Interview: Larry Kudlow Holds a Telephone Interview with Donald Trump on Fox News - October 25, 2026

All right. Great, great pleasure joining us on the phone from the White House is, uh, President Trump. Uh, first of all, sir, thank you for doing this. Uh, appreciate it very much. And, um, I just wanna begin with this, though, sir. I think you're on a roll, okay?

[Inaudible]

I think you're on a roll, if you can hear me.

I can.

I mean, you've been relentless. You're campaigning. It's herculean. You're turning the tide, you're getting voters out, you're raising enthusiasm. The economy is booming. We're the hottest in the world. Stocks are doing great. Drug prices are coming down. Uh, oil is flowing through the Persian Gulf. I mean, I think in the last month, you may have turned this whole thing around.

So, can you pull it off? Can the GOP hang on to its majority? What are you thinking, sir? What's your, what's your take on this story?

Well, um, I have worked very hard. I've done 14 rallies in nine days, and it's a lot. And I'm going back to Ohio where we have a gentleman named Husted who was a great, great football player that didn't want to talk about it. I would have talked about it. I would have said, "I'm the greatest of all time," but he didn't. You know, he's a humble guy who's a cr- -- incredible.

Jon Gruden told me about him. He said he's one of the best players he's ever seen, you know, et cetera, All-American. Nobody knew the -- I mean, some of the audience did actually. When I started talking, "He was All-American, sir. He was one of the gr-" And it totally changed his image overnight. I mean, he's -- he was, like, 12 down, now he's two or three up, and he's great.

You know, he's great. Everyone thought he was quiet. He really wasn't. He's -- [Laughs] he was a killer. And people like him in Ohio better. Jon said he would literally rip when he, when he tackled, he would rip people's heads off. I said, "You gotta be kidding."

Hm.

He was an All-American, and he had the record in the NCAA for 17 interceptions, and nobody knew this. And they won the championship. Jon Gruden was the quarterback and a great guy.

Hm.

And he said that, uh, Jon Husted was the best player on the team, and he was an unbelievable leader and a real force. And I said, "Why hasn't somebody explained this?" You know, he's been a politician because he's a humble person. Uh, he's a humble person. There's something nice about that actually.

Yes.

And it's, uh, it just raised him to a level that, you know, nobody can believe, Larry. I mean, it's just amazing. He went up 14 points or something. And that was my rally. That was when I said, you know, the word, the A-word, and everyone said, "Oh, why is he talking about that?" You know, they didn't put the whole clip on. [Laughs] They just put -- [Laughs] I looked at his body, I said, "Look at his strength in this guy. This is crazy."

Hm.

And they said, "What? Why is he doing it?" You know the fake news. They said, "Why is --" All, all they had to do is hang on for another 30 seconds, and they would have learned.

Hm.

But, uh, you know, it had a, uh, a tremendous impact.

Yeah.

I think that, I think that, uh, I think that if you go to Texas, Ken Paxton, the greatest attorney general in the history of Texas, bar none, one of the few greatest in the whole country, I think he deserves to get this, get this, uh, election. And he'll be great for Texas and he won't have a Talifreako-type guy that's against meat.

He's against oil and gas. He wants to stop drilling oil and gas, he said, you know. And, and politicians always come back to that point, Larry.

Hm.

When they, when they have an original, that's just the way they are. They're born that way. When they don't like guns, Talifreako doesn't like guns, he's gonna try and get rid of guns.

Hm.

I mean, guns and oil in Texas is not a good campaign.

Hm.

You know, "Let's get rid of oil and guns."

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

And meat, "We don't like meat either." You know, he forced himself to have meat, and he's always throwing up. But he disappeared for 12 days.

Hm.

He was eating too much meat or something, or there's something wrong with him, you know? You usually find that out right after the election.

Hm.

But that's a very risky thing. No, Ken Paxton is the greatest attorney general. I had to work with him. He's the greatest attorney general in Texas and one of the couple of best in the whole country.

Hm.

And he -- he'll be a great senator. You know, people, I always say, "They don't like the way he dresses," or, "They don't like the way he talks." It's, it's irrelevant. He's a great attorney general. That's the only thing that matters. And he's so solid on the issues.

Hm.

He was with me on the voting, on the voting scam and all of that. It, it was actually incredible.

Hm.

I mean, voting stuff was unbelievable what he did. He w- -- he and I worked like hell on it, and we found out the hoaxes and the scams and millions and millions of votes.

Hm.

He was one of the best. So that --

So --

-- I think gets it to him. By the way, in, uh, Nebraska, you're gonna have a big win. You're gonna have a, a great win with Ricketts.

