Kudlow: Trump was 'consequential, brilliant' president on policy

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Kudlow: Trump will go down as a consequential president on policy

New Fox Business host and former White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow discusses President Trump's legacy.

New Fox Business host Larry Kudlow said Monday that former President Donald Trump would go down as a "brilliant, consequential" president on policy terms and would have been better served to focus on his achievements instead of fighting the election result in the final weeks of his term.

Kudlow, a CNBC anchor before joining the Trump White House as the top economic adviser in 2018, touted the administration's achievements on tax and regulatory reforms, and he also criticized the Biden adminstration's Keystone Pipeline cancellation as well as the "Democratic wish list" in its proposed coronavirus rescue package.

Kudlow will begin hosting a show on Fox Business next week.

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LARRY KUDLOW: Let’s take one thing that has nothing to do with anything as far as COVID is concerned, and that’s raising the national minimum wage. You know who that's going hurt the most? That's going to hurt African-Americans, Hispanics, other minority groups. It's going to hurt the poorest part of the workforce because once you get outside of let’s say New York and California and maybe Illinois, the cost of living is much lower in all these states, and these small businesses that are desperately trying to reopen, they can’t afford it, and therefore they're going to lay off workers ...

We don't even know how much money has been spent or not spent from the prior [coronavirus] packages. That's the odd thing about this  ... We don’t know how much has gone to the PPP small business initiative. We don't how much is out the door on the unemployment assistance. We don't know how much has gone to the states and localities. We should be assessing the economy before we dive into another $2 trillion package, which I must say is something of a Democratic wish list. ...

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On the Keystone and no drilling, no fracking on federal lands, no leasing and drilling and the Paris climate agreement, which you're getting is the first policies of the new administration which will come down very heavily on energy. We are energy independent thanks to President Trump’s actions. 

Pipelines, infrastructure, drilling, fracking, we’ve stopped importing foreign oil. We are stronger at home and abroad because of it. The Biden administration looks in the early going to want to roll that back, and will have decimating, terrible impacts on the economy ...

While I may disagree with President Trump’s behavior in the last couple months I think in policy terms, he was a brilliant, consequential president. We could have gone further, Dana, on tax reduction and reform, pro-growth tax reduction and reform. Our tax cuts helped those who needed it the most, it was the middle and lower end. We could have gone further on deregulation in my judgment. We went across the board but I still think there was unfinished work to do ...

I spoke to [Trump] on the Thursday before the inauguration. We had a lovely 20-minute chat. He was very gracious, very kind, very complimentary. We talked mostly about our achievements as an administration and the policy areas that I mentioned and then some. He was much calmer at that point ... 

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No, we did not [discuss the Capitol riots]. I think the president knew my view. He put out some very good videos abhorring violence towards the very end. I wish he had done that two months earlier and stayed with that. I've always felt that when the Electoral College voted Mr. Biden as President-Elect, President Trump would have been better advised to talk about his great policy achievements in foreign policy, the Middle East, for example, China, and in economic policy. We were having a gangbuster recovery.