mr. kudlow: i think it will be important. reporter: is it make or break? mr. kudlow: it's an important meeting is a -- i am trying to et -- who can go online? google up determinative. amon, you are a smart guy. reporter: it means determine the difference, right? kudlow: that's not the end of the game. you know that, the deadlines are later. i'm just saying, look, i know the vice premiere quite well. i know his top deputies quite well. they are bringing the authority to president xi, following the talks in beijing and we are all looking forward to it. my only point on the other matter was, you can't cancel a meeting that was never scheduled. and i don't know how that got out. reporter: [inaudible] mr. kudlow: can you cancel the -- reporter: cancel the [inaudible] mr. kudlow: can you cancel the state of the union that's not been scheduled? i am not sure where you are going with that. reporter: [inaudible] mr. kudlow: we'll go off-line on that. look, president trump would love to give the state of the union address. that's what he said. others, i'm sorry. i got to

mr. kudlow: you move over. [laughter] mr. kudlow: i will talk to you directly. that is the way i am. america is predominantly a private sector economy. i just want to make that point. you will say kudlow, this free market stuff. you are right, i have believed that for many decades. the government is part of that. it sometimes makes us better, sometimes does not. the items you are referring to, whatever those may be, are a small share of the economy, a very small share. the government sector, fortunately, is a small share of the economy. i do not want to get in any trouble giving details of this. i will simply say that when government business resumes, the switch will turn and you will not even hardly know what happened, to be perfectly honest. i went through this many years ago for president reagan. inovered it as a broadcaster other shutdowns. this is temporary stuff. everybody knows it is temporary. we will resume very quickly. >> [indiscernible] and other small businesses ancillary impact? mr. kudlow: if they can prove their worth, they can get it back then. >> the march for life t

mr. kudlow: i just say as i have for a while i think the economy is very strong. i know there's disagreements. i think as the numbers shake out, commerce department is reopening, we will get a g.d.p. report probably next week. we'll get a jobs report this friday. so that will work out. based on things we talked about here, unemployment claims are low. industrial production is strong. business investment is strong. holiday sales very strong. i still think we are on a 3% trend line growth rate. i'm proud of that. i think that the program of lower tax rates and regulatory rollback and opening up energy and so forth is working and is continuing to work. and i think, frankly, the optimists, the guys who took it over will be right. yes, major. reporter: do you consider valid the estimates that the shutdown cost the u.s. government $8 billion to $11 billion? mr. kudlow: i think you're referring to c.b.o. numbers. we disagree with c.b.o. with all respect they are doing the best job they can. i get that. no, i won't acknowledge any of that right now. and, you know, in a $2

mr. kudlow: hardships -- they are very bad. have young people on my staff and i know the stories that i read in the papers. hardship is a bad thing. having said that, the president has tried his mightiest to make a compromise, a deal, with the democrats to solve this. but the solution, with respect to border security and the wall, must include the principles that he has been saying. security at the border is vital to the health, wealth and economy. that is my personal view. sometimes you have to stand up for it. now, i believe because i am the happy warrior that calmer heads will prevail and we will get through this and be better off for it. that is my personal view. the president is doing the right thing, we must have borders. we have a drug problem, criminal problem, gang problems, we have all kinds of problems. we tried immigration reform, this administration has pushed plans on immigration reform, sometimes without we had it and it went up in smoke. you have to stand up for what you believe in. >> how concerned are you abou

mr. kudlow. can the economy sustain another government shutdown? sarah: as i toldthat, we don't want another shutdown. we want a deal that that addresses border security. it seems like it should be so simple we're all in agreement that we need it, we're all in agreement that there's a problem, let's fix it. reporter: can the economy, larry cud he was hopeful and optimistic even though the numbers show otherwise. sarah: the numbers don't show otherwise. the number shows we have an incredibly strong economy. the numbers show that jobs continue to grow, wages continue to rise, unemployment continues to drop, the numbers are actually very much in the favor of the things that larry laid out. again, do we want another shutdown? no. but the president and his team have focused on long-term economic stability, long-term economic fundamentals and we think if the had to we could sustain that but we don't want to. that's not the goal. reporter: there's seven people now indicted that have some kind of connection to either the campaign or the president. have the

