Former Trump White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow has become the latest person to benefit from the revolving door of former Trump administration officials getting Fox News positions. New York Times media reporter Michael Grynbaum reported Tuesday that Kudlow “will host a weekday Fox Business show and appear on-air across Fox News platforms.”
The Daily Beast points out that Kudlow had previously spent 15 years at CNBC, before joining the Trump White House three years ago. Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott said in a statement about Kudlow’s joining that the network is “look[ing] forward to creating a show that utilizes his immense expertise to help guide viewers through this unprecedented time of economic uncertainty.”
But anyone looking for serious financial information and economic news should be careful: Kudlow has essentially made his career as the Baghdad Bob of Republican economics, continuing to insist upon the success of the party’s policies even as the country has slid into one disaster after another.
Kudlow joined the Trump White House in 2018 — after having first been eyed for a position in late 2016. Before that he had a career as a CNBC pundit during which he variously shamed poor people, denied climate science, and repeatedly made incorrect economic predictions. And Kudlow continued to build his record of incorrect predictions after joining the White House.
In February 2020, while serving as director of the White House’s National Economic Council, he said that the new COVID-19 virus was under control. “We have contained this. I won’t say [it’s] airtight, but it’s pretty close to airtight,” Kudlow said during an appearance on CNBC. He also added that the outbreak was a “human tragedy” — with thousands of deaths in China at the time — but he did not think it would be an “economic tragedy.” (He later admitted he’d been wrong, saying, “Nobody could have predicted or expected this.”)
In March, Kudlow said there would not be any major recession: “I don’t think this is recessionary and I don’t think this is going to be catastrophic.” He added later in the month that the economic impact would be short-lived — a matter of “weeks and months.”
Then in June, he declared: “There is no second wave coming. It’s just hot spots.”
And in August, Kudlow cited a University of Chicago study on CNN to incorrectly claim that increased unemployment benefits during the pandemic had disincentivized work. Anchor Poppy Harlow corrected him on the air as she had spoken the previous night with one of the main authors of that study.