democracynow--2020-12-02--"The Dead Are Arising": New Biography on Malcolm X's Childhood, Killing & Secret Meeting with KKK

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Juan González , as we turn right now to The Dead Are Arising .
That ’ s the name of a new biography of Malcolm X that was just awarded the National Book Award for Nonfiction last month .
The sweeping account of Malcolm X ’ s life by the late journalist Les Payne and his daughter , Tamara Payne , has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the radical revolutionary as a human being.
” The New York Times says , quote , “ Nobody has written a more poetic account.
” The book is based on decades of research by Les Payne , who died in 2018 .
It weaves together hundreds of interviews with Malcolm X ’ s family , friends , colleagues , enemies , to tell his life story , from his early years in Omaha , Nebraska , to his rise to prominence in the Nation of Islam to his assassination in the Audubon Ballroom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1965 .
He was only 39 years old , just like Dr. Martin Luther King when he was assassinated .
This is Malcolm X in his own words , speaking at the Audubon Ballroom in 1964 , about a half-year before he was assassinated .
The speech was called “ By Any Means Necessary.
” AMY GOODMAN : That was Malcolm X in his own words , speaking at the Audubon Ballroom in 1964 .
Just a year earlier , Les Payne heard Malcolm X speak at Bushnell Memorial Hall in Hartford , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ At the time , Les Payne was one of only 60 African American students at the University of Connecticut , out of 10,000 enrolled students .
This is Les Payne in 2018 reading his essay , “ The Night I Stopped Being a Negro , ” about his experience hearing Malcolm X speak .
AMY GOODMAN : That was the late journalist , Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter , editor at Newsday in New York , Les Payne , author of The Dead Are Arising : The Life of Malcolm X .
The book is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reveals new details about Malcolm ’ s assassination and other key parts of Malcolm ’ s life , including a secret 1961 meeting he had with the Ku Klux Klan and the mysterious death of his father in 1931 .
For more , we ’ re joined by Les Payne ’ s daughter , Tamara Payne , co-author of The Dead Are Arising .
She ’ s joining us from New York City .
It ’ s great to have you with us , Tamara .
Congratulations on the National Book Award .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ you , you finishing and also researching with your father this book and then posthumously winning the National Book Award .
Talk about first the title , The Dead Are Arising : The Life of Malcolm X , and this joint project you did with your father .
Why Malcolm X ?
TAMARA PAYNE : Hi , Amy .
Thank you for inviting me on to talk about this .
You know , Dad was a big fan of your show , Democracy Now !
, and he would listen to it every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see the video of it .
About the book itself , The Dead Are Arising comes from the language that the members of the Nation of Islam would use to describe people when they were joining the nation .
The people outside of the nation were dead and did not know their true selves .
And once they came into the knowledge of who they were , they were considered basically members or family in the nation .
But the process of that was becoming conscious and learning about who you are and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that through the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad , as well as the philosophy of the Nation of Islam that he was promoting at that time .
Dad , you know , he was an admirer of Malcolm X .
You know , he grew up — he was born in 1941 , born in the Jim Crow South , and moved up to Hartford , Connecticut , with his family at the age of 12 .
But he was aware what was going on in the '60s in the civil rights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He was of that age .
He was very much aware and wanted to know : How do we , as Black people , overcome the obstacles that are placed in front of us , and inside of us , to thrive in this country ?
And so he listened to all of them .
He listened to Martin Luther King .
He listened to all the preachers .
He listened to Malcolm X .
But Malcolm X , in particular , you know , the way he would analyze what was going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black people , Dad admired that .
But he also admired Martin Luther King .
Let 's not , you know , say that he didn ’ t .
But the reason why he admired Malcolm was because Malcolm was dealing with the conditions that Black people were facing even internally and how we viewed ourselves in this situation .
And so , you know , as you played the clip of him speaking , he talked about how Malcolm had did that for him , when he spoke to him — when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 1963 .
But he originally did not want to write a book about Malcolm , a biography about Malcolm , because he felt that we had everything to know , because there were the speeches , there was the autobiography already .
But he had the opportunity to meet Malcolm ’ s brothers .
He met one in Detroit , who was being treated by a good friend of his that he grew up with , Walter O. Evans , who was a surgeon .
And he met one of the brothers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even .