mr. kudlow: nobody, including myself, likes the hardship caused, the temporary hardship caused by the government shutdown. dy

mr. kudlow said about the negotiations, i think the president would agree with what i'm about to say.vious negotiations with china have all been failures. making this bigger doesn't make it better. it just makes it a bigger failure. you have to trust your partner to do what they say they're going to do. i don't think it's possible to trust the chinese to implement what they say they're going to do in this deal. >> dana: i think if i can get one quick word from you just about the human rights violations of china and how much part of that should be under consideration when we go to the table with them? >> well, i think that's a sign that this government is worse than the previous government. that the situation with china has deteriorated and our trade policy and other policies haven't changed. chinese called them reeducation camp. that sounds bad to me. that's the government you're making a deal with. i find that extremely questionable, and i hope the president eventually does as well. >> dana: all right, derek scissor, thanks for coming on the show. from the new york city courtroom to

mr. kudlow. can this economy sustain with another government shutdown? >> again, as i told jonathan, we don't want another government shut down. we want a deal that actually addresses border security. seems like it should be so simple. we're all in agreement we need it. we're all in agreement there is a problem. so we need to fix it. reporter: can the economy, larry kudlow was very hopeful and optimistic, even though the numbers show otherwise -- >> the numbers don't show otherwise. the numbers show we have incredibly strong economy. the numbers show jobs continue to grow, waynes continue to rise, unemployment continues to drop. the numbers are very much in the favor of the things that larry laid out. again do we want another shutdown? no. but the president and his team have focused on long-term economic stability, long-term economic fundamentals and we think if we had to we could sustain that, but certainly we don't want to. that not the goal. go ahead. reporter: so there are several people that are now indicted that have some kind of connection to eith

mr. kudlow have been talking about how big it is, the more complicated it will be to monitor and enforce,ore likely it will be to fall apart. that's why i think we are actually in the early innings. lauren: so many questions for you right now. okay. let's go back a little bit. back to the baseball analogy. what constitutes a home run of a deal, then, if some of these issues might be too big to actually make a deal on? can our investors, are businesses going to change their mind of what constitutes a deal? >> well, i think it would be a mistake, it would be like a long fly ball that gets caught to just look at the terms of the deal and say okay, that's it, we're done. what's going to constitute a home run is something that's enforceable from the american side, because otherwise, it's going to unravel over time. we are going to have the heat of a presidential election coming up where democrats are certainly going to attack the president's record on china. if the deal is enforceable, the deal can stick. if the deal doesn't look enforceable, if it relies on chinese ious, it will fall apart. s

mr. kudlow. can this economy sustain with another government shut down? >> again, as i told jonathan, we don't want another government shut down. we want a deal that addresses border security. seems like it should be so simple. we are all in agreement that we need it. we're in agreement there's a problem. let's fix it. >> can the economy -- larry kudlow was hopeful and optimistic even though the numbers show otherwise. >> actually, the numbers don't show otherwise. the numbers show we have a strong economy. the numbers show that jobs grow, wages rise, the unemployment numbers drop. do we want another shut down? no. the president and his team have focused on long-term economic stability, long-term economic fundamentals and we think if we had to, we could sustain that. we don't want to. that's not the goal. >> so there's several people that are now indicted that have some kind of connection to the president. have these people tried to make contact with the president via their mutual friends? >> i'm not aware of any contacts with those individuals. >> thanks

mr. kudlow. simon kennedy, it is amazing how you get three or four different economic views.t growth is going to weaken? that you are going to see a quote, unquote boomlet afterwards? simon: after the government reopens, you could expect to see this boom. -- how people who are working for the government are actually looking for other jobs. if you look at the website that people can register their interest for jobs, increasingly looking for other work and manpower. there is a good chance people will go and find jobs elsewhere. that might provide support for the government -- for the economy. does somebody need to blink? how long can the shutdown actually last? rosalind: nobody expects a breakthrough today. the bills they are putting forward our cut. the bill the republicans are putting forward puts funding for the wall. the democrats are supporting a bill that says funding for the government but not for the wall. how you can have a compromise between the fundamental issue of one side wanting the wall and the other side not wanting a wall. there is simply no way through that at

