Larry Kudlow: Perseverance & Persistence
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Welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and we'll talk a little bit about the news, highlight the stupid, because there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And then we're going to phone a friend, and this week, pleased to be calling Larry Kudlow. I've gotten to know Larry over the years. He's got a fascinating background. He played a pivotal role in the Trump administration, and his insights on the economy, I think, are really, really valuable, particularly when it's such tumultuous times and

I want to walk through his background, maybe get to know Larry Kudlow in a way that you haven't gotten to know him in the past. So stick with us for that. But I want to start by a few things in the news that I'm seeing that I think we should be a little bit worried about. I know this is just one sentence, not even a complete sentence of what the White House spokesperson said, but I think it radiates out above and beyond even further than just the one issue that she was talking about.

Her quote was, my advice to everyone out there who's frustrated, sad, angry, pissed off, feel those emotions, go to a kickboxing class, have a margarita, and then she continued on from there. I think she's capturing the idea in the sense that America is frustrated. It is mad. It is ticked off. For her to even acknowledge that is a step forward. But it doesn't just come with, hey, let's do some kickboxing, take a deep breath. I really think she was focused on those emotions.

ultra-left progressive radicals out there that wanted to see the Build Back Better in its full form and full glory pass to bypass the filibuster and do all that.

What she's not recognizing is that the Democrats are taking this radical position of not protecting the minority rights. You know, it would be a lot easier in this country if we just had a monarch or something like that. And we just or a dictator and one person just said, do it this way. And that's the way everything does it. You know, but our founders in their all their glory had this idea that, you

passing legislation was not going to be an easy way to go. It was not something that was easily done. That to me is one of the core reasons why I think they were actually fairly conservative in their approach, that the glide path to making alterations in our economy and our spending and those types of things was difficult. You had to run the gauntlet of the House, the Senate, the President.

to try to build consensus, something that is just escaping the Democrats at this point. And you know what? When Republicans are in power, sometimes they lose grasp of that. But nevertheless, I don't think one kickboxing class is going to actually solve it. And certainly not having a margarita is going to get there, too.

But, you know, Americans are left with, well, what do I do? And we got to make sure that people get out and vote. They participate, that they're paying attention. And it seems like, well, gosh, but then I can only do that every two years. But we ought to be having vigorous debates in this country. And maybe Jen Psaki is missing the bigger, broader point. She's capturing something, but she's missing the rest of it, which is

This president, President Biden and his vice president Harris, they're nowhere, nowhere close to what they promised the American people they were going to do. All right. I want to go to another thing that also involves President Biden and

and Vice President Harris, and that has to do with privacy. This was really highlighted by Senator Braun of Indiana. Behind the scenes, I got to tell you, Senator Braun does some great work because he's from business, he understands business, and he quietly goes about and does his work and highlights things that I think are pertinent and we should all be concerned about. One of the things we should be really concerned about is this Internal Revenue Service, the IRS, moving towards

using or requiring users of its online tax payment services to create an identification account. Now, the idea that we should authenticate accounts is a good one. It's a real one. But what they're trying to do is to create facial recognition.

This scares the living daylights out of me. I just, you know, if you want to go after the criminal element in our country, go for it. You get incarcerated for convicted of a crime. Hey, put you in a database. You're somebody coming into our country.

legally, illegally, whatever it is, let's capture a picture of you and put you in a database. No problem. But if you're a suspicionless American, somebody who hasn't violated a law, isn't even accused of violating a law, I don't trust the federal government with my picture.

I don't trust their ability to hold it safely and security, nor do I trust them to use it for just the things we want them to use it for. We only have to look back at Lois Lerner and how the IRS was targeting people based on their political affiliation.

What's to stop them, for instance, from going to a rally or something and capturing everybody's faces and then being able to ping them or tag them as, hey, this person's a liberal or a Republican, a conservative?

And then using and extrapolating that information out to say, oh, well, we ought to do this and we ought to do that and we ought to do this. There's no end to it. And it scares me. You know, when I was in Congress, I was the chairman of the Oversight Committee, and we happened to catch the Federal Bureau of Investigation populating a database where now one more than one out of every two people in this country are actually in the FBI database.

The problem is that many of those people, again, they haven't committed a crime. They haven't done anything. You know, I'm sure it would be easier for law enforcement if they just collected your DNA right when you were born. Maybe take a fingerprint of you when you, you know, turn a certain age. All of those things would make it easier, but I think violate the Fourth Amendment, that is your reasonable expectation of privacy,

you don't want to violate unreasonable search and seizure. And to be able to go out and collect that information proactively, I'm sure it helps law enforcement, but it doesn't help the individual and the individual and the people of the United States are the ones that are driving this. So be very, very wary of that. I, I, some people say, ah, well, you know, I don't do anything wrong. So what's the harm? Um,

Yeah, government with more information about you personally is a scary thing because I don't trust them. They lose it and they manipulate it and they use it in ways that they shouldn't have used it in the past. So that's a concern. It's this program ID.me. Just be worried about it. Pay attention to it. And I'm just telling you, this is going to create more problems that it's going to solve. Well, speaking of creating problems,

Now it's time to bring on the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. All right, we got two candidates this week for the stupid. They're short, they're sweet, they're pretty dumb in what they're doing. One was just a flat-out mistake. You know, it's what happens. But I think her name is Nayeta. Evidently, she's this 21-year-old R&B singer, and I'm sure she's fabulous. She signed on to Jay-Z's Rock Nation album,

He was doing a music video, evidently laying down and having these serpents and these snakes. One of the snakes went ahead and bit her right on the face, right on the chin there.