Hm.

He's great. He was a little bit down. I went there, and I hear you don't even have to bother anymore. He's gone through the roof, and that's great. You're gonna have a lot of wins, Larry, that people weren't talking about and --

I know.

-- I give the, I give the rally, I give myself a lot of credit. I mean, I'm being thanked.

Listen --

Win, lose or draw, I'm being thanked by everybody in the party. It's, I'm working like hell.

Listen, the economy, sir, is booming. I mean --

Yup.

-- you've got a tremend- -- you, you sa- -- I know you say this, the hottest economy in the world. I saw a number a couple days ago, retail sales, same-store sales up almost 10% year-on-year.

Right.

It's the fastest in decade. I know when the media talks about the economy, sir, all they talk about is gasoline prices. Now, I know gasoline prices temporarily too high. I get that. It's an issue. But people are out there spending --

Anyway gonna come down so fast very soon.

They're working. People are working. They're spending.

Yeah.

They're investing. You just got this, uh, foreign investment from Audi coming into Geor- -- I, I'm just saying, the economy is hot as a pistol. Jobs are being created. These are fabulous, um, election messages.

Larry, in Iowa, I was in Iowa. I tell this story. I was, I looked at two pumps, $1.95 a gallon, $1.85 a gallon. And then I said, "I'm sorry, we have to take care of this horrible threat," because you wanna see, you, [Laughs] you would know better than anybody. You've been around all, both of us, we've been around long enough.

Give Iran a nuclear weapon. And when I see Obama talking about the JCPOA, that may have been the worst and dumbest deal I've ever seen. He gave them billions and billions of cash. He gave them $1.7 billion in green, in green cash, put in a, in a beautiful brand new 747 where, 757, where they stripped all the seats out of the plane, every seat, and they put cash in the plane.

Hm.

$1.7 billion. That was the least of it, by the way, but that was the most egregious. And they brought that cash to Iran, the plane opened up and these guys couldn't believe what they were looking at. He tried to buy his way out of it and they used it to try and create nuclear weapons and they bought missiles all over the place.

And, and it was much more. It was 1.7 in green, but it was tens of billions and just, he thought he could buy his way out and they though he was a, a sucker. They though he was a sucker. And they take advantage of suckers. And I'm not a sucker. That, I can tell you. They have never been hit so hard. And now my question is: Do I make a deal with them or do I finish them off?

That's my, that's the only question. Do I make a deal or do I finish them off? Remember, we now control the Hormuz Strait.

Yes.

They get nothing.

Yes.

We get everything. They --

The --

-- get nothing.

The oil is soared.

We have total control.

The oil --

We're doing more business in the Wall Street Journal. We're doing more business through the --

Yes.

-- Hormuz Strait today than before the war s- -- war started.

Yes. Yes, but --

The Navy blockade, the Navy and our military are unbelievable.

And that --

And that includes with Venezuela, Larry, where we took over in one day a country. We took it over. Remember China was there, Russia was there. They were all nibbling around the edges. And I went and took it over. And now we have total control of Venezuela and we're being very fair to them, frankly. We're being very fair.

But we're taking out millions of barrels of oil a week.

Mm. And look, the, uh, look, sir, the, the reports are that we're now pre-war levels of barrels coming through the whole Persian Gulf, point number one.

That's right.

Point number two, the Scott Bessent, uh, economic strangulation is working. They're not even trading internally now. Pakistan and Turkey doesn't even wanna trade with Iran. So their economy is in a total basket case collapsing. But the question is, sir, they're try- -- are they trying to rebuild some of the nuclear facilities, uh, that got hurt?

That some of the --

Well, if they are, we --

-- aerial photography, what, what do you make of that?

So as you know, I founded Space Force first time in 78 years in my first term.

Mm.

We can read the badge on somebody's shirt from space, okay? We know exactly what's going on at Pickaxe Mountain. We know the other three are obliterated. They don't make too much of a move there. We watch. We have, we have entrances on every one of those three that we blew up. They haven't made, look, it's covered with thousands of tons of rock.

Those bombers did their job. They hit at midnight with no moon, dark. Those, those bombs went right down the air shoots, the most incredible, one of the greatest attacks I've ever seen. Although I think Venez- -- Venezuela was pretty good too. Do you notice this isn't a Jimmy Carter attack or an Obama attack?

This is a real attack. We don't play games.

Mm. Yes, sir.

And so what happens is I have a decision to make. Do I finish it off, which would be very easy to do, or do I make a deal? And so decision.

All right. You gonna be --

Getting a big decision time, Larry.

