The following is an excerpt from the final episode of The Kudlow Report, which aired last Friday. It’s a thank-you note to a great network, wonderful colleagues, and the best audience a person could ask for. I truly am blessed:
Let me just take a moment and say a few words of thanks and gratitude and humility. To all the viewers and well wishers who have e-mailed and tweeted so beautifully and wonderfully, I am humbled . . .
It’s been my honor to host this show for the past nine years; before that with my great pal Jim Cramer for three years. And let me say how wonderful Jimmy was when he came on last night.
Now you know my credo: Free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity. And let me add to that from our Founding Fathers: Our Creator endowed us with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, freedom. Freedom to work, invest, and take risks, and the freedom to get rewards and incentives that motivate us all. It is freedom that makes this the greatest country in the world. And it is freedom that so frequently keeps me on the optimistic side of life.
Down through the years we’ve always tried to represent all points of view on this show. Left, right, and center. And in what I hope was a civil and respectful way, I have tried to listen and learn and debate both my liberal and my conservative friends. Civil discourse on the issues of the day is what we always tried to do — and salted with some financial-market advice, which I sometimes got right and sometimes got wrong.
I’m also proud to have recruited some of the best minds to be our expert guests. Many of them had never been seen on television before. Now they are going on to their own bright careers, and it makes me proud.
And finally, I want to thank this network — not only for the privilege of hosting this show, but for giving me a second chance in life that resulted in a new career. This from a guy who nearly 20 years ago was completely shipwrecked on a sea of hopeless alcohol and drug abuse. I went away for a long time. And with the help of many people I learned to replace addiction with faith. And it is that faith that guides me every day.
Again, let me thank all the viewers who have stayed with me down through the years, and all who have wished me well. I am truly grateful. And I will be beginning a new chapter as a senior contributor here at CNBC. It is the place where I call home.
And to all of you out there, as always, thank you, and God bless you. . . . I am a blessed person.