She actually had a pretty good approach to it. She said there's no hard feelings and she just kind of rolled with it. But I did think it was funny on TMZ to go back and see that. Well, what do you think was going to happen? Would you think it was going to happen if you laid down with a bunch of snakes? One might bite you in the face. And it did. All right. Candidate number two. This is by far worse than candidate number one, who was just trying to do something artsy and, you know, went awry and she laughed it off.

But at thesmokinggun.com, which I do look at regularly because there's always, I mean, talk about stupid going on there. All right, a Connecticut teacher. Now, I wish I knew what she taught, but I don't. Back just a few days ago, it was announced there on thesmokinggun.com that this Connecticut teacher left her two children. Two children. I believe they were ages 9 and 11.

She left them at home while she vacationed with her boyfriend in Florida. So she's in Connecticut, takes off to Florida. And according to investigators who say the woman told minors to stay out of sight in the residence basement. Just eat candy for dinner is evidently what these kids were told. Don't go outside. Don't get seen. Keep all the windows shut. Stay in the basement. Just eat candy. And I'll be back in a few days.

So this Carrie Kaviaska, I don't know again how to pronounce her last name, age 36. She was arrested on Saturday on reckless endangerment and risk of injury charges in connection with her three-day trip to the Sunshine State there in late November.

She's out on a $5,000 bond in advance of having to go before the court. I don't know how that's going to turn out, but come on. You don't leave a nine-year-old and three-year-old to fend for themselves and say, just eat candy for dinner and take off for three days with your boyfriend. But that's what she did, and that is the stupid.

All right, now it's time to phone a friend because I'm thrilled to give a call to Larry Kudlow. He is the former director of the National Economic Council under the Trump administration. He served there from 2018 to 2021. So let's give a call to Larry Kudlow.

Hi, Jason. Hey, Larry. Yeah, Jason Chavis. Thanks so much for joining me on this Jason in the House podcast. I do appreciate it. My great pleasure. You know, I first got to know you, I was in Congress and you were so kind to me because, you know, you had this show and you had me on, then you had me on again. And then I started going to visit you in the studio and you had me on like so much. And it was such a pleasure to

You were just so nice and so kind to me. I really do appreciate it. Well, I remember that. I remember actually bringing your wife at least one time. Yes.

I told you you were a star. I said, you're going to be a star. Well, you know, I actually got partly got the fever because I got to really kind of see up close and personal what you're doing, how you were doing it. And it was just so fun. I thought, yeah, this would be fun to do more regularly. So, yeah, we had some good times there. So thank you so much. Yeah, it was great stuff. That was a while ago. But here we are in a different life.

different life and you know you've made an impact and you've toggled in and out of these administrations but you've also been out you know really projecting a voice and giving clarity to financial matters and I kind of want to go back if I could with you Larry and just kind of let's contrast the different presidents and the different styles because you know you had some you had some good time in the Reagan administration tell us a little bit about what you were doing there and and uh

How did President Reagan change the world? I was the economics deputy at OMB, Office of Management and Budget. And it was kind of fluky, that whole area, because, I mean, I was for Reagan. I was one of the supply-side tax cutters.

in New York, one of the only ones on Wall Street. But we were aligned with the Wall Street Journal editorial board and my great pal, Art Laffer, and a bunch of us. Anyway, the way that started, I was at Bear Stearns as their chief economist. And I guess David Stockman, who was a House member from Michigan,

came to New York. He had been nominated to be OMB director. And he had a tour, and I was on the tour. And I didn't really know him. Now, he was with Jack Kemp, who I knew very well. Jack was kind of a mentor of mine, and one or two other people. Anyway, he came into the office at Bear Stearns, and the economy was a catastrophe.

inflation, recession, big interest rates, double digit interest rates. And I was just showing him some charts. I'm a chart guy. I guess I made my bones originally as a numbers and chart guy. And I was just showing him, you know, look at this, look at that. Here's what you have to do here. Here's what you have to do there. So anyway, he goes away and

I'm nominated to become a partner at Bear Stearns, which was a big deal. And I was just a kid. I was 29 or 30 years old. And a couple of weeks later,

And maybe a month later, late December, mid to late December, Stockman calls me and he said, I want you and a friend of mine named John Rutledge. I need you guys to come down and do the modeling, the economic modeling for the Reagan plant, you know, which was fantastic.