I understand. I understand. I just wanted to raise it. The other thing, uh, that I wanted to raise though, you're going, you're going to Michigan today.

Right.

Uh, safe travels, of course, and I'm sure you're going to do great out there. But, but here, Medicare for All, this guy El-Sayed and all these democratic socialists talk about Medicare for All. Medicare for All means if you have a health care plan, a private plan, you will lose it. Okay? The UAW workers, sir, will lose their very generous no-premiums, tiny copays. They will lose that under Medicare for All.

And furthermore, Medicare for All stipulates that illegal immigrants will get all manner of free health care, free food stamps, free entitlements. Now, I just think that is a killer. When you go to Michigan today, I know Mike Rogers is working hard and I think he's going to win that race, but I hope, you, Medicare for All, you lose your, you, you, the UAW will lose their generous, uh, private-sector benefits and, um, illegal immigrants will be given free health care and free food stamps.

Is, is that what Americans really want?

Yeah, I am going today. And let me just start off by saying I know Mike Rogers for a long time. Mike Rogers is going to be a great sen- -- he's going to be an amazing senator, solid as a rock. He's apple pie. He believes in everything that the people of Michigan believes at. So let me go number two is that, as you know, I won Michigan, I won it big.

And I got tremendous, uh, support from everybody, from the right-to-work to the Teamsters, to, from the, uh, United Auto Workers to the African-American, to Hispanic, I mean, I got everything. I got the Muslim vote. I got the, I, I won with the Muslim vote. You know, I started with nothing. And when they got to know me, I ended up getting 88% of the Muslim vote, which is pretty amazing.

I actually saw, I remember seeing it, saying, "He's got zero." And then every week, it would go 10%, 20%, 30%. I ended up winning. And, uh, it was amazing. So I won Michigan. I gave them the Air Force base. You know, they were gonna move the Air Force base under Biden. And I let it stay and not only let it stay, we have the F-35s, we have the different planes coming in, but the bi- -- big military base and it was a big, big thing.

And I actually worked with the governor. I mean, I don't know if that's good or bad for her, I think it's good for her, but I think she's very nice. And I worked with the governor in getting things done. We worked together. We got things done like the base. She was, you know, devastated that they were gonna move the military base, they were gonna move it out.

And, uh, the air base. And the big, one of the biggest in the country, by the way. And, uh, they didn't, they didn't do that. Not only didn't do, they were expanding it. And that was a, a gift to Michigan. And it was a gift to the governor and, and to our Republicans that fought for it too, there are Republicans in Michigan.

But yesterday, we just did something in Georgia that was amazing because Audi is gonna build one of the largest plants. They're gonna make 200,000 cars a year. They're closing up in Mexico and Canada. They're coming into our country with a brand new gorgeous plant right in Georgia, Macon, Georgia, and spending billions and billions.

It's gonna be the largest plant in the world or something. And, and I had the chairman from Europe. I don't know how he feels about what's going on in Europe, he can't feel too happy. But I had the chairman from Europe there, a very big business guy, central casting guy. He looked perfect, perfect for the role.

I have to tell you, it was great. He got up and made a speech about how they're coming because of, because of my policy.

Sure. Hottest economy in the world.

In the world. Oh, we have many other announcements, Larry, we have many. The biggest thing we need are construction workers. If you wanna get a good job, go learn how to build something.

Mm-hmm.

We have more construction workers w- -- and a lot of, you know, here's the biggest problem I have. The press just doesn't wanna talk about it. They don't wanna talk about it, Larry. They know what's going on. They're very smart, but they're left, they're radical left. It's almost like they want the country to be destroyed.

We're the envy of everybody in the world, including China. You know, we're way up over China. We've, we've gone, we have $22.2 trillion coming into the United States. If China gets two or three trillion, uh, oh, and Biden, he did a half a trillion for four years, I'm doing 22.2 in 15 months. It, it's up to the 15-month point.

That's a, that's a great message. I mean, and I think --

Well, I give it all the time, but nobody wants to write. Nobody wants to write anything positive.

There's more.

All they say is gasoline's high. By the way --

Yes. Right.

-- the gasoline, that's right, the gasoline will drop like a rock.

Of course, it will.

I told you, I was at $1.85 in Iowa the day before I said we have to take care of this Iranian problem and gasoline's going to go up. I know exactly what's going to happen, but it's going to come down even lower than that and it's going to come down fast and it's very soon.

And, sir, if you put the Democrats back in power, they'll end fossil fuels. They'll go back to the crazy Green New Deal. They'll stop gasoline. They want $10 or $15 gasoline. Look at what's happening in California. They don't have an affordability platform. They never have. They hate gasoline. They hate cars.

