effective one, but it is one that has the most challenging because it requires a willing partner. any other questions? i've solved everything. >> all right. thank you all for coming. >> thank you. >> if there are no other questions, thank you, guys. [applause] >> tomorrow, joe biden will speak at a fundraiser. our coverage starts live at 6:15 eastern with the former vice president scheduled to speak at 7:00 here on c-span. joining us on newsmakers, larry kudlow. thank you for being with us. cook.nancy thekudlow, let me begin on

issue of china and trade. last week, you said we have china over a barrel. where do things stand? mr. kudlow? : actually, we are making good progress. the basic message is we are gaining on it. we are moving forward, closing on a deal. there are still issues to be resolved, particularly in the enforcement area and also want to say as i have in the past, the discussions here have gotten deeper than at a time in u.s.-china trade relations. three weeks ago, he came with his top deputies and that went very well and of course, he has

to go back and get parents from president xi and then we had whatever it is, teleconference meetings everyday last week. mnuchin andteven bob lighthizer made a lot of good progress. are not quite there yet. -- they are not quite there yet. there are still some places to hasbut bob lighthizer taught me everything about trade. he's a very cautious man, but he is indicating that we are gaining on it and we have some things to do. one of the most interesting things or two of the most interesting things, china's people's congress, they passed a restrain any intellectual property theft and

will also restrain any forced transfer of technology which is an ownership question that will allow the united states companies operating in china to own their own companies and these joint ventures, which forced us to give up blueprints in technology, so the people's congress has balls to deal with that. the currency fixes very well. devaluations and absolute transparency for any intervention in the open market. that is to breaking -- breaking new ground. we are interested more in enforcement kind of issues. we have proposed a very comprehensive enforcement, which would move through. it will go through three layers between china and the united

designate they are not in compliance, we will thert to tariffs and chinese have agreed not to retaliate. we are waiting on a final signoff off on that. it is a very clever approach. i was in a meeting the other day with the republican senators. the president spoke very well on that. we need a final signoff, but i think for moving ahead nicely. >> i think there was talk about completing this agreement at mar-a-lago at the end of the month. do you think that is happening or it needs more time? mr. kudlow: i don't want to get into that forecasting business. i think a little more time is going to be necessary. this is a 140 page document and

they are going through it line by line. i'm on the trade principles doing the actual negotiations. if you can imagine my my line on the phone late into the evening, it takes a little more time. there was some talk about how a resident she does it was canceled. untrue.simply you cannot cancel something that was not scheduled. the month oferhaps april. it is not in cement. repeat mops to lighthizer -- repeat bob lighthizer. u.s. and china negotiations are closing in on a deal. we are in the final weeks of the agreement. that is what bob lighthizer is

saying. we are close. i don't know whether it is the first week of april, second week of april, third week, the more you get into april, the nicer it will be for me to go down to mar-a-lago and the weather will be fantastic. here's my point. we are getting close. reports from some media outlets that we want to spur the stock market is utter nonsense. it has to be right and again, present from told the meeting with the republican senators on wednesday it has to be a great deal. protect our workers, farmers, ranchers, our businesses, our technology. it has to. we are getting closer. if you don't reach a deal,

what do you think will happen to the markets? mr. kudlow: i don't want to do what it frictions on that something. i suppose there might be some disappointment. then again, it depends on the conditions. mind you, if we don't get something done in its entirety in the second week of april, the third week of april, that does not mean it is over. that just means it is taking a little longer. knows we woulddy like president xi and president trump to get together and sit itn and sign off on this and is not a time factor. it is a right factor. it has to be good. president contradict in the in the cabinet room the other day. i said it had to be a good deal and he said it had to be a great deal and i'm all for that.