And its basic was tax cuts, cross-the-board supply-side tax cuts, pouring money into the Defense Department for military strength and conquering inflation at the same time. And so I talked to Rolich, who was a pal of mine. He was teaching college in California. And we went down there, and they assembled this transition group

All the Republican bigwigs were there. It was really my introduction to national politics, I guess. Arthur Burns and Milton Friedman and, of course, Art Laffer, Charles Walker, I don't know, a whole bunch of people. George Shultz, William Simon, who I knew, the former Treasury Secretary. I had done a lot of speech writing for Simon in the late 70s. And that's how I got involved. And we wound up working in

in the OMB, in the old executive office building. And I remember we were putting numbers together. Nobody ever heard of us. Rutledge and I were on the cover of Newsweek and Time. It was just hilarious. I mean, you know how crazy Washington is. And I don't know, one night Stockman, they decided to send Stockman up to the Hill to testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee.

And that had not been done before. Reagan was not yet inaugurated and Stockman actually had been voted on as budget director. But so I'm up until one or two in the morning writing testimony for Stockman because I had done a lot of speech writing down through the years for different folks. And I get a call from James Baker,

who was the chief of staff, just gone in to come across the street and visit him. This is like one in the morning, I think. And so he sits down and he says, I hear you're a smart guy and this and that, blah, blah, blah. And then he said, we want you to stay. We don't want you to go back to New York and Bear Stearns. We want you to stay and be the economics deputy at OMB. And I said, well, you know, can I call my boss?

Because I was going to give up a fair amount of money. Anyway, I called Ace Greenberg, who was the CEO of Bear Stearns, the next day. And he said, no, you should do this. You should do this. Then you'll come back here and it'll help your career, which is really quite nice. And so that's what I did. And then the funny part on that testimony. So I go up with Stockman, these big black notebooks, and

And he's testifying and I'm kind of sitting off to his left with the notebooks and some charts and whatever. And on the panel was Senator Moynihan, Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

And I had worked as a researcher for Moynihan. I was a Democrat in the 70s. And actually Stockman at Harvard Divinity School was a babysitter for Moynihan. So we show up. I mean, it's a crazy time. We show up and there's a whole panel of these senators and it was big news and the economic plan and blah, blah, blah.

And Moynihan gives this loud stage whisper and he says, oh my God, they both work for me. And actually Pat and I got even friendlier and friendlier down through the years. I had been a research guy for him. So that's how the thing started. And I spent three years in Reagan's first term at the Office of Managed Budget and

I know in those days, OMB had more visibility, maybe because of Stockman. But I was given presentations to the cabinet, the president. In the Trump days, they'd ever reached down. I mean, the OMB director, Mick Mulvaney and so forth, and later Russell Vogt, but not the deputies. But anyway, that's how it did it. It was a lot of fun. Boy, did I learn a lot.

Yeah, nothing like jumping into the fire there at pretty young. And you did give up, I'm sure, a pretty penny to walk away from Bear Stearns to go do that. But let's go back even earlier. So growing up, when did you kind of like understand that, you know, the economy numbers? I mean, that doesn't come naturally to a lot of people. Tell us a little bit about growing up and what life was like when...

Larry Kudlow was just a little kid. Yeah, well, I grew up in a place called Englewood, New Jersey, which is a New York suburb. It's a lovely place. I went to the local private schools. I was a pretty good tennis player. I was a junior tennis player. And I loved it. I had economics in prep school, the Dwight Englewood School. And I loved economics. I loved history.

and was the editor of the newspaper and was in, I was, I think I learned to talk and I was an actor and

And the school plays these big productions we would have with the Dwight School for Girls across the field. And that's one of the things that I remember. I spoke at the 50th anniversary of my class a couple of years ago to a big crowd. And it was a funny, funny moment reminiscing about that stuff. But, you know, I didn't look at I didn't get turned on. This all comes later. I mean, I.

I went away to college. I went to the University of Rochester because I couldn't get into Princeton. And I was a history major. I was an economics minor. My critics down through the years have always said, you were a history major. Yeah, I was a history major. Actually, history, I think, holds most of the answers. But I minored in econ. And...

Late, I got involved in politics. I was an anti-war guy, anti-Vietnam War guy, Democrat, left-wing. What was the change? What was the, you know, I once upon a time was kind of affiliated with the Democratic Party and people say, oh, that was, you know.

Oh, that was so bad. I said, well, yeah, I mean, I was a Democrat until I learned to read and write. But then I figured things out. I got a paycheck, got a wife, got a job. And I realized I was a pretty conservative person. What happened with you? How did you make that transition? Well, my dad was a big Republican in New Jersey. And he was, what was he, the Bergen County GOP treasurer, I think, a long time. I knew all these people.

Republican politicians. And I, you know, I basically was Republican. But when I went to college, I became a big liberal, as I say, and I got caught up in civil rights and Vietnam. I mean, to be honest with you, Jason, to this day, I oppose the Vietnam War, at least the way it was conducted.

I once done a long dinner with H.R. McMaster about that, who wrote a book on this subject. And I thanked him at the end of the dinner. I said, I always knew I was right, but you've explained to me why I was right. But yeah.

