Report: Obama ready to announce economic team

The president-elect will reportedly be rolling out some big names Monday, including Tim Geithner at Treasury, Bill Richardson at Commerce and Larry Summers in the White House.

Published November 21, 2008 8:53PM (EST)

NBC News is reporting that, in an effort to give the economy some badly-needed stability and reassurance, President-elect Barack Obama will announce his economic team Monday. According to Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell, Obama will make the announcement himself, and will take questions from reporters.

If Todd and Mitchell are right, there will be some big names included in the roll out. They say Tim Geithner -- the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and a longtime Treasury official -- will be returning to his old haunt, this time as Treasury Secretary, and that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will be Commerce Secretary. The Wall Street Journal, too, has a report about the big Monday announcement, and the paper also says Geithner will get the Treasury nod.

Earlier this fall, Salon's Andrew Leonard wrote in favor of this pick; Leonard's been following Geithner for some time, dating back to a prescient speech the latter gave in 2006 entitled "Hedge Funds and Derivatives and Their Implications for the Financial System." You can read more in this post, and in this one responding to the news.

Obama transition aides declined comment on the report; a longtime Richardson aide hasn't responded to a voicemail message from Salon.

Update: Bloomberg News' Rich Miller chimes in with his own report saying Geithner's the guy at Treasury. Miller also adds another big name to the mix, saying former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers -- who stirred controversy with comments he made about women while president of Harvard -- will get a "senior White House role."


By Alex Koppelman

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.

MORE FROM Alex Koppelman


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Barack Obama Bill Richardson Timothy Geithner War Room