When Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council for President Donald Trump’s White House, threw himself a birthday party at his Connecticut home last month, among the invitees in attendance was Peter Brimelow, publisher of the white nationalist publication VDARE. After news of Brimelow’s attendance made headlines, Kudlow swiftly disavowed Brimelow, who was a featured speaker alongside white identitarian Richard B. Spencer at the post-election Washington, D.C., conference sponsored by Spencer's National Policy Institute.
In a podcast uploaded to YouTube on August 25, Brimelow rebuts the legitimacy of Kudlow’s disavowal, during which Kudlow claimed that he was unaware of Brimelow’s controversial views. Host Paul Gottfried asked him whether Kudlow’s disavowal was honest, to which Brimelow said it was not because he had maintained a kind relationship with Kudlow for decades.
“As a matter of fact, he offered me a job when he went into the White House after Reagan was elected … I’ve known him since then,” Brimelow said. “He’s been very kind to me, personally, and to my wife.”
Brimelow said that he had invited him to many “summer dinners” in Connecticut and added that had been going to those parties for “10 years.”
“He was at National Review and when I wrote my National Review cover story on immigration and he never liked it and we all disagreed on it, but we just agreed to disagree. I think—tactically, I think Larry handled it wrong. He should have just said what I said, which is that, you know, we were friends for 40 years and we disagree on immigration, period. But he was obviously rattled and, you know, I feel sorry for him and I feel sorry for us because what he shows us is that Conservatism Inc. simply cannot handle any attacks--race-oriented attacks. It just goes to pieces immediately,” Brimelow said. “Until that’s resolved, we’re just not going to get anywhere.”
John Derbyshire, another voice at VDARE, also contested Kudlow’s disavowal in an episode of his show, “Radio Derb.”
“Kudlow appears to have thrown Peter off the sled, telling The Post that Peter's views on immigration and race are, quote, ‘a side of Peter that I don't know, and I totally, utterly disagree with that point of view and have my whole life,’ end quote. The last part of that is true. I recall Kudlow from our National Review days as an open-borders immigration enthusiast. I jousted with him about that a time or two,” Derbyshire said.
But he added, “The first part, though—where he says he didn't know Peter's views—raised my eyebrows. Really, Larry? After all those dinner parties? After being with Peter at National Review in 1992 when they published Peter's cover story on immigration—the story Peter then expanded into his book Alien Nation? And come to think of it, being with Peter at National Review a couple of years later when the magazine ran a cover story about Charles Murray's book The Bell Curve? Really, Larry? Really?”