Look, I worked in some Democratic campaigns. I worked for Ed Muskie. I worked for a guy in Connecticut who was running for the Senate named Joseph Duffy. Bill Clinton was on that same campaign. I have a lot of friends in the Democratic side, not what I call the new Democrats, but more the Bill Clinton Democrats. Many of them to this day remain friends of mine, including the former president. But, you know,

You know, I went to graduate school at Princeton. It used to be called the Woodrow Wilson School. And that was all concentrated in economics and politics.

And the economy was falling apart in the early 70s. And I was sort of pushed inevitably towards market economics. I remember one of our distinguished alumni, Paul Volcker, came to speak at the Woody Wu Auditorium one night. I think it was 1971.

And in those days, he was undersecretary of the Treasury for Nixon and his Democrat for Nixon administration. And he talked about all the things they were doing and some things that should be done to conquer the first round of stagflation back in the early 70s.

And we just got off the gold standard. Anyway, long story short, I kind of said to myself, you know what? I think I want to do that. I want to do that. And, uh, the Woodrow Wilson school at Princeton was, they either said, you know, they, they made you into a foreign policy. They wanted you to be a diplomat, foreign service, state department, or the other side. They wanted you to be, you know, like a budget guy, uh,

run the New York State Budget Division or something. And actually, oddly enough, ironically enough, I wound up being a federal budget guy. But I went to work in the Federal Reserve System when I left Princeton in 1973. I went to work at the New York Fed, spent three years there.

Got another education, learned about money. And I worked in open market operations where they decide money supply and interest rates in 73 and 4. And then, ironically, Paul Volcker became the president of the New York Fed. This was before he was Fed chairman in Washington. He was the president of the New York Fed. And I wound up being his secretary or whatever it was called, executive assistant, executive

for the last nine or 12, I bet the last nine months, writing speeches, doing his Fed paperwork. And boy, did I learn a lot there. And in fact, Volker, we became lifelong friends. And of course, he went on to be Fed chairman. You know, 45 years later, or even more than that,

When it was announced that I was going to go to work for Trump as his director of the National Economic Council, I had bumped into Paul at some dinner in New York, and he came over to me. He put his arm around me. He said, don't do this. He said, don't do this. And I said, oh, why is that? He didn't like Trump. He didn't really talk about policies, just didn't like Trump. Anyway, a

About six or nine months later, after I was at the White House, he calls me up one day and says, I'm glad you're there. Yeah. Yes. And I know. And I said, yeah, because you're going to tell me it could have been worse. And he said, that's exactly right. So that so that's another of those silly anecdotes. But listen, you know, I was a lucky guy. I mean, in some ways.

Life is about coincidences or it's the Lord's hand moves you around. You may not even know it. You know, I'm a faith guy. So I actually believe in that, those sorts of things. I was a hard worker, very hard worker. It's funny. I used to give talks and,

to the interns in the White House, 100, 150 interns in the Trump White House. And I would give talks in the auditorium in the old EOB. And the theme of my talks would always be how hard you have to work. It's like, I don't care where you came from. Your college degrees don't mean anything. It's how hard you work and what you learn. And I have always, Jason, worked

Six days a week, always my entire career to this day. I mean, I'm 74 years old, but in addition to, you know, the show on Fox business and the segments on Fox news, I do a three hour radio show every Saturday morning from 10 AM to 1 PM. And I love it. And,

And I always tell kids, work. And when you think you can't work any harder, work more, work harder. And that's something that I learned down through the years. And it served me very well in all these jobs. I mean, you know, I went in with Reagan and then I came back to Wall Street and

And then I had, you know, my own personal crash and burn, hopeless, hopeless drugs, alcohol. I went away for six months to Hazleton in Minnesota, northern Minnesota, where they taught me how to get sober and stay sober, which was a tremendous turning point in my life. And

Wound up living out then after that, this was in 95, 96. I had been a senior editor at National Review Magazine before that. I wrote a column for many, many years and started doing radio and TV in the 80s and 90s. Lived for a year with Art Laffer.

When he was out in San Diego, so my first year on the ground in recovery, and then came back east. And I was an economist and a board member of an insurance company, but I was kind of pursuing my broadcast career. And this was in the mid-late 90s.

And then I was wound up exclusive with CNBC as a commentator. And I remember sitting in my office. I was consulting. I don't remember. Yeah, I think I was consulting. Anyway, I get a call one day, like a Thursday afternoon from the guy who runs NBC News and he's

Geraldo Rivera and Geraldo loves this story by the way Geraldo Rivera had a 9 to 10 prime time show at night on CNBC and

He was the highest paid guy. He was making six million bucks a year. And in those days, the nighttime shows on CNBC were run by NBC News. Anyway, so the head of the news division calls me and said, we've never met, but Geraldo's left. When we went into Afghanistan, Geraldo up and left his job and was going to cover the war as an independent journalist in Afghanistan.

And I've been a guest on Geraldo's show many times. Anyway, the guy says, you and Jim Cramer, your pal, Cramer and I used to go head-to-head together on CNBC. You guys are going to take over Geraldo's show. And I said, wow, that's great.

