President Trump had a very good night last night on CNN. If you love him, you’ll agree with me. If you hate him — like all the CNN commentators who trashed their own town hall in a wonderful act of media self-immolation by a network that no one watches — then you won’t agree with me.  

If you’re in the middle somewhere, I think you’d be very interested in his strong grasp on policy, his steady demeanor, and his sense of humor — including while he was under assault from host Kaitlyn Collins — even if you don’t agree with him on everything,  I still think middle-of-the-roaders would at least have grudging respect for Mr. Trump and how he handled himself. 

I mean, the CNN host had particularly bad manners, with constant interruptions, but Mr. Trump handled her very well. By the way, I didn’t like all the “gotcha” questions on the 2020 election, January 6, and the court cases, but she had a right to ask all that. I don’t think she had a right to interrupt constantly, though, and that’s what she did.  

Mr. Trump, who had the strong backing of the Republican and independent crowd at St. Anselm College, really got out a lot of important policy opinions.  

I think perhaps his absolute best moment in the town hall was after a voter asked, “If elected president again, what is the first thing you would do to help bring down the cost to make things more affordable?”

Mr. Trump replied: “Drill, baby, drill. We have more liquid gold under our feet than any other nation and these stupid fools ended it. We created the greatest economy in history. A big part of that economy was I got you the biggest tax cuts in the history of our country, bigger than the Reagan cuts, bigger than any. And also, Caitlin also, as you know, we got the biggest regulation and regulatory cuts. This place was rocking.” 

Home run, Mr. President. Drill, drill, drill. Cut taxes. Reduce regulations. Economic prosperity. If you stick with this agenda, right there, just the way you put it — maybe expand a little bit on what a second term would look like to enhance your prosperity agenda — and you stay on message, I believe you will return to the White House.  

Of course, there’s more. Given the catastrophic chaos at our southern border that everyone is witnessing, here’s what Mr. Trump had to say: “We have open borders. Look at what’s happening on our southern border. Millions and millions of people are coming here. They’re being released from prisons. They’re being released from mental institutions. And we have millions of people pouring into our country. And now they’re getting rid of Title 42, which I put on which kept people out.” 

Then, even while Ms. Collins continued to badger Mr. Trump about January 6, asking whether he has any regrets about his actions, he had this to say:  “Well, I offered them the National Guard. I said, we’ll give you soldiers. On January 5th, the day before, I said, please support our Capitol Police and learn for us when they are truly on the side of our country. We want no violence. Remember, we are the party of law and order. Respect the law and our great men and women in blue. Thank you. That was at 2:30.” 

There are two other points I want to make. 

Mr. Trump is a superb negotiator. So, when Ms. Collins kept asking about abortion, or Vladimir Putin, or who should win the war in Ukraine, or the debt ceiling, Mr. Trump tried to explain to her that one negotiates these things.  

Now’s the time to stop the killing in Ukraine. Then, later, you can go after Mr. Putin as a war criminal. But, first, stop the killing. 

If there were to be a national abortion law (which he does not yet specifically favor), the point he made was that ending Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court gives the anti-abortion people a vastly stronger negotiating position to come up with a law or policy that would have widespread support.  

That’s what negotiation is all about — bringing parties together.  

Or, on the debt ceiling: Not for one minute does Mr. Trump want a default. But what he tried to explain is the art of the deal, the art of negotiating, using a debt default as a negotiating tool.  

Threats matter. I watched him do it with China in the trade talks. I watched him do it with any number of issues, large and small. One of the many troubles with Mr. Biden is he has no idea how to negotiate. He doesn’t use negotiations as a policy tool.  

For various reasons he hardly ever shows up, and when he does show up he’s barely copacetic. Mr. Trump, on the other hand, is a brilliant negotiator. It was part of his trade craft when in private business.  

By the way, as a young man when I worked in the Reagan administration, I watched the Gipper negotiate brilliantly, remembering that he was actually the president of the Screen Actors Guild and also honed his negotiating skills while a spokesman for General Electric.  

Please, stay on message, Mr. President. Make America great again, again.  

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.