say many times on the show the calvary is coming into the midterm elections are going to be gop sweep at both houses.

and i think that. some of the economic and social excesses of the biden administration. i'm just giving you my own personal views here. the biggest problem we are going to have in the next couple of years is getting high inflation down. so weso are paying for that now it's not a 12 year thing the way that it was back in the 70s. the bad news is getting eight to 10% inflation back to 2% inflation will not be pain-free. hopefully a republican congress

will move to reduce the borrowing, hopefully the republican congress will open the spigots towards oil and gas production and pipelines, allli which have been closed and hopefully the republican congress willli keep an eye on e federal reserve to make sure that they slow down the money supply to move their interest rates of accordingly. so i think you're going to see policy changes but i don't think it's going to be easy. i don't think it's going to be, and i don't think it's going to be pain-free. >> for those who do or don't watch the show there's something you've been saying recently. we are going to play it quick one time, you won't be able to see w it but you will hear it. >> save america killed the bill.

listen, save america kill the bill is still my motto. save america and killed the bill the wisdom is simple. save america kill the bill. tonight i am launching a slightly different mantra, kill any new bills that may come next year. [laughter] so far it keeps coming back. it became a rallying cry. i felt the bill depending on its iteration would be another five or $6 trillion odifederal spende

inflationary consequences, massive inflationary consequences. and also hidden in that bill were very huge tax hikes, which would have done great damage to the economy and great damage to incentives. there was a save america coalition that joe manchin constantly supporting i thought he was a very brave democrat. he's somebody that would save the democratic party from itself if they ever gave him a chance. i wish he would run in primaries in 2024. joe is a friend of mine, we've spoken on the phone. i don't talk politics with him, i took policy with him but i think he did a heroic job.

i think kristen has done a great job fighting off the tax increases, and so far we've killed the bill. i don't want any more bills. by the way i want to add one other thing here. there's a bill sometimes called the china compete bill, which has nothing to do with as much as $300 billion of additional federal spending with corporate welfare bailing out the industry. a dozen republicans voted in the senate. >> good afternoon, richard. >> good afternoon. appreciate your efforts. you mentioned to the previous caller the clinical comments

about the cognitive abilities. i listened to you on the forum with sununu and stephen moore where you actually call the president an idiot, so enough of that. but my question is this -- you refer to the reagan tax cuts and tax policy as three decades of prosperity, and the fact his policies cost george bush a second term because it was economics clinton ran on and the state of the country's economy 30 years would have taken us up to the second which was an economic debacle as well so --

>> there's a lot on the table. first of all, the idiot remark and then we will go into the economics. >> i don't think i said that. s perhaps i did in passing, but i don't believe that. putting that aside, temporarily reversing the small part of tax cuts and it was a mistake. we went in the recession and he lost the election. but the bulk of the tax cuts stayed and bill clinton who continued to raise the income tax again when reagan came and it was 70%. when reagan ft it was 28. it was raised to 31 with other tax hikes. i believe bill clinton took it to perhaps 40 i'm going to say,

so still below 70. then george w. bush brought it down to 45, so basically the tax cuts stayed. they were not as low as 28 but they basically stated the incentive effect. so many of us but helped vice president bush and tried to talk them out of raising taxes we said don't do it, don't do it, he did it and he lost the election. if you want a full explanation or longer answers of that it's pretty extensively with jfk and the reagann. revolution. it's funny because you and i were talking yesterday and kind of had this happy warrior

prasanna so that's why i was a little surprised. >> it's just not my way. i gave that open chance and took a look at the policies but for me to get personal like that is very unusual. >> and our program continues from larry kudlow's library in connecticut. we want to hear from you as well. we want tofr get the numbers and how you can participate. (202)748-8200 for those in the east and central time zones. 2001 of the mountain at pacific time zones. if you want to send a message (202)748-8903 that's for text messages only. please include your first name and your city if you would.

