Trump’s Top Economic Adviser Bragged About Getting a Haircut to Look Good for Fox News

Didn't want another bad hair day.Alex Brandon/AP

The coronavirus is a rapidly developing news story, so some of the content in this article might be out of date. Check out our most recent coverage of the coronavirus crisis, and subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.

Rules. Who are they really for? Not the president’s director of the United States National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, whose characterizations of the pandemic have been flagrantly bullish. You’ll recall he’s the one who urged conservative activists in February, as market dread was setting in, to “think about buying the dip” to land cut-price deals, and assured investors in early March that the coronavirus was “contained” “relative to ordinary flus.”

“The virus is not going to sink the American economy,” he predicted in February. “What is or could sink the American economy is the socialism coming from our friends on the other side of the aisle.” More recently, Kudlow has been happy-talking the economy by downplaying recession fears. The US now has 26 million unemployed, and Trump just signed another aid bill, this one to the tune of $484 billion.

But Kudlow is focused on making himself look sharp for Fox News host Laura Ingraham, even if it means flouting his own administration’s social distancing advice by forcing a salon to open. Kudlow wasn’t worried. He didn’t have a temperature. He felt fine! No biggie for a round of intimate head contact with a “friend” for a “special deal”, while everyone else is growing a quarantine man bun or showing off their roots.

“I’m also going to confess, I had a hair trim yesterday. It was kind of a special deal,” he said, sitting in front of a backdrop of the nation’s capital, to an approving Ingraham hoot. “She got her hairdresser to come in and open up her barbershop and the guy gave me a pretty good trim. I don’t have much to work with, but it looks much better because I want it to look good on the Laura Ingraham show. That was the key point and here I am. I had no temperature this morning coming into the White House, I tested negative last week, I feel fine.”

Watch:

Seconds later he said “you’ve got to meet the guidelines.” You can see a slightly longer clip here.

Washington DC is currently under a shelter in place order. Non-essential businesses like salons are closed. What’s a little trim between friends?

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate