Roasters/Toasters and Honoree Mark Cunningham
Union Club, 101 E. 69th St, NYC, NY
Wednesday, June 25, 2025, Dinner
I hope everyone enjoyed your dinner and table conversations. It is now time to turn to the formal part of our program.
I will introduce each roaster prior to their presentations. As each is so very well known and respected in his or her own right, my introductions will be brief.
Then I will introduce Mark Cunningham, our Milton Friedman honoree. After his remarks, I will propose a toast to him and open the floor for questions, first among the panelists and then among the audience.
(1) Our first Roaster is Larry Kudlow:
Today, Larry is the host of the very popular “Kudlow” on Fox Business and “The Larry Kudlow Show” on WABC Talk Radio. He has held very important and senior positions in several Republican administrations starting with President Reagan and most recently in the first Trump administration.
I first met Larry in 1993 through an introduction by our mutual friend Jerry Jordan who thought Larry would be a good contact for us. A year or so after meeting, he very kindly agreed to do a luncheon talk for PRI donors and friends in San Francisco.
Several years ago, Larry invited me to debate Howard Dean—remember “The Scream”– on his TV show and I gladly accepted as the topic of single payer health care and its disastrous effects on patients is one of my major battles. And, Dean was a huge supporter of HillaryCare as they called it in those days! The debate went very well except for Larry’s pronunciation of my name: He introduced me as Sally Pips! Please welcome Larry Kudlow.
(2) Betsy McCaughey:
Everyone knows Betsy for her great work as a political commentator and regular guest and op-ed writer on key health care issues in the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal among other important publications. A recent addition to her busy portfolio is cohosting, with John Burnett, a 3-hour Sunday show on Newsmax. Congratulations, Betsy and I hope you have a large following on your neew program.
I first met Betsy in 1993 through an introduction by Peter Flanigan when she was at MI and had just had her spectacular “No Exit” article published in The New Republic. This piece was an instant success and quoted everywhere. It was the backbone of the torpedoing and sinking of HillaryCare.
Later she and I were foot soldiers in the battle to prevent Obamacare from becoming law. We lost as Obama signed the bill into law in March 2010!
Betsy was known for carrying to the podium and holding up to audiences that colossal binder of the almost 2,000-page bill! We both spoke on a panel at CPAC a few months before the vote and at an academic conference at Amherst on the bill which we predicted would lead to the destruction of our health care system. And, we were right!
While her prop was the contents in the binder, mine was talking points on how I saw Obamacare as a stepping-stone to single payer. We were a great team. Betsy….
(3) Bill McGurn:
We are so grateful that Bill could join us this evening!
Bill is a member of the editorial board of the WSJ and writes the regular “Main Street” column. Before coming to the WSJ, he was at the New York Post. Mark Cunningham initially served under Bill. Earlier in his career, McGurn made a name for himself at the Asian Wall Street Journal and the Far Eastern Economic Review.
I met Bill in person on several occasions at the WSJ’s TV show. I often followed him when I appeared with Mary Kissel as a guest on her regular show “Kissel’s Weekly Opinion Wrap”. Bill, so glad you are able to be here to roast and toast Mark.
(4) Mark Cunningham:
And, now to our honoree and the first recipient of PRI’s Milton Friedman award.
Mark joined the New York Post in 1997. Today, he is Executive Editorial Page Editor, a very demanding position. His associates Mary Kay Ligne and Adam Brodsky are here tonight.
Mark, in addition to his editorial responsibilities, helped lead the newspaper’s response to high-profile events such as the 2001 “election overtime” and the aftermath of 9/11.
He has received much success in the very competitive New York media market, where his work, often counter to the region’s dominant ideologies, has resonated with a wide audience. Prior to joining the Post, Mark began his distinguished career at National Review.
I met Mark shortly after he joined the New York Post through Cathy Windels who is a sponsor of our dinner and here tonight. Cathy who was at Pfizer at the time was the company’s liaison with think tankers who were health care experts.
On a very wet, cold, NYC evening, I arrived late to a dinner that Cathy was hosting for scholars and the media at a “hot” restaurant that had formerly been a train station. When I got out of my taxi, I was weighed down with “stuff”—my purse, briefcase, and suitcase and there were stairs to climb to get up to the restaurant. Out of nowhere appeared a man with a long ponytail who picked up my suitcase and briefcase and carried them up to the dinner. I was not sure who he was, he could have been a thief, but he, too, was one of Cathy’s dinner guests. I was so grateful to him and it was nice to know that chivalry was not dead!
Thanks to Cathy, that was the beginning of a long friendship with Mark and his role at the NY Post. Notably, it was the Sunday before the vote on the Obamacare bill when I opened my email early on a Sunday morning to see one from Mark with “Write Today?” I could not say no. The debate was on TV with Nancy Pelosi droning on about why the bill had to pass! I had to prepare two endings—one for defeat and one for passage! The rest is history. Mark….