>> i grew up in englewood, new jersey. he was a businessman and became a very good real estate agent and i have one younger brother who is, has lived in hollywood los angeles for many decades. he's a screenwriter, postproduction and my favorite hollywood liberal. this is from american abundance. in the introduction in late

november, 1995 i had no prospects, no confidence, no ambition and no sense that i could do the job. >> i had my crash and burn sort of addictions to alcohol and drugs. that was the worst time of my life. it had been building up for several years. i went away to a treatment center in minnesota for five months to get well. my wife who you met send me up there. november 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 to god's grace the greatest blessing of my life and 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 think 35 years married this summer, 27 years sobriety. god has been very good to me and at that point i was being very honest in that book.

what do you remember about the last few months were the first few months at the end of the year? >> very little to be honest with you. i still go to 12 step meetings. i've still very active in 12 step and very active in my church and i think about that stuff from time to time. every now and then the way it works in the 12 step meeting on your anniversary you're 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 and think about that you never want to lose that. there were 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. i returned to a more spiritual way of looking at the world and i will also say things that i have learned from the 12 step group have served me very well in my career these last few decades. and of course i've been honest about all this. i'vew. never withheld that. it's come up time to time. ..

it was my 25th anniversary coming up. and she asked me too speak, which i did. in at least a general way. but, you know, you think about it from that point in 1995 until being a very senior presidential advisor birds along throw but one could not have happened without the either and i'm very grateful for that.

i say god has been very good to me. and i try to follow his path. i ain't perfect. i try to follow his path. sweat was >> to call jim in rochester, new york you are on with author larry kudlow. >> caller: mr. "kudlow", i am wondering on the u.s. debt of 30 trillion, the unfunded liabilities that we have in social security, medicaid is coming up getting closer and closer. also the 9 trillion-dollar balance sheet the fed has it. what kind of effect we have when interest rates begin to return to anything like normal? it seems to me there is a growing concern i think the cato

institute. various a booklet of editorials called physical cliff. concerning i'll take my answer off the air precook soap thank you jim, thank you sir. >> guest: those are very good questions. they are different. the one is the entitlement question on social security. and at medicare. and the second one is the balance sheet called the monetary base which is just briefly for our viewers, it's essentially printing money. the government spends money the federal government spends money, it borrows to finance its spending. all too frequently the federal reserve purchases the bonds that uncle sam sells. that's full faith and credit

might literally print money that's what they do i started my professional career and open back in 1973. but in any case entitlement problem is an issue. but, i don't believe there will alsecurity obligations or for tt matter medicare obligations. at the end of the day the government that sells bonds to raise the money. yes we pay taxes and we have payroll taxes for social security and medicare. there's a certain fiction about the particular on the medicare side. medicare is not funded any more by payroll taxes is mostly funded out of general

obligations note they are funded by selling bonds. some future point somebody in power going to have to look at that. it's very valuable systems they need to brief in my judgment that they could be reformed as a number of decent proposals out there to reform social security, reform medicare. we spend more than we take in. that is a generic problem throughout the entire government includes entitlements and is i going to have to be looked at. the other point to the viewer made, interest rates will return to something more normal not to be zero anymore. already up to 5% ten year bond rates are moving to 3%. and my views it will go higher

attempts to stop the inflation. that will edge of the burden for the financing of federal debt in general is going to be a lot more expensive. and i just have one other point, peter. these are all reasons why i don't want any more federal spending on domestic discretionary programs. that is what i said save america kill the bill. we do not need another $5 trillion of domestic spending. we cannot afford it. it's going to be extremely costly to finance and ultimately it is inflationary. i want to say even though i've been an opponent of the biden administration by the weight not alone some democrats and some honest democrats have also. but the point is we have to come

up with no new spending at all. that is why i've been so emphatic about this. separate are my concerns about raising marginal tax rates may give it to you that way. this conservative i may supply said i get that. i'm not morass masquerading as anything else but what you are 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 spending or ending fossil fuels, or taking parent out of the classroom or the open border or