the enforcement mechanism is very important. i will say republican senators, predominantly the traders, are absolutely behind us and agree with this, so patients. patience. >> there has been some thegreement about how long deal -- does it have to be precooked before they set up that meeting? mr. kudlow: that is a good question. i think it should mostly be done before the two leaders get together. whether it has to be entirely done, i don't want to speculate on that. i read some things that you all are writing. we are going to have to be close , maybe a few less details in order to get the two leaders

together and i think the , wetiators on both sides know that president xi -- present she knows that, we know that. i just don't want to be held or mislead you. we don't necessarily know all that, but again, we are getting close. that is what mr. lighthizer said. bob has taught me everything i know about trade in the year i have been in this office is a cautious man. for him to say we are getting closer on it is a very positive development. >> what is one thing you did not know that you learned in this process? mr. kudlow: that is a great question. it has been a year. i'm not a trade expert. . have learned a lot of things

two points. proven that has essentialn be and are -- an essential negotiation tool and he believes and i agree that our use of tariffs helped bring them to the table in more serious ways than ever before. economy is the hottest economy in the world. the china economy has been slumping or quite some time because they have been departing from their reforms and because our tariffs hurt them. i think they want to rescue their economy. their economy, i'm told, is

really the most important terminal issue with regard to president xi's own thinking and his policies. i think president trump has taught a lot of us that tariffs can be very useful negotiating tools and i want to add to that because i have worked very closely with the president, ,hether it is g7, g20, china europe or any of these places. tariffs are not an end to themselves. he wants a free, fair reciprocal trading system. i call it the three zeros. i wrote a column about this. we would love to see a world of zero tariffs, nontariff barriers and such things. we would love to see a world that is fully reciprocal, so they treat us as we treat them. tariffnnot have an 80%

on something. that has to change. that has done damage to our own economy and workforce. , nonetheless,cs tariffsidents use of have been instrumental and positive in negotiations. i have experienced this with europe. i helped work on that. , bob lighthizer's most brilliant new template for trade deals. with usingng tariffs. other presidents shied away. gos president refused to let guy.s.china story

refuse to let go of the china story. he dug in and it hurt him. >> there have been some critics who have said maybe the administration had been too friendly with the company like boeing. had groundedountry these planes and the u.s. was madeast to act and the ceo personal calls to the president. can you walk us through why the trump administration move so slow and in retrospect, maybe they should have moved more quickly? i happened to be sitting in on the phone call. , i don't know if you've ever had the experience cross-examination. i'm in there all the time. you better be ready and he had a

lot of tough questions for boeing. i'm not going to go into the details of a private conversation, but the fact that we waited a day is of no consequence. i would not read anything into that. decisions were made over the department of transportation. we are still trying to find the black box and open it up. we had some trouble with the ethiopians. a wanted to go to a third party and this and that. it will get squared away. it has nothing to do with commercial considerations as far as we are concerned and everything to do with safety considerations, so to be honest with you i would not read into that. a do you think it will take long time for them to sort out whether these planes are safe? this will be fixed

in a couple of days or it will take quite a while? directlyw: i'm not involved in that. you can be sure that the ot and faa will not reopen the boeing -- the dot and the faa will not reopen the boeing routes until they are one is a percent safe -- one of 2% safe -- 100% safe. i'm not blaming here, just giving you a narrative. they will not be on the runways until they are one to percent -- until they are 100% certain. [no audio] >> announced to reporters. what was the new data because other countries had data that

made them ground the planes 24 hours earlier. mr. kudlow: i'm going to lead those details alone. first of all, i'm not an expert. the president himself and you have seen his tweets has been somewhat skeptical about the advanced computerization of these planes. i'm not going to go there because it is not my field of expertise. data, get thehe black box, it will be examined. there is no higher priority than the safety of the united states and world travelers here. boeing is a fine company. they may have to make fixes. again, i'm not an expert. i don't want to point to any one thing. i just want to say i think we did the prudent thing and we will continue to act

accordingly. >> the recently passed -- mr. kudlow: it is actually a little less than that, but who's counting? >> still a lot of money. mr. kudlow: it is funny. the american economy is $20 trillion real gdp. worthold network -- net is well over $100 trillion. . don't regard that as alarming i know people like to talk about that. , first andere

foremost, more than any other economy togrow the its maximum potential. growth solves a lot of problems. for example, in our latest budget out this past week, and weg is about 5% gdp are showing a longer-term baseline where we will be cycling down those ratios and it is based on two things. number one, we are sticking with our view that lower marginal tax to work,ate incentives produce and invest and we are in effect rebuilding the american economy in ways that are 20