They hate fossil fuels. They don't want us to be energy independent. But I wanted to just, on Michigan, sir, don't you want to remind the UAW, if they go for Medicare for All, they will lose their generous health plan, their private health plan, and they're going to wind up having to pay for illegal immigrants.

Don't you think that's a tough, a key issue, sir?

Well, the auto workers, the Teamsters, they all like, I did great with all of these guys. I didn't get the auto worker support, but I actually get along with them now. He actually went around saying, "Holy mackerel. This guy, Trump, has done things we never thought possible." They supported Biden, who was sleeping all day long.

And what I've done, look, we're building more car plants in the United States right now, Audi was yesterday, than at any time in the history of our country. They stole the car companies. We had 100% of the cars and in the '50s, '60s, slowly, a slow grind. We ended up losing 58% of the business to the world, to Japan, South Korea, China, everybody.

I'm getting it all back. They're all coming back --

Yes.

-- because they don't want to pay tariffs. They don't want to pay 25% and that's all. I kept it low, frankly. I could go to 50. If they started coming in and taking advantage, I'd raise it to 50. Look, if we had smart presidents, the Taiwan problem with China wouldn't exist. It would be, you know, nobody would care.

They stole our chip business, all of it, 100% because they made chips at a ridiculous price and they just pushed them in. And every company other than Intel, which is now doing great because, you know, Intel now is doing great. I made an $80 billion profit for the country. Nobody ever talks about that.

I made, I gave Intel a break and I said, "I want the country to have 10% of Intel for nothing," and now it's worth $12 billion. The stock has, as you know, you're a reporter and know better than anybody else. The Intel stock has gone up four or five times and we made about $80 billion profit.

Yes.

Do people talk about that? No. You talk about it, but not so many people.

We're on a roll.

They say, "Oh, it was un-American that I demanded --"

We're on a roll. I just think --

It's actually very American, actually. Go ahead.

Let me ask you something, sir. Big headlines this morning. Not good. Europe under siege. Europe is burning. It's not just France. I'm looking at these reports. Brussels, Belgium, Albania, Milano, Madrid. I mean, it looks to me, because of open borders and socialist policies --

Immigration.

Europe is, and open immigration, Europe is burning. The question is, could that sort of thing happen here in the U.S.? Is that something we have to think about?

I closed the border. Do you know that we've had zero infiltration? We've had zero illegal aliens in the last 18 months. It's almost not believable. Biden let in 25 million people. We've gotten many of them out. We've gotten almost all of the bad ones. He let in murderers. 11,888 murderers were let into the country.

They just walked right in. We got them out. He let in really, really, really dangerous people. I mean, bad. Drug dealers. They opened the jails in Venezuela and many Congo, the Congo. They opened the jails and their jails were totally, totally emptied out into our country. I've gotten the bad ones out, the worst of the worst we do. It's been amazing, the job we've done.

That's the biggest, that's the hardest thing. You know the inflation? Do you know, Larry, for the last three months, inflation, because those are now my time. Because I inherited the worst inflation. You know that. It was the worst inflation. Actually, they say 48 years, but I say ever. I inherited from Biden the worst inflation in history.

And the last three months, we had it down to 1.7%. Think of that.

21, 20, Biden left you with 21% cumulative inflation.

Right.

It's unbelievable.

Worst ever. Worst.

Unbelievable story. And --

He had no idea what he was doing, and the Democrats don't either. And you're right, the, uh, these union guys and nonunion guys, you know, I have friends that have a health, uh, these private health plans.

Yeah.

And they're really given by, you know, big, great companies, insurance companies.

Yeah.

Healthcare companies. And they love it.

They --

I mean, they're, they'll love it. And the --

They'll lose it.

Not even the, it's not expensive and it's great.

Right.

You know, Canada is an example. They come here, they want, when you, when they need an operation, they can't get, same thing with U.K. and other countries that do this, that, you know, that do exactly what they want. It's so bad that they come here to have oper- -- I have friends that live in --

Mm-hmm.

-- Canada.

Mm.

When they need medical, you know, help, they come to the United States. But we have the best health care plans in the world. Now that doesn't cover everybody, but it covers a lot of people. And you tell the union, you tell the auto workers they're going to lose their health pay, health care plan.

Yeah. Yes.

And they're going to go and it's socialized medicine.

Yes.

And it's never worked.

Yes.

It's expensive.

It, it's a huge issue.

I mean, people --

It's a huge --

People that have cancer, they can't see them for nine months.

Yes, yes, sir.

Crazy.

Yes, sir. It's a huge issue, sir. That's why I hoping you'll mention it when you go out to Michigan.