the foreign policy. this is not a campaign commercial i'm just saying what youus have here is an administration that has departed from traditional democratic concerns. this is why i love joe manchin so much. and by the way i speak as a former democrat. many years ago i acknowledged is about 45 or 50 years ago, i worked for ronald reagan a former democrat party work for donald trump a former democrat party ops often said the best republicans are former democrats. not every republican senator agrees with me on that. but i say that somewhat tongue and cheek. but this extremism in the biden administration is being rejected it. he just lacks commonla sense tht is all. you are sitting there and seeing inflation rate that has jumped. this is before the invasion of ukraine print inflation rate gone from less than 2% to 7% ana

then here they come back with a new proposal which the congressional office prices out at $5 trillion of spending. another $3 trillion of debt or do you say to yourself what youo can't do this. and joe manchin was in the. stad up guy along with kyrsten sinema print and i noticed some other democrats and moderate democrats beginning to line up behind and stuff up on the border is not sustainable. you see a whole bunch ofgh democrats, i know they are from swing states. i do not need to question their motives. the fact is we cannot just have a couple million people illegally cross the border every year. we just cannot do that. it is not sustainable. just like we are not going to end natural gas and fossil fuels in the next eight -- ten years because there's nothing to replace it.

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

as a share of gdp since when in 2010? it still under two 100%. i didn't see it as a big problem. it's funny. i have a long history of not being a debt monger. some of my traditional conservative friends do not like that. here's my theme of economic growth comes into play. are you growing the economy? that is my first question let's go back this was true in the reagan tax cut debate but let's go back to the. is tax cuts were priced out by the congressional budget office and the joint tax committee on a

static basis meaning no economic growth in fact. $1.5 trillion. and of course you have democrats said that will raise the deficit and the debt. of course they have never cared about that before but they did care about it because they are against the tax cuts. tax cuts i might add not only promoted gross, brought unemployment to record low levels, brought minority unemployment to record low levels, brought poverty to record lows. they also paid for themselves. they did not in year one like they said they would. they did not inure to and yes there is a debt increase to finance those tax cuts. but here we are even through the pandemic all these numbers coming in from the irs and the

rdtreasury show record revenues. they show the corporate tax cuts paid for themselves. this is been in the subject of a couple of programs on my foxbusiness show. the left or curved work too. in the first year or two, you may have to borrow money to finance lower tax rates it. but what i would say is whether they are individual rates or corporate rates and business rates you are making an investment. you are making an investment in future growth and prosperity and jobs including minority especially minorities. you are making an investment middle class working post- blue blue-collar folks. it is worth it to incur a temporary deficit which will increase the debt. it is worth it.

and down the road everyone will benefit. studies show for example, studies on the left of center they are not crazy left his fooe is left of center. 80% of the people. and i supported him and steven mnuchin supported him on this, 60 or 70% of the benefits of the corporate tax cut wood to working folks, middle income typical families. that was worthg it. so when i made that statement in 2019 i stick to it. it did not bother me. what bothers me if you are going to spend a lot of money that will not enhance growth, that bothers me.. okay? i will go back to my experience as a young man in the reagan

budget office. reagan was not particularly worried about deficits. he would say so a little bit. he had two priorities. one was to cut/tax rates to rejuvenate the economy. second was to put money into a defense to the soviet communist. he did both. deficit temporarily went up started the debt. but he achieved his ends. the economy grew as i said before nearly three decades worth of prosperity was some very smallri interruptions and e defeated soviet communist. growth, peace through strength. strong at home, strong abroad. week at home, always weak

abroad. learn that from reagan and i never forgot it is been 40 plus years. osage was a senior trump advisor he believed the same thing. weakness at home breeds weakness abroad. strengthened at home breeds strength and abroad. what did trump do? he/corporate and small business tax rates, grew the economy reinvigorated the economy, unemployment fell. put a lot of money into the defense budget. at that point is not so much in russia as it was china. non-catholic kennedy talks talks about strength at home strengthh abroad. candidate was a firm anti-communist pre-people forget this and it was a long time ago but kennedy were alive today he would've been a ragged trump opponent. i'm just saying kennedy wanted growth at home 5% growth which she got posthumously from his tax cuts.