years old plus. we are maintaining our efforts to roll back all manner of unnecessary regulations. it is very interesting. if you look into a statistic called new business applications and new business formations. i think the face of the new trump economy right now is to pull. men and women starting and voting -- owning their own regulationscause not only give them an incentive .ward, but make it easier of course, we have opened up the energy sector and make -- made these trays reforms -- trade reforms. secondly, blue-collar workers,

we have the best employment increases since i was here during the reagan era. the blue-collar pay scales are thanastest-growing white-collar pay scales. i'm not saying they are higher, they are just growing more rapidly. and finally, i'm very proud of this. most powerful influence into the labor force are women. we have not seen that in a long time. of the newike 62% jobs of the past year or so have come from women and the unemployment rate, which is 3.8% ,verall, you go down the line african americans, women, asians, hispanics, even things do not havewho

college education, they are coming back into the labor force because of high wages and they are being retrained and re-skilled by your friend and colleague. a bucket truck has done a great job on this. lower andeventually lower the debt burden on the economy so it is not a problem. that is what i'm saying. >> the u.s. economy had a really strong year last year, growth and job, but we are all watching europe closely, china as well, particularly with brexit. brought -- thought through this? what should americans prepare for if this is not play out well? the -- iw: i talked to talked to the british ambassador constantly.

personally favored brexit, so did the president. i refer to it as magna carta 2.0 . >> should they have a do over both -- vote? if you do: i think that, you risk the british democracy into different pieces. they voted for it. we were with the irish prime minister, a very smart cap. nobody really knows. do your part, no, it will not disrupt the american economy. the whole european economy is near recession and china is the weakest it has been

in decades and so is japan. we are the engine of growth. we create the incentives after-tax, after regulation to promote economic growth, jobs and technological advance. the u.s. drives the rest of the world. i cannot make that point enough. deficitseven our trade which are not thrill us, we are the only source of demand that other countries have. we had the g-7 meetings. we will go again with japan and france. i urged them and said prime minister abbe, who i love, you /or tax rates. you need to get down there.

you should perform your labor add -- so you can [indiscernible] missing from the rest of the world. president trump on the other hand has ended the war on business, on success. some of these crazy socialist people don't seem to have a clue about how that works. people, theyrd will work. rateodel works, lower tax works. john after kennedy -- john f. kennedy did it, ronald reagan did it. we drive the world economy. are we immune from that? no. it is just a small piece.

>> in the budget that just came out, they were projecting the rate of economic growth would continue to be 3% over the next decade. a lot of independent economists agree with that. confident that the u.s. can sustain such a high rate? of taxhe effects legislation peter out? mr. kudlow: no. i'm glad you asked that. i think damien writes about this all the time. one year sugar high thing. the corporate tax rate reduction from 4221 is actually permanent. from 40 two 21 is actually

permanent. years, but it has four more years and the repatriation from overseas is permanent. by the way, the repatriation is billion for $750 2018, which i'm sorry, i cannot ,emember the joint tax numbers it has to be three times more and that anticipated money is going into wages, bonuses, dividends, share buybacks and capital spending. capital spending which is the hardest. we are investing has never before and money is coming in from all over the world. the dollar is strong because we are working and they are not.

if you are going to play that year,the sugar high one let's just get the facts right. it is not one year, it is a whole bunch of years going to 2024, 2025 and so on. end?hould it and -- we will have a soft first-quarter, we always do. i think you will see it picked up very nicely. we are already seeing a nice move up in the stock market and am very pleased the federal reserve is on hold. their was thrilled about interest rate hikes in the fourth quarter and i will say this. supply side tax cuts, which on thed more investment

supply side of the economy, more production. hour invity output per a capitalist economy, that is that iser of it, 1.8%, the best number we've had in many many years. why can't this go on for quite some time? i don't want to forget the fact that there is no inflation. so all those folks with all viacom -- economic metric models that have argued for so many decades and i have been fighting this for so many years i cannot even remember. the fact that the economy can grow faster from supply-side tax cuts, with a steady dollar, it does not cause inflation. more people working is bad?

