Former White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said Monday former President Donald Trump will be remembered as a "brilliant, consequential" leader for his policies, but that he should have focused more on his achievements and less on fighting the results of the November election during his last few weeks in office.
Kudlow, who starts a new Fox Business program on Feb. 8, also said he had a "lovely 20-minute chat" with the former president on the Thursday before President Joe Biden's inauguration, and that they did not discuss the riots at the Capitol that had taken place the week before.
"He was very gracious, very kind, very complimentary," Kudlow told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "We talked mostly about our achievements as an administrator and the policy areas that I mentioned and then some. He was much calmer at that point."
But Kudlow said Trump knew his view on the riots.
"He put out some very good videos abhorring violence towards the very end," said Kudlow. "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."
Meanwhile, Kudlow, who had been a CNBC anchor before joining the Trump White House, criticized the Biden administration's decision to cancel the Keystone pipeline and the "Democrats' wish list" in the latest proposed COVID-19 rescue package.
"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," said Kudlow. "That's going to hurt African Americans, Hispanics, and other minority groups. It's going to hurt the poorest part of the workforce."
He also pointed out that it's not known how much money has been spent from previous COVID-19 packages, and that the economy should be assessed before the nation takes on another $2 trillion spending plan.
Kudlow also spoke out about the president's energy plan, noting that under Trump, the nation was able to stop importing foreign oil.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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