any fought the soviet union tooth and nail. these are not historical coincidences. with you are democrat or a republicanou. one of my arguments today is a formerda democrat use not hardla hedemocrat. 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. i have so much faith in america. i'm a hopeless austin optimist you'd know this about this country. as long as we protect the freedoms this far left woke aberration will not last that is my take on it. >> the next culvert larry kudlow

combs from trayvon martin in dayton ohio. >> hello thanks for havingt me n really grateful. i've been listening for a long time the nbc days. i don't always agree but always listen to them. and you may want to touch on three things immigration, inflation and taxes. immigration first of all there is a great podcast called macro musings with david beckwith here's a little homework listen to that. that can help us. first of all immigration is chaotic right now but we do not replace our people are birth rate is way too low. we actually need immigration to make us a bigger stronger place. with her in 50 or three to 60 people in america. that would make us better. if you're talking about growth that's where you get it.

green card, puts her pain into the system. that's how you solve that problem. forr some reason people on the left extreme there are there's a lot of extreme wackos on the right too. you have these no number people and those that is going nowhere. inflation, trump printed money too. stuart trayvon martin, there is a lot there to play with. we appreciate your calling in. >> knew the third-best interview. >> one of the three. >> want to make a point about immigration. at least part of what the caller just said i agree with. i think immigration is a good thing not a badig thing. and of course america is a great long tradition of immigration.

here is what i don't like. i don't like illegal immigration. i do not like open borders. that's where we are. my own views have changed or evolved in the last ten years but the border crisis the catastrophe of the border is something cannot be allowed to continue it is not sustainable in all of its many forms. president trump on this basically did two t 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 remain and mexico was essentially catch and deport. illegal immigration by the way

includes the drugg trafficking which again crisis points. trafficking, kids trafficking, the narco terrorists run the border. we cannot allowrs that. i guess my views have been tougher on the border i've been looking at what has happened on the border in recent years. i think the bidens have made a terrible mistake opening up the border. it's title 42 you're going to get rid of that replace it with something else like fentanyl. i will call illegal immigration reform. that will require more elbow grease and it will require a new white house. and a new congress. there are a numberar of ways tht

we can legally, productively, consistent with economic growth allow a million plus perhaps legal immigrants per year. i do not have any problem with that. of course america was founded on immigrants. and they were a gigantic contributor over the last several centuries. but today situation cannot last in my judgment. >> what about his comment trayvon martin's comment about heright wing wackos as he called them the america firsters. >> i am not sure i don't mark is a pretty smart guy. i'm not sure what a right wing wacko is. click closer from tom tom in phoenix, tom go ahead. >> hi thank you for taking my call.

you seem to be a person who is respectful to everybody. but comments were made my assessment is there accurate and true so how bad can they be? at any rate save america, killed the bill. your education is a a service to this country. i will help change things aroun from the disaster we have now. there is lot of people in the right who are writing books and talking and their services greatlytl appreciated. need to see it on tv not cnn, but the program we are on. and i used to write to the white house office of correspondence. i don't know if the president ever gets to read them maybe you can tell me. i used to refer to him as the president teacher. in the way he spoke people

understood they got it and it was not any fancy dancy stuff. and i see you do a lot of thee same on the economic side and i appreciate that, thank you. >> thank you tom. >> thank you that's very kind i appreciate it. i have a long history of c-span and i am proud of it. actually in my book american abundance of a hats off to brian lamb who i think is a giant iconic figure. so i'm honored to be on the show today. i love to do service with c-span. speed went out with 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? >> actually with president trump i would say he's constantly on

the phone. that is the thing. which made it very interesting. they were having a big high polluting policy meeting and let's say the economy. so we have a meeting in the oval with theth boss. munitions there, i am there, others are there any way very important meeting with the boss. some subject would come up that could be taxes, could bed trad. it be housing. could beat fossil fuel no end to it. so you would start off by raising sir we are here to watch lottie's meetings. he would listen to the outer