mr. kudlow came on and dispelled some of those rumors can you give us the latest on where everything standsegation of chinese, about 30 people coming over for a couple of days 29th and 30th next week so there is a large group coming, there's been a lot of anticipatory work done but we're miles and miles from getting a resolution and that shouldn't be too surprising trade is complicated there are lots and lots of issues, not just how many soybeans and how much lng but even more importantly, structural reforms that we really think are needed in the chinese economy and then even more important than that enforcement mechanisms and penalties for failure to adhere to whatever we agree to. >> and complex enough to where anyone that's been paying attention knew that it would be impossible to get a completely final deal wrapped up by the time we get the deadline so what is the best we can expect -- i guess portions of things can be decided on but it's going to be we're going to meet for a longer period of time and push out to another date to try to take care of other things you just talked about? is

mr. kudlow's estimates are that much different from the cbo. cbo is saying the lasting macroeconomic impact is .02% of gdp growth. which islose to zero, what the economic advisor is arguing. when it comes to rounding errors like that, the important element is not the macroeconomic impact. it is more of what happened on individual basis all around the country and what could have happened in terms of a disaster if we go through this again. host: he said the bipartisan policy center considered a bipartisan source. what is it? guest: it was founded about 10 years ago by four senate majority leaders. tom daschle, bob dole, howard baker in george mitchell. we do research and education on various policy areas, including economic policy to help inform the public about the important decisions being made. we try to bring policymakers together. our government shutdowns a sensible solution? just aboutthey are the worst outcome we can have when it comes to the way the government functions. the functioning of the congress and the government is to keep the li

isjoined by four other men, treasury secretary mnuchin, will ross and larry kudlow and peter navarro, who is trade adviser. mror his hardline views on trade. he recently said, quote, china is stealing ourfuture. but mr lighthizer has also been very vocal since the late 1990s, in fact warning against china joining the wto. he was worried the us would have use leveraged over china to push them to be more democratic. so tough negotiators facing a chinese tea m tough negotiators facing a chinese team led by the vice premier. he is a harvard educated economist and was hand—picked by the president, who he has apparently been friends with since they were teenagers, and he has been called the brains behind china's shift in economic policy away from export driven growth and towards domestic consumption so the economies are less reliant on external factors. we will see what they can come up with. hopefully we will find a resolution sooner rather than later. thank you all my up —— thank you for that update. china's biggest firm has established 360 restau ra nts biggest firm has established 360 restaurants around the wor

mr. kudlow: workers are showing up. reporter: it's not volunteering if you are forced to work without pay. [inaudible] so that's not volunteering. that's not what volunteering means. mr. kudlow: you know what, i am not going to go there. you know what i'm saying. it's very clear. you know what else? with respect to people who do have financial hardships, some were asking, they are coming to ork and giving them the same 24/7 work they always did. i would say whatever semantic game you think you are going to an with me -- and i am easygoing guy. they are honoring us. i don't care if you are a republican or democrat, they are -- you know what i'm saying. they are honorous and they do it because of their love for the country and the office of the presidency and presumably their allegiance to president trump. but whatever, they're doing it. give them some credit. you know. there's a lot of wonderful people in this country. there are a lot of wonderful people in this country. especially some of these young -- i've become a --

mr. kudlow: it is what it is. we have a lot to say. the president has a lot to say. you know, it's funny. we didn't have quite time to finish everything in the interview. as somebody who's been involved one way or the other for the last almost three years in trump economic policy, i am very proud of the fact that we are growing at 3% at an annual rate for the two-year period mr. trump has been in office. people said we couldn't do that. my friends in the democratic side -- they're great pals of mine. said we couldn't do it. we're doing it. now through this shutdown glitch, numbers like the unemployment claims are showing. we're still doing it. so i would love a state of the union message. i'd love to talk about our regulatory reforms and our energy reforms and our immigration, border security reforms. lots of other things that will go. we've made great strides in health care, for example. drug prices, by the way, prescription drug prices are coming down. these are all things we'd love to get out. and so the sooner the better. i hope it will happen. yes, please. repor