Kudlow to Cheddar: We're Not Going Back to a 'War on Business'
*By Carlo Versano*
President Trump's economic adviser Larry Kudlow slammed Democratic tax and banking proposals as un-American in an interview with Cheddar's J.D. Durkin on Thursday.
"I'm afraid some of my Democratic friends are going back to a war on business," Kudlow said. He was referring to policies gaining traction on the left, including calls to raise the marginal tax rate on the wealthy and efforts to pass new banking regulations like an updated Glass-Steagall Act.
Government controls don't work for economic freedom, Kudlow said, pointing to the Soviet Union and Venezuela as failed experiments in socialism. He suggested Democratic lawmakers "do a historical survey" and suggested some were "being mischievous." He did not elaborate on specific behaviors.
"When President Trump came into office he made it very clear through his policies and through his statements that the war on business of the prior administration was off," Kudlow said.
During the interview, Kudlow also declined to comment on the White House's position on a pending merger between T-Mobile and Sprint, following a [report](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/t-mobile-executives-seeking-merger-approval-booked-more-than-52-nights-at-trumps-hotel--more-than-previously-known/2019/02/06/cd6fa7e6-29ca-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html?utm_term=.32690bde7905) that T-Mobile executives booked dozens of nights of rooms at the Trump International Hotel in Washington last year as they lobbied the administration to approve the deal.
A year ago, the president slammed another mega-merger between AT&T ($T) and Time Warner as "too much concentration of power."
The T-Mobile-Sprint deal is a "complicated, regulatory, legal" issue, Kudlow said. "This is not the morning for that."
Earlier in the day, Kudlow said there was still a "pretty sizable distance to go" between the U.S. and Chinese on trade negotiators.
Those comments sent the Dow down more than 300 points.
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