oval office can you get me so-and-so? that makes so-and-so on the phone i want to talk to him i want to talk to her. it would be his mind would associate somebody he knew from outside the government about the topic. he would put that person on the phone, but the speaker phone on and they would join our meeting. okay? this would happen with regularity. i know also, even when we are not informal meetings that he was constantly on the phone with the people and people you might be surprised that everyone is a trump supporter. not everyone was a e republican. he wanted to get as many inputs as he possibly could. he is not giving away trade secrets. it's not like you start randomly

calling people for national security meeting, none of that. i will just call them open ended discussions. not necessarily decision discussions which will be governed by various executives ordinances. it can stuff around, he loved to bring in people. ceos, sometimes broadcasters. one of thetr great things in tht trump in tradition was the so-called experts including us i guess were not always right. we do not all have all of the wisdom, and you know what i mean? credentials and degrees and a length of service and oh my gosh nonsense. in trump was a great bringing in new blood. trump wasn't great at getting

and staying in touch other people who were not in the government. and i don't know some people in the administration were frustrated by that. frankly i thought it was a great idea. >> i would do the same thing in my own niche it might level i would like to hear from so-and-so and so-and-so. i've been around the block for a long time. i know people out there who have opinions i'm interested in hearing. i loved it when he did it. loved it. an you see national economic council would have cabinet lunches every two weeks. all of the cabinet agencies involved in economic policy. we would invite my predecessor, we'd invite people outside the government to speak to us during the lunch. we would to the boardroom it was refreshing. they could say anything we want they needed to hear it.

trump is the samewa way it was fabulous. ricks, no i don't want experts to many experts. i'm just saying. >> every author who appeared on in-depth we ask him or her for their favorite books and what they are currently reading. here is larry kudlow's list. his favorite books include john sanford the investigator, brett baird to rescue the republic, brian killed made the president and tedom fighter, currently reading or just read steve forbes on inflation brian 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, any of them? >> are not necessary my favorite books of all times. but it's what i either have read or am reading now.

i went to sam john sanford. i love to read. these are fictions. john sanford's book the investigator is written a million books. i love mystery, cops, cia, spies. sanford writes his favorite cop is lucas davenport. and down through the years i've read so many john sanford books i really believe i know lucas davenport very, very well. i've been intimately involved in lucas davenport's family. this is a book about lucas velvet davenport's daughter lettie and i'm about halfway through it. [laughter] i will let you know how that works. the other one is i want to say jamie lee burke who is written my other favorite cop david in louisiana southern louisiana. i don't have any copies i've

never met james a lee burke i've never met john sanford. love to meet both of them they are fabulous writers. lucas davenport should sometimes actually meet david robichaux. he by the way is a recovering alcoholic and some of his books go into aa meetings. [laughter] that is how good they are. so i think it's great fun. i enjoy steve forbes who is a very dear friend a longtime collaborator. his book on inflation is terrific. it is a must read because inflation is so very, very important. i wanted to say brett baird wrote a very good book about u.s.s. grants. i had on the radio shows excellent book about grant my favorite presidents he wrote a -- branco made quite a

terrific about abraham lincoln and frederick douglass. tw oonents of slavery, different style different positions. he did a good job. i am really very keen on the books i brought here with me. i was not sure the assignment was going to be. the two books i am really keen on one is the book about the gilded age which is the charlie morris book wherever i put that. that is the jazz age one. >> here's the tycoons. >> there it is. the tycoons that links to the age bookfor the jazz is about warren harding. i want to group them all together i'm going to give an opinion here left wing

historians have destroyed these presidents. and by the way they tried to destroy grant although it is you who told me grant started to move up the list again. >> on the c-span quadrennial list ofgr presidential rankings ... grant has been moving up steadily. >> deservedly so. not only did he win the civil war on the battlefield but as i said to you yesterday rant was a guy who tried to enforce reconstruction. grant was the guy who took on the ku klux klan. and by the way grant end of the war income tax most of the value of the dollar to stop the civil war inflation. liberal historians do not like grants for the do not like warren g harding they do not like calvin coolidge. they used to not like ronald reagan but so much material has come up with reagan in his own hand in her realized he was

quite infectious. let's go to the gilded age. all right? the gilded age -- i'm going to define it as kind of like 1870 -- 1910 or something. it may some running room on them. i'm actually going to include u.s. grants into this. grant was president from 68 -- 76. the gilded age was a second industrial revolution print the gilded age was a phenomenal period of inventions, railroads across the country, airplanes, oil, the applications of oil. i just brought a list because gosh i was hoping we could go into this stuff. electricity, telegraph, rail lines automobile airplanes the red cross come on.

