The Personalities and Priorities of Obama’s Economic Team

In “Inside the Crisis,” published in the New Yorker’s latest Money issue, Lizza offers fly-on-the-wall accounts of White House negotiations over bank nationalization, the size of the stimulus package, and the fate of the ailing U.S. auto industry.

His lens of choice is the core White House economic team: How the five main players – adviser Lawrence Summers, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Budget Director Peter Orszag, Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer, and top Biden adviser Jared Bernstein – debate their differences and rely upon their vastly different backgrounds and experiences to determine policy.

Lizza spoke recently with the Online NewsHour about what makes this economic team unique, how the different personalities influence decisions on the stimulus, and what economic hurdles still remain.