Biden unveils his economic team
Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss Biden's economic team and what it means for the economic recovery.
Video Transcript
JEN ROGERS: Let's start to focus on the economy. So Fed Chair Jay Powell warning Congress today that the outlook for the economy is extraordinarily uncertain. With the pandemic continuing to gain steam, we do have a bipartisan group of senators unveiling a blueprint for a $900 billion stimulus package, plus today President-elect Biden announcing his economic leadership team. Are we getting any more clarity on the direction for the economy based on some of the work and some of the news that we've seen so far this week? Let's bring in Rick Newman to get his take on where we stand, Rick.
RICK NEWMAN: Hey, Jen. Well, it's interesting, that development in Congress, that we now have this bipartisan group of Congress-- members of Congress and the Senate saying they've agreed on around a $900 billion plan. That sounds like progress the problem is that bipartisan group does not include any of the leadership in the House or the Senate.
So that gap, which remains huge between Nancy Pelosi and the House and Mitch McConnell in the Senate, that remains a huge gap. And just because a few members in the middle have some kind of agreement doesn't mean there's going to be any kind of a deal. So people should not get too excited about that.
Joe Biden today did introduce the members of his economic team. We know all the names. They have been reported before. But this was the formal introduction.
And Biden himself said that once the lame duck period is over-- whether there is a new stimulus bill or not-- we're still going to need robust aid for the economy. And then one after another his economic appointees came up and said, here's what we think we're going to focus, here's what we're going to get done in the Biden administration. It's going to be tough because Biden's not going to have a lot of cooperation from the Senate. But, you know, he's starting big and pretty ambitiously.
JEN ROGERS: Ambitiously there, looking at [? press ?] pictures of President-elect Biden. Hey Adam, I know you had a little thought here.
ADAM SHAPIRO: Yeah, Rick, I was curious about Neera Tanden. Why do some Republican senators appear to be not pleased with her? I mean they've discovered their alleged fear of deficits after not being afraid of them for so many years. Which is it?
RICK NEWMAN: Yeah, Neera Tanden is Obama's nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget. That's kind of an insider agency. But it's really important because all regulatory measures go through OMB. And it's where a lot of economic priorities get set.
She is a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton. And she worked in the Bill Clinton administration before that. She's also a fireball. We've had her on air. She's very outspoken.
And while she has not been working in government for the last several years, she's been at a left-- center left think tank called the Center for American-- Center for American Progress where she's the president. She's been very critical, and in a personal way she's been very critical, of many Republican senators. And those are-- she's going to need some of their votes at a minimum to get confirmed. So one Republican Senator called her radioactive.
And they're saying she has a slim chance of getting nominated. But who knows? If, you know, on the low, fairly low likelihood that Democrats end up in control of the Senate after those two Georgia races in early January, it would be Democrats deciding the schedule and who-- which nominations make it to the floor for a vote rather than Republicans.
So if that's the outcome, she may have a chance. Remember, you just need 50 votes to get confirmed. The filibuster requiring that 60 vote threshold does not apply. So that's going to be one of the first elements of fireworks in a Biden administration, the Neera Tanden nomination.
JEN ROGERS: Rick Newman with the update, great getting a chance to talk with you.
RICK NEWMAN: Hi, guys.
