Larry Kudlow
Larry Kudlow was an assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council (NEC) under President Trump from April 2, 2018 to January 20, 2021. Kudlow’s nearly three year tenure in the White House was marked by trade wars and aggressive tariffs, deregulation, and the mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kudlow was appointed and took over as President Trump’s top economic adviser in April 2018, leaving his job as a CNBC host and commentator. As Director of the NEC, Kudlow played a central role in architecting and executing President Trump’s economic agenda. A staunch proponent of supply-side-economics, Kudlow differed with Donald Trump on several areas of economic philosophy before joining. Once in office, however, Kudlow became a loyal enforcer of President Trump’s personal agenda and policy agenda, both for the economy and more broadly.
Kudlow’s tenure was marked by aggressive trade policies, particularly the imposition of tariffs on China. Despite his historical support for free trade, Kudlow defended the administration’s use of tariffs as a negotiating tool. In May 2019, Kudlow broke with President Trump and conceded that U.S. consumers bore the brunt of Trump’s tariffs, a claim he contradicted shortly after. Kudlow was instrumental in the negotiation and signing of the subsequent bilateral trade agreement that committed China to purchase $200 billion of additional U.S. exports before December 21, 2021, a commitment that went wholly unfulfilled. Throughout, Kudlow publicly pressured the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates.
During the 2018–2019 partial federal government shutdown, approximately 420,000 federal workers were deemed essential and compelled to continue working without pay. On the 34th day of the shutdown, Kudlow asserted that such workers were “volunteering” to work for their love of the country and “presumably their allegiance to President Trump.”
From early 2020 through January 20, 2021, Kudlow played a central and prominent role in the White House’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. In February 2020, Kudlow publicly contradicted the CDC’s public health warnings and falsely asserted the U.S. had contained coronavirus. A few days later, Kudlow told reporters he expected the administration’s handling of the pandemic to be helpful for Donald Trump’s campaign. He further noted that stock market drops were an overreaction, saying, “Given what we know factually, it looks to me like the market had gone too far.” By May 2020, Kudlow doubled down on his February claim that the virus was contained and the exponential spread was virtually unpredictable - a claim refuted by WHO, CDC, HHS, and parts of the NSC. In April of that same year, Kudlow revealed that his wife applied for a small business loan program.
Kudlow is steadfastly against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Amid the Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, Kudlow said that the U.S. does not have systemic racism, nor does he believe in systemic racism. In May 2024, Kudlow said that DEI is “socialist class warfare”, and that, “DEI is also the progenitor of the antisemitism virus that is spreading throughout American culture, including universities.”
Before joining the Trump administration, Kudlow spent nearly two decades as a commentator and TV and radio host. During this time, Kudlow notably missed signs of the global financial crisis, saying in December 2007, “There’s no recession coming. The pessimists were wrong…The Bush boom is alive and well.” By July 2008, two months before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Kudlow said, “We are in a mental recession, not an actual recession.”
Prior to his time in the media, Kudlow flipped between government roles and Wall Street firms several times. He started his career as a staff economist at the Federal Reserve of New York. He then left government and worked at PainWebber, followed by Bear Stearns, both times as the chief economist. From 1981-1985, Kudlow was in the Reagan administration in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Kudlow then left government again to return to Bear Stearns as the chief Economist, a role he held from 1987-1994. After a sudden departure from Bear Stearns, Kudlow had a publicized battle with alcohol and cocaine addiction and was in and out of rehab throughout the mid to late nineties.
Today, Kudlow is the host of Kudlow on Fox Business Network and a regular Fox contributor. In 2021, he and several former Trump administration officials created the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a far right think tank focused on promoting Trump administration policies and preparing for a second Trump administration.