And I said, you know, when do we start training and rehearsing? And he said, you don't understand. You're starting Monday. Yeah, it starts Monday. And then we're going live. That's great. And that's exactly right. And we were so bad, Jason. I mean, what we did...

Neither of us knew how to read a teleprompter. Neither of us knew how to hit a commercial bake. We had no remote idea. People were talking in our ears and we didn't listen to them. There was a script in the teleprompter that we ignored and we just wound up arguing with each other. Yeah.

It probably made for good TV. Actually, it was terrific. We had fabulous ratings and people have not seen. Jimmy is a great guy to this day. He's a very dear friend. He's a Democrat. I'm Republican. But he is what I call a stock market Democrat. He's not anti-business. He's a capitalist Democrat. Both our fathers served in World War II, so we had a lot of bonds together. This was, you know, when...

right after 9/11, Jason. So we were covering the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and so forth.

We argued a lot, but we got along. And I think we did that show for four years. And it was a great experience. And then he went his way. I went my way. He's still going strong. Well, I guess I am, too. But on CNBC, I did another 10 years. And then I pulled back and just became a commentator for CNBC. And then...

I knew Donald Trump in New York. And of course, he had his show on NBC. I knew him around town. I'd interviewed him a couple of times. And he would sometimes talk to me about running for president. And I would talk to him about supply side economics. And I did help him in 2015.

I helped him put together his tax cut plan. Especially, I had been on TV for quite a while

campaigning for corporate business tax cuts, which I think had been neglected for 20 years. Reagan did great on the personal taxes, and we did have some corporate tax cuts. But corporate tax cuts are very important, probably the single biggest influence on blue-collar workers, because the wage earners get hit by the corporate tax cuts.

And so if you're taking profits away from your company, then there's no money for wage increases or there's no money to buy equipment to make you more productive or buy training. And this is still to this day, the left will not understand this. But anyway, we wrote a pretty good draft. It was just a draft of a tax plan. And every now and then on the air at CNBC, I would tout the Trump tax cuts.

I hadn't gone into the campaign at that point in 2015. So this is wonderful. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Larry Kudlow right after this. This is Jimmy Fallon inviting you to join me for Fox Across America, where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding. It's only a three-hour show. Listen live at noon Eastern or get the podcast at foxacrossamerica.com.

Actually, I was looking at a Senate race in Connecticut. John Cornyn had recruited me to run for the Senate in Connecticut. And Judy and I, we looked at it. We went around the state. We were doing an exploration. And basically, the nomination was mine. And I'm still at CNBC. This is 2016. So anyway, we're out and CNBC is sponsoring a debate. I think it was the first or second debate of all the candidates.

in Boulder, Colorado. Boulder, Colorado. So I'm going to say, Jason, it was...

either late 2015 or early 2016, something like that. Maybe it was the fall of 2015. So I'm there covering it for CNBC. We're sitting in the media room and the debate's going on. And one of the CNBC panelists, a guy named John Harwood, who's a longtime acquaintance of mine, he's a, you know, John became a big lefty, but he started asking Trump

just singling Trump out really nasty questions about his tax cut plan. And Trump started out by saying, well, you know, your colleague and panelist, Larry Kudlow, has endorsed the tax cut plan. But

Which, if you think about it, was very Trumpian clever. Right, right. So I'm sitting in the media room with 800 other people, right? And he says this, and I'm stunned. And I'm sitting with the CNBC group. And I, like, start sliding underneath the table. I don't want people to see.

And then that passes. Everybody's looking at me. I mean, everyone in the room is looking at me. And debate goes on. And Harwood later attacks him again. And Trump says, well, you just have to talk to your friend, Larry Kudlow. He did it a second time. And it just kind of blew the whole thing up. It was very amusing. Anyway, never full time, but as a, you know, a friend of the court. Okay. I...

became very involved in the economic side of his campaign. So we'd have all these meetings with Steve Mnuchin, who became Treasury Secretary, Kevin Hassett, who became CHA chair, Steve Moore, my dear, dear friend, who I wanted to put on the Federal Reserve Board, couldn't quite make it, and a few others. And, you know, we wrote his speeches for the Detroit Economics Club. I went with him on the plane, the New York Economics Club. I was with him.

And then after he sewed up the nomination, I guess it was May, Jason, I'm thinking, they decided he would go down to Washington and meet all of the Republican House members, the Republican conference. Now, I don't know if you were in there. This is 2016. Were you still in there? Yeah, yeah, I was. So we're coming from New York to Washington on the plane.

And we're sort of talking amongst ourselves. And he and I are going back and forth. We have this thing. We've always had this thing. And so anyway, we're deplaning. This is the Trump plane. We're deplaning. And I don't remember if it was Jared or Ivanka.

who became very, very dear friends of mine. So as we're going down the steps, one of them said to me, we would like you to introduce him to the Republican conference. I said, okay, fine. What's the plan? And they said, well, we think I got one of the advanced, someone named Rogers,

I said, you mean Kathy McMorris-Rodgers, who's a friend of mine, been on my TV show many times, a great lady. She was just on my show. She's our conference chair. Yeah. That's great. That's exactly right. So anyhow, we walk in and the place is packed. And I just kind of stroll up to Kathy.

who I had been, by the way, help advisor down through the year. And I gave her a little peck on the cheek and said, Kathy, I hope you won't mind. But if you would be kind enough just to introduce me for one second, most folks know me and I'm going to introduce the candidate, which is a complete change of plan. So, OK, she played. She's great. And she did.