I will. I will.

And look, I mean, we don't want to, look, the economy, you cut taxes, you're deregulated, you drill, baby, drill, you have reciprocal trade policies, you're winning on everyone. The economy is booming. We don't need socialism, sir. We don't need big government socialism.

But we do need a free press.

We don't need El-Sayed socialism.

Yeah.

We just, we --

We do need a free press, Larry, that will explain how well.

Yes. Yes.

We have the hottest country in the world.

Yes.

President Xi was here two weeks ago. He said, "You have the hottest country in the world."

Yeah.

The job you've done is incredible. We need a press that will say it like it is.

It's a great message.

We, we need a, we need a press, well, it was a bad country two years ago, Larry. It was a unsafe country.

Mm-hmm.

You know, we have the lowest numbers in crime recorded in the last hundred years?

Mm-hmm.

And that's despite the fact that they let in a lot of criminals and they, they were absolute large numbers of people. Hey, if I were running a South American country or any country, they came from all over Africa too. Now look, look what they're doing to Europe. You look at Spain, hundreds of thousands of people poured into Spain a month ago.

Mm.

I said, "Ooh, that's gonna be a problem."

Yeah.

Those people that have been in Spain for hundreds of years with their family, with their lineage, and they look at what's pouring across into their country.

Mm.

Those are angry people.

Mm.

But the people that are causing the problems are people that hate Spain and hate France and hate Italy, peop- -- and they're, they're not from there. They hate their, you know, it's very interesting. Somebody said they hate their art, they hate their buildings.

Mm-hmm.

They hate everything about France.

Mm.

They hate the people. And they let them come in. And I told Macron, when I first came in, I met him early. I said, "You are destroying France."

Mm.

You're letting people come in that hate your country.

I was with you.

And that's spoiling, that's spoiling. Now, you were with me.

I was with you.

You were with me.

Yes, sir.

One of my great students of all time was you. I hate to call you a student.

[Laughs]

But you were a great student. Look at, look at how well your show. Everybody watches it.

[Laughs]

Everybody watches your --

Thank you, sir.

Your show. You do. I'm so proud of you, Larry.

Thank you. Sir, will you end the, uh, will you end this campaign on an optimistic note, on a pro-growth note, freedom?

Sure.

Free enterprise. We don't want socialism. We wanna keep the borders closed. We want the culture to be consistent with Western traditional values. Will you be an optimist at the end, sir?

Well, I think I'm the biggest. That's why I'm campaigning like crazy. I've never campaigned for midterms. You know, a president generally loses midterms no matter if it's, you know, I don't know why. Nobody's ever explained that. But, uh, I, I'm campaigning harder than I would campaign for myself because we have so many good people.

Mm.

And they wanna keep it going and I don't want them turning around. We have number one growth in the world.

Yes.

We're the hottest country in the world.

Yes.

We have the lowest crime now.

Yes.

I mean, among, with all the stuff that they let in.

Yes.

But so many were taken out. Look at Washington, D.C. It was a killing field. Three people a week were being killed. Now Washington, our capital, we love our capital, is clean and beautiful and no graffiti on these beautiful, uh, columns. These, these magnificent pieces of marble all over. They had red graffiti on the fountains, on, on the, all the beautiful statues.

They were all horrible. They hadn't been fixed in 50, 60 years. The place looked like hell. They're gleaming now. They're every single. 82, 82 of them, they're gleaming. We just opened up after big vandalism, the Reflecting Pool again. It looks beautiful.

Hmm.

Look, uh, this country is so hot right now.

Yes.

And the king, I tell you, the king of Saudi Arabia said, you know, you were a dead country and now you have the hottest country in the world.

That's right.

You know, I rebuilt the military in my first term.

Yes.

Biden gave so much of it away to Ukraine. He could have charged Europe. You know I did. I, I sell to Europe. They pay us. They pay us full fare and they do whatever they want. Maybe they give it to the Ukraine. I don't know. It's up to them.

But, but Biden could have done that.

I gotta -- I gotta let you go.

Okay.

You -- I'm gonna get into trouble. Good luck.

Larry, we're the hottest country anywhere in the world.

Yes, sir.

And you just got good ratings, so they're not going to bother you.

[Laughs] Thank you, sir.

So long.

Safe travels today. Give him hell on the campaign trail. Thank you, Mr. President.

I'm proud of you, Larry. I'm proud of you. Have a good one.

And likewise. Thank you, sir. All right, there you have it, folks. That was President Trump. [Laughs] I, I, I love talking to him, uh, old friends, and I think he's done a hell of a job, and I think he's turning things around.