Getting President Trump off the phone took his former economic adviser two tries, a live interruption and an on-air confession that he was about to get into trouble.

Trump, 80, called into Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” from the White House on Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026, for a roughly 25-minute interview with interim host Larry Kudlow, 79, who ran the National Economic Council during Trump’s first term. The president did nearly all of the talking. Kudlow, one year his junior, spent the last stretch of the segment trying to end it.

Mid-sentence, Kudlow broke in: “I’ve got to let you go. I’m going to get into trouble. Good luck!”

Trump answered that the country is the hottest anywhere in the world and that Kudlow had just gotten good ratings, so nobody would bother him. Kudlow repeated his goodbyes. Trump kept going anyway: “I’m proud of you, Larry! I’m proud of you.” The line cut off.

The Host Called It Herculean

Kudlow had opened the interview by telling the president he was on a roll, calling his campaigning “herculean.” Trump said he had done 14 rallies in nine days.

He praised Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, a former football player who, by Trump’s account, would not talk about his own playing days — Trump said he himself would have claimed to be the greatest of all time — and said he was heading back to Ohio. He endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate candidate, in backhanded fashion, brushing off complaints about how Paxton dresses and how he talks as irrelevant and saying what matters is that he is a great attorney general.

Kudlow teed him up again with numbers. Retail and same-store sales were up almost 10 percent year on year, the fastest in decades, he said, and the two talked up an Audi plant in Macon, Ga. Kudlow acknowledged gasoline prices were temporarily too high.

He Asked for an Optimistic Note

Kudlow’s last question was an invitation to wrap: he asked Trump to “end this campaign on an optimistic note.” Trump talked for nearly two more minutes.

Trump said the U.S. has “number one growth in the world.” Kudlow said yes. Trump said the country now has the lowest crime. Kudlow said yes. At length, Trump described pre-MAGA Washington as a “killing field” that looked like hell and is now clean and beautiful, after what he called big vandalism on the Reflecting Pool.

On camera, Kudlow looked glum. He winced, shifted in his seat and nodded along while Trump recounted the king of Saudi Arabia calling the United States the “hottest country in the world.”

Trump credited himself with rebuilding the military in his first term and blamed former President Joe Biden for giving much of it away to Ukraine. Biden could have charged Europe and did not, Trump said; he sells to Europe, and Europe pays the United States.

A transcript of the call shows how lopsided the conversation was. Trump spoke 3,731 of its 4,877 words, or 77 percent, and held the floor for 1,106 of 1,491 seconds. Kudlow managed 1,146 words.

After the line went dead, Kudlow told viewers, “I love talking to him. Old friends.”

Fox Also Cut Away in Georgia

On Oct. 24, the network cut away from Trump’s rally in Perry, Ga., after he started ridiculing Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., switching instead to its in-studio anchors, who talked about his appearance. One anchor said Trump was in “rare form.”

Homeland Security Investigations searched Omar’s Washington, D.C., home on Oct. 12 amid a reported criminal fraud investigation into her immigration paperwork.