So she introduced me briefly. I mean, probably half to two thirds of the house members, Jason had been my TV show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

People knew me and they knew that I was a Reagan guy and they knew that I was a free market guy and they knew that I was a tax cutter, limited government guy, et cetera, et cetera. And I had been attending conferences both on the House and Senate side, giving some advice when asked. Anyway, I introduced Trump and the introduction, I don't know if you recall, but basically I just listed eight or 10 people

of his policies. And I said, look, these are traditional Reagan Republican pro-growth policies, you know, taxes and spending and military and deregulation and energy. I went through a litany and I was about two thirds of the way through. And just all of a sudden I got a huge ovation from you all. I'll never forget it.

And then I just turned. Trump's standing behind me. And I just turned and I said, that said, it's my pleasure to introduce who I think is going to be the next president of the U.S., Mr. Donald Trump.

And then, you know, and everyone just rose up and gave a huge cheer, applause. And he gave a good talk. And, you know, that was that. I did something similar on the Senate side. I didn't introduce him because I had to do a CNBC hit. But I got there a little later. And Jeff Sessions introduced me and I got a nice hand there.

you know, so folks knew me. And I had told President, then candidate, I was not looking for a job. I was very happy with my life. Very happy. I had some boards, TV, radio, speeches, you know, usual stuff. And I stayed out in 2017. I went to him a couple of times in his office. I didn't go to Bedminster. We spoke on the phone after the election.

And I visited with him. And we were still doing our economic group in an informal way. But I started going down there about the middle, late spring, early summer of 2017. People were reaching out to me from the White House. So I'd come down.

I spoke at the National Economic Council's cabinet lunch that Gary was running. And, you know, I was promoting the tax bill, of course, on TV and everywhere. And then I'll finish this up, the journey, if you will. So rumors spread.

There's a lot of staff changes already. Chief of staff, Bannon's out. At one point, I had to counsel Dina Powell, who was in a blood war with Bannon. She was deputy national security advisor. Her husband, Dave McCormick, is running for the Senate in Pennsylvania now.

Spent some time in the Oval alone, a couple of times with Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary. Gave some advice on Fed Chairman, which was not taken. Anyway, in early March, about the first week of March, I'm in Connecticut, our weekend place, and I'm driving back from my tennis game.

And the phone rings in the car. And it's a White House operator and it's the president calling. Okay? So I pulled over because we don't have good reception in Connecticut. And he starts talking to me, Larry. He starts talking to me about things, the economy and trade. And he's making more staff changes. He's not comfortable with this or not comfortable with that. Okay.

And I was, you know, answering his questions, kind of like a conversation that we have. Yeah. Maybe it'll last a little longer. And then he said to me at the end of it, he said, he says, you know, nobody knows we're talking. And I said, oh. And he said, yeah, I said, he said, I'm going to call you tomorrow night. I want to content. I got to go about calling tomorrow night. I said, fine, sir. Anything you want.

Nothing unusual. I went home and told my wife and her antenna went up. Judy, who is a great professional artist, but she worked in the Reagan White House communications. So she knows the thing or two. Anyway, he called me the next night and started talking more specifically about issues and mentioned the National Economic Council. And then he said, well,

I'll call you this Monday. I'll call you tomorrow night, Tuesday. And so he does and he

I'm in a restaurant. We have a dinner group, John Katsimatidis and a bunch of his Mark Simone, our wives. We have a dinner group. We're having dinner in Midtown New York. And I admit I had the phone in my pocket and the phone rings the middle of this restaurant. And so I said, oh, God. So I I walked out.

and stood talking to him on Fifth Avenue and he was starting to get pretty specific. Right. And then I had to go up because I had to do John Baxter's radio show and I don't know, but where he's going a mile a minute and I said, I said to him, sir, are you offering me a position? Right. He goes, I'm

oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You're, you're the only one. You're my guy. You're going to be, yes, absolutely. You have to do this. So I said to Judy, I said, yeah, I guess. And then I accepted it on the spot, to be honest with you. And then he said, you come down here. Nobody knows about this. Nobody knows about this. You'll come down Thursday or Friday. We're going to have a surprise press conference. I said, okay. So the next morning, Wednesday morning, um,

I'm at my apartment home office apartment and he calls me and he says you look so handsome and I said uh sir and he said have you seen the tv and I said no I was working so I turned on the tv and of course he leaked it and it was all over the you know starting with the financial well with my own cnbc yeah all the other yeah so I was picking it up and so that was that that

That was about the middle of March 2018. And I will say, Jason, it was the greatest honor. It was a job of a lifetime. And I loved it. And it did, of course, change the situation.