they're badmouthing everything. the tv show in them all out to be villains it's all about social climate and stuff like that. they completely miss the bigio picture. this is a picture of unheralded prosperity for the united states. america became the greatest country in the world economically during the so-called gildedld age. it was the second industrial revolution. my saintly wife is also a terrific artist, painter, the hudson river painters came through thomas egan's, john singer sargent tremendous stuff. steven crane, a chicago exposition of 1893, i hope this get this right if i don't she will correct me. ninety-three or 1896. by the way the wright brothers

1903 was during the gilded age. what charles larson does is heha chronicles a few of these guys rockefeller, carnegie and j.p. morgan. i'm just saying this was not an error at this was an era of american greatness and prosperity with the tens of of people getting higher paying jobs. you just cannot ask for more. it was a tremendous period of literature and a tremendous period of art. that is why wanted to bring that up. there's lots of good books about the sea tycoons is a good place to start. a lot of good books about this. at the university of texas has written about this a number of good historians have written about this for liberal historians off slaughtered they just missed the point. i do not know why. the progressive period of woodrow wilson cannot boast anything like this but the other thing is the 1920s, the jazz age. and again people like to kill

harding. now there was corruption in the harding administration. but as mr. walters shows had nothing to do with harding. and the people that were corrupt got busted and thrown in jail. his harding had nothing to do with it. he was good middle-of-the-road conservative republican senator from ohio. but here's the thing about harding. returns to normalcy. i said this earlier in the show, working with calvin coolidge's the first law and order he stopped to fully strike in massachusetts people forget about that he was tough on crime that's a big issue today. andrew mellon was the quarterback. they/tax rates. and they slashed spending. and they even slashed the

federal debt even though i don't care about that as much as some people do. we had unbelievable prosperity in the 1920s. again, another industrial age. literature, everything exploded. and unfortunately herbert hoover came in and even though he was a republican and he served. coolidge called him a wonder boy hoover was a very good businessman he was a mining engineer and he was a great humanitarian. but as secretary of commerce coolidge had no timead for him because he was a big government guy. hoover it was a big government guy even though we had the hoover institution in stanford which is all about free market, hoover himself took seek tax rate from 25 -- 65%. and he sighed the tariff and i know there was restrictive tariffs during thesese republicn years but not like that is a

terrible mistake it turned a modest downturn and into a major depression. fdr made it worse he kept controlling prices. so i am readingdise these booksi like to talk about these books. i love the gilded age stuff personally. if i had it to do over again i would have liked to have been grover cleveland the democrat is one of my favorites. he was a pro gold spending cutter would not fathom the income tax, buffalo, new york hm was the mayor and governor of new york and president i think all within about five, six, eight years. honey's only got to come back and be president again i think. i like to grover cleveland. like u.s. grants. and i like warren harding.

i specially like calvin coolidge. and i like ronaldal reagan. i like donald trump. >> wasn't grover cleveland the father of little baby ruth? [laughter] >> 's opponents go after these guys grover cleveland was the last gold democrat. only weight william jennings bryan. [inaudible] stay what we have time for one or two more calls john is in lakeland, florida you are on with larry kudlow. i honor you with this? let's. >> this is john. this is john from connecticut. i want to know if you think john kennedy the senator from louisiana would be a good presidential candidate in 2024?