no. working with higher productivity and better wages? no. look at the market signals. look at the market signals. the bond market spreads are telling you know inflation. the 10 year, we are worried about the deficit and so forth. 2.6come the 10 year bond is percent? if it wasn't such a crisis it would be higher than that. markets are giving you a signal. the economy is giving you a signal. i praise the federal reserve for shifting policies. one thing we are hearing a lot on the campaign trail, even from republicans in washington is this big tech idea that something needs to be done about google, facebook, others that are gathering all of this personal data. do you have a view on that? is the white house looking at addressing this in some way? mr. kudlow: i will not give you

a clear view. we are looking at it. it is very important issue. adjunct. add one other we are doing well in 5g. there is this idea that it is a catastrophe. we are doing very well, we are very well ahead of our chinese counterparts. we will do more and more. do know why? free-market entrepreneurial private sector investment always wins. government control and socialism all andth care for paying everybody whether they work or not and the green new deal which will probably cost $100 trillion and take 10% gdp out of the economy. maybe we can come back and talk about this. putting socialism on trial.

i will convict socialism. this is a teaching moment. the young people, the so-called millennials who are going to work will come around to our point of view. remember what rinse and churchill -- what winston churchill said. when you are in your 20's, if you are not a socialist you have no heart. when you are in your 30's if you are not a capitalist, you have no brain. i don't mean this to be condescending. i think this is a teaching moment. our system, with its freedom and prosperity is the greatest system in the history. i do not change it. i don't want to punish people. i want to reward them. and many other places, we, the usa have the lead and will remain in the lead. this weekend marks one year

at the white house. in our last interview you had your heart attack a couple weeks into the job, how are you feeling? you're very kind to ask, i feel great. i absolutely feel great. this is the greatest job i have ever had. i was here years ago in a lower level job. it is a great honor for me. i love working with president trump. i am with him all day, every day. using the right policies to rebuild america. it is an honor for me to be a part of that, thank you. >> larry kudlow is the director of the white house national economic council. thanks for being with us. mr. kudlow: i appreciate it. >> we continue the conversation

with a reporter from the washington post. let me begin with you on china. what is going to happen next? larry kudlow presented a very optimistic view of the administration dealing with china and wanted to make the point that the talks were going well. he made a little bit of news in saying the meeting with president trump and president xi, we thought it would originally be at the end of march. that signaled there may be some sticking points, which he talked about over enforcement. it is a little more slow-growing than the administration thought. the $22emed to downplay trillion debt. >> the other thing he downplayed was the idea that the markets and how they would've reacted of the deal didn't come together. that is a huge understatement, if there is no deal on china and

there are tariffs, the marckets will be hugely disappointed. deficit, those concerns he downplayed. i think he is mirroring his own views but president trump's. president trump is a republican been terribly concerned about those things in office. surprisekind of because the white house went out of its way to defend boeing. the u.s. was the last country to not ground the plane. that president trump was president tough on the ceo of boeing, asked a lot of hard questions and they will not let these planes back on the runway until they are 100% certain the planes are safe. all on big tech, we are kind of curious where the white house stands with this emerging debate about big companies and

all this information they are collecting and selling. nec isudlow said the studying this closely and thinking about doing something. >> we heard that from elizabeth warren. clearly this will be an issue in the primary. republicans have been making similar comments. how much information to these companies store? how come they are not being more transparent? we will be hearing more about paign trail cam and on the hill. >> they have been presenting themselves as a pro-business administration. this would be one instance in which they might be thinking thet how to rein in technology companies or reevaluate power. >> nancy cook, white house reporter. is the white house economic policy beat for the "washington post."

thanks for being with us on c-span. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] where history unfolds daily. in 19 79, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public-policy events in washington dc and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. congressman mike doyle of pennsylvania is the chair of the energy and commerce subcommittee on communications and technology. the subcommittee that deals with a myriad of tech issues. congressman doyle, thanks for being our guest on"the communactors