Yeah, I mean, you did an incredible job. It was such a joy. I mean, the country was humming. It was really rocking, and it was moving on all cylinders in the right direction. And let me just ask you here, because we don't have too much more time here, but we have a little bit of time. Explain to people Donald Trump behind the scenes, because oftentimes people

the portrayal of him, the clips of him, whatever. They don't do it justice because I find him to be incredibly thoughtful and very knowledgeable. I'm always amazed at what he knows. The energy that he brings to it is just unparalleled. But he also has a different tone and tenor behind the scenes. Yes, well, your views are right. I mean, because you spend time with him. He is incredibly knowledgeable.

And you'd go in there. I mean, NEC is a job where you have constant contact all day, every day with the president, covers a lot of ground. It's a very potent job.

National Security Council that I also sat on and NEC are the two big ones. Domestic Policy Council, not as much, although I think it depends on who's running it. But those are the three White House councils, policy councils, and they run interagency. All the cabinet people operate up through those councils on the way to the president. You go in there, Jason, and he will cross-examine you

Like you've never been cross-examined. Yeah. And as you say, he's a very knowledgeable guy. He may not have read the...

literary classics, but he reads newspapers, magazines, television. He's always on the phone with friends of his, business friends, successful people. He's extremely well-informed, asks great questions. That's a key point. Second, he will listen to disagreements, and he's particularly attuned to

to facts. If you'd show him charts or tables or just give him orally facts, he will absorb it and accept or reject, which is what you'd expect from a successful businessman and investor, right? You're dealing in a world of numbers and facts. And he was darn good at it. I mean, we were in there, Manusha and I and others, we were in there a million times, but

We knew we had to prove our case. And then the other point I want to make is you can disagree. We had some heated, you know, we had some intense discussions, he and I, either in meetings in the Oval or maybe the back dining room behind the Oval.

I could be there alone. I might be there with, you know, Mnuchin or somebody, a couple other people and go back and forth or even larger meetings. OK, in the Roosevelt room or something. But as far as I saw, he was extremely courteous and respectful.

Yeah. And he didn't make cheap shots or anything. He was focused back and forth, back and forth. And, you know, you might not reach a decision, but then you walk away and you're seeing, you know, the next day, the next hour, whatever. There's no problem. He likes the give and take. He absolutely likes the give and take. And he's a very generous man. He's

Yeah, I totally agree. Now, look, I've only been with him in person a handful of times compared to you, nothing. But I remember the first time I got to meet with him in the Oval Office, and I said, Mr. President, I have seven things I want to share with you you've never heard, which kind of piqued his interest. And I started talking about some obscure things that –

that I didn't think he had any knowledge of or any background. And, you know, one of the things I had when I was the chairman of the oversight committee is we had jurisdiction of the postal service. Well, the postal service is the one thing that touches like every American. And it came up about the postmaster. And he had only been on the job, you know, less than 90 days.

And the president said, now, remind me, what's her name again? Now, I was flabbergasted that he even knew that the that he knew who the postmaster was and that but he couldn't put his finger right on her name. I don't think he'd ever met her at this point.

But the fact that he knew that he could kind of picture who this was, I couldn't believe it. Like, I had no idea that he would have that attention to so much detail. And the same was true with each of the other six items that I started to go through. And we just, you know, what was scheduled for 10, maybe 15 minutes went on like 30, 40 minutes. And then he would call. He'd get a thought. And he'd just pick up the phone and call. And I just like...

I was just amazed on how much energy and how much capacity he had to deal with the details and the intricacies and how much he actually truly loved doing that. That's exactly my impressions. I mean, those are very real. Look, the energy factor alone is really something. Yeah.

And the contrast right now, unfortunately, couldn't be greater. Yeah, that's true. People don't see that side of him. But look, you know, it's funny for all of his wars with the news, the fake media, so for fake news, fake media. The fact is he was totally accessible and available. Not only did he give a million press conferences, but, you know, every time he went to the plane,

or the Marine One helicopter, he would spend 35, 45 minutes with the press. And he knew them by name. He'd call them. I think most of them treated him very, very unfairly.

But he was there and available. He wasn't afraid. He should have been winning awards for his accessibility. And he should have been called. He should have been given credit for making himself available literally like every single day and standing in there and answering any question you want to throw at him. None of this pushing the press back. And I'm not going to address that. I just, he should have literally been winning awards for that. Yeah.

You're right. You're dead right. So it was quite an experience. And for me, it was, I don't know, worked out. I loved it. I kid around. I say, well, you know, three years, honor my life, job of a lifetime.

I was alcohol-free and drug-free and subpoena-free, and I actually got a good job. Well, that's what you want, the big three. Make sure that subpoena-free is also on there as well. Thank you.

And I got a good job. And now Jason Chaffetz, colleague at Fox News. What do you make of that? It's really terrific. I love it. I have so much fun there. And your show is just so insightful. 4 p.m. Eastern on Fox Business every day, aptly called a Kudlow. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more right after this.

Larry, as we wrap up here, I want to ask you some rapid questions. Okay. Just they're quick questions. Then we'll wrap it up and been very generous with your time. Okay. So a little insightful on, on Larry Kudlow. Okay. Ready? Go. First concert you ever attended. First concert. Oh my God.