>> thank you sir will leave it right there were running short on time. >> i don't have john kennedy's very small the current senator is a very smart man. see what is he someone you know? when you were in the white house how often do you talk to senators or congressmen? >> tones, constantly. i love dylan to senator kennedy. i actually introducing bespoke here at the big state party fundraiser i introduced him he was just on my tv show recently very smart guy. >> frank from kirkland florida. frank you are on the air. >> hi that's kirk and washington how are you mr. "kudlow"? stu and i apologize. >> caller: that's fine. i happen to enjoy read with some of the issues but some of them i do not.

i think the color is a bit behind in the trump administration. people here in the state of washington think the republicans drive up the fed the democrats come in and try to fix that mess. what is "kudlow"'s positionku on that? elon musk made a great argument about robots coming in and taking the place ofe workers. and he gave a position they would start having to pay workers salary there would be nh more jobs thank you both very much. >> are right that was a little hard to hear, didng you get anything out of that you can respond to? >> robots are not going to replace the workforce. that is the most exaggerated

overstated argument. robots will help grow the economy and create jobs just like all of these industrial revolution improvements do. it's called gales of creative destruction i'm a great advocate of that. i'm not sure i heard his first question. >> i just cannot hear it clearly enough to put words in his mouth. i want to do something here and i last five minutes. to go through some headlines and just get your quickn take on these. these are from recent newspapers. his duty at times a story onna tucker carlson american nationals. >> you know, i read it quickly. tucker's longtime friend of mine he's a very smart guy. he has done a fabulous job as a broadcaster just looks like a "new york times" political hit job to me.

what u.s. economy strings 1.4%, over here amazon loses money. >> guest: well look, high inflation again high inflation the fed's going have to take with a punch bowl. the stock market is going to be in for a rough time the next si. but i do want to say this people should buy and own stocks for the long run. the fact the market does go down somewhere which i think is likely because i think the economy is going through stagflation. but we may be on the inflation people made by the dip in and hold onto them for average not try to out trade the market and again the calories coming. >> "washington post" biden aid plan for ukraine signals deepening or. >> i did not read that.

i will say my view is joe biden athas been a dollar short and a day late on helping ukraine. but i will also say it looks like they're 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 we shoulde help ukraine when the war and drive the russians out of their territory. they would immediately ask jen to lead elon musk. >> i did not read tim's article. i happen to really like elon musk. i really like what he is doing with respect to twitter and his crusades for free speech. and i just think he is a brilliant, brilliant guy.

happy to have them on board. >> host: one final story this is from the "washington post". proud boys member pleads guilty in generate six cooperation deal. january 6 where were you? >> posted my office on the second floor. i did not m read that. i'll just make one commentwa january 6 was a rough day for everybody. but i will say this people who accuse my former boss donald mptrump lips somehow fermenting instruction a revolution they ought to go back and look at some facts. my friendmu droit murdoch is rit about this but others have two. it was president trump who ordered ten -- 20000 national guard's people who police the capitol in the city of washington. r in that order was rejected by the mayor of washington and by the speaker of the house.

so for a guy is trying to promoted insurrection don't you think it's odd or dull people think it's odd he would want 20000 national guard's people and to protect the city and the capitol? so i will just leave that there. through it in from insanity once more she is a collection of larry kudlow's columns, september 16, 2017 there is not a racist hateful white supremacist bone in donald trump's body. we are going to finish with this quote from larry kudlow to people magazine i do not believe in retirement i do not understand the word i just adore working. work is a virtue what else am i going to do? [laughter] >> a do not believe there is a racist bone in donald trump's body. i will repeat that. and i could not imagine not working. as long as the lord gives me the strength to work at the opportunities i will continue to work. i love it too much i will just

keel over on the set of some tv show and you'll cart me away and will be done with it. [laughter]h, >> larry kudlow thank you for being a book tv. thank you to both you and your us. judy for hosting >> my saintly wife. >> for hosting us appear in the library in connecticut. ♪ weekends on cspan2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's story and on sunday book tv bris you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for cspan2 comes from these television companies and more including comcast. >> are you thinking this is just a community center? no it's way more than that. comcast has partnered with 1000 can be dissenters to create wi-fi enabled so students from low-income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. comcast along with these television companies support cspan2 as a public