I don't know. You know, like a rock concert? Actually, that's not true. No. The first concert I ever attended when I was a camper counselor in Lenox, Massachusetts at Tanglewood. And it was the Boston Pops concert.

Very nice. That would be such an incredible atmosphere, the Boston Pops there. That must have been John Williams probably was conducting back in the day, right? Yeah, in Lenox, Massachusetts. Very nice. What was your high school mascot? I think we were Bulldogs.

The Bulldogs. All right. I think so. Did you have a pet growing up? No. We have lots of dogs now, but not growing up. Life's most embarrassing moment? Life's most embarrassing moment? Wow.

There's so many. I can't even begin. Holy cow, what a question. I can't answer that one. You can plead the fifth on that one. Way too hard. If you're going to have one person over for dinner and just say, it can be a person who's dead or alive. If there's one person you want to just hang out with and spend an evening with having a good conversation, who would that person be?

Well, it would be... It would probably be Winston Churchill. That would be fascinating. What an impact on the world at such a pivotal time and nobody quite knew exactly the direction we were going to be able to head. What a fascinating human being. It would be amazing. I think I would do like... I got lots of them. It changes every day. I think Benjamin Franklin was one of the...

coolest, neatest, most, it sounds like he was funny. He was insightful. He's one of our founders. He's just amazing with what he has done and what he invented, the sayings he had. But there are a lot of great people in history like that. Winston Churchill would be on that list as well. I wouldn't mind talking to Thomas Jefferson. Yeah. There's so many people. You start down this list and you got a whole bunch of them. All right. A unique, unique talent that Larry Kudlow has that nobody knows about.

I'm really good on the open barbecue during the summer. Really?

Can I do a self-invite to come make you prove that point? If you come up, if you are anywhere near Connecticut, mid-Connecticut, where our farm is, we'd love to have you and your bride. Oh, that would be fun. That would be fun. What is that other thing for Larry Kudlow? What's the thing that, like, when you want to go, and maybe it is the open barbecue, but when you want to just kind of

Get away from the world and all the thoughts and all the problems and all the challenges. What's that other thing you like to do? Because I know you like to play tennis. Yeah. But is that it or is it something else? Well, I'm still a pretty decent tennis player for a senior. Played my whole life competitively. If I hadn't done, Jason, if my career had not turned the way it went out,

over time. The one thing I would have done that I wish I could have done

was win Wimbledon. Yeah. I would have loved to win Wimbledon, especially because you still have to wear all white. And I love to play on grass tennis courts. In fact, we have a synthetic grass court at our house in Connecticut. But to answer your initial question, what I like to do in the sunlight is sit in an easy chair outside on our back porch and read.

Just read, maybe doze off, think, and then read, especially with my little dog nearby. That's what I love to do. Love, love, love. The happy space. That's good. That's good. All right. Last question. Best advice you ever got. I'll tell you what it was. It's a bit obscure, but when I was finishing up Princeton graduate school, I was interviewing and I, I told you I wanted to work at the fed and,

But I was interviewing with some banks, commercial banks and some investment banks. And then I had an interview at the New York Fed with the number two guy who's still kicking Richard Debs, Dick Debs, a brilliant guy who had gone to Princeton. And he said to me the following. He said, if you go to work for one of the banks or the brokers, you

You will make more money and probably have a better social life. But if you come to work for us here at the New York Fed, you will enhance your career forever. And I did. And he was right.

And it was a crucial decision. Well, it was. And I think we're, we're all the better for it. You've had an, an impact on our way of life and in America, unlike most others. I think a lot of people want to do what you've been able to do, but you've actually done it. And, uh, you've done it with a big smile on your face. And, uh,

Could not ask for a better, nicer person than, than you, Larry. You've been so nice to me and so good to me for the, through the years. And, and, and I just happen to think you're just right on the policy too. So that really does help. And, and,

That one-two punch is a good thing and the world's better for it. So thank you so much for joining me today. I really do appreciate it. Thank you. Great fun. Appreciate it. All right. Larry Kudlow on Fox Business Daily at 4 p.m. Eastern. And Larry Kudlow, thanks again for joining us on Jason in the House podcast. Can't thank Larry Kudlow enough for joining us. That was a good, fun conversation. He's just a good, good man and somebody I've been

honored to get to know, uh, over the years a little bit. And, uh, I trust him. I like him. And I think he's got a great perspective and, uh,

Anyway, very impressive. I appreciate Larry joining us. All right. Thank you for listening to the Jason House podcast. Need you to click those hearts or those stars and give us a rating. That would be appreciated. You can also sign up to get this podcast every week. I also encourage you to go over to Fox News Podcast dot com. There's a lot of other good Fox News podcasts out there that I think you'd really like. But we'll be back with more next week. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House.

Jason in the House, the Jason Chaffetz podcast. Dive deeper than the headlines and the party lines as I take on American life, politics and entertainment. Subscribe now on Fox News podcast dot com or wherever you download podcasts.