And he learned about Malcolm ’ s childhood life .
And then , when he came back , he spoke with a fellow journalist , Gil Noble , who hosted a show , Like It Is , who also had a love for Malcolm .
And he talked about , “ Hey , Gil , I met one of Malcolm ’ s brothers .
I interviewed him , and I learned all this stuff about his family life , and it ’ s stuff that we don ’ t know .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the autobiography.
” And Gil Noble asked him , “ Which brother did you meet ?
” And he said , “ Philbert.
” He says , “ I don ’ t know that one .
The one you should talk to is Wilfred.
” Philbert was Malcolm ’ s older brother by two years .
Wilfred , it turned out , is Malcolm ’ s older brother by six years but also was Malcolm ’ s best friend .
And so , Dad went back , and he went to meet Wilfred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did it for eight hours , and he recorded these interviews .
And he was processing this .
And it was from that ’ s what started , because what he learned — and he ’ s a journalist to his core — he learned that there ’ s a lot about Malcolm that we don ’ t know , his family life .
Who is this person ?
Malcolm is presented to us fully formed and angry .
But that ’ s not what happened .
You know , he has a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who was — where was that coming from ?
And also , what was this world that Malcolm was born into ?
He didn ’ t just spring out of nowhere , even if he does have a family .
You know , he didn ’ t just come out of the family angry .
What was that about ?
And Dad was interested in exploring that .
And that ’ s what he did with this book .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Well , Tamara , I wanted to ask you — first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ masterfully written book .
I want to congratulate you .
It ’ s a terrific read .
But I wanted to ask about the — if you could talk somewhat about the approach that you and your father took in this book ?
Because , obviously , it ’ s more of an investigative reporting approach than , let ’ s say , Manning Marable ’ s book of a few years ago , which was much more of a history .
Could you talk about the approach that your father took ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ pioneers of African American journalists in the late 20th century who broke into mainstream media .
I think of people like Chuck Stone , who was a mentor of mine , Earl Caldwell , Bob Maynard , Nancy Hicks Maynard , DeWayne Wickham .
These were all the giants — your father was among them — who sort of set the mold for the modern journalists of color .
Could you talk about his approach in this book , as opposed to many of the other books that have been written about Malcolm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Well , Dad ’ s view is that he ’ s a journalist .
And journalists , they deal in source material , meaning that they do interviews .
They want to get — first of all , they ’ re not necessarily drawn to stories that have already been reported out .
And Dad has stated , even when talking about this project , that he was not interested in writing a book of his views of what ’ s already known .
What he wanted to do was to talk about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and report that out — and wasn ’ t even so much talking about it , just report it out so that we have the information .
The role of the journalist , really , is to provide us with information so that we can make more informed decisions .
And that ’ s how Dad approached this .
And in doing that , that meant going to — starting with the brothers and Malcolm ’ s sisters and getting their stories and learning about their childhood , and then expanding that out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Malcolm socialized with when he was taken from the house and planted in Mason in reformatory , and learning about that , those people , learning about — you know , meeting Malcolm Jarvis in Boston , and what those years were like , hustling in New York and meeting the people in New York who he spoke with .
Dad met , and I also would transcribe a lot of these interviews .
And in other cases , you know , I also got to me these people , too .
One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interviews was Yuri Kochiyama , who was very helpful and generous with introducing me to a lot of people that she knew , because she was a follower of Malcolm .
She was a member of the Organization for Afro-American Unity .
She lived in Harlem .
And she was very much a part of the struggle movement , and she was very generous with her time and her connections , and would introduce me to a lot of people that I had not — I didn ’ t know .
And we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : And Yuri was there cradling Malcolm when he died , right ?
After he was shot .
TAMARA PAYNE : She was there at the Audubon with her oldest son .
AMY GOODMAN : And another person who was there when he was assassinated , who was up there , like Yuri Kochiyama , was Gene Roberts , the New York police informant , the undercover detective .
Can you talk about him , Tamara ?
TAMARA PAYNE : Sure .
I mean , he trained in the military .
He was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when he came out of the military , he ended up joining the police .
Now , he didn ’ t go through police training officially , but they brought him in .
And what ’ s really interesting about this is that Blacks in the ’ 60s were not necessarily brought into the police to walk the beats of the streets .
They were actually brought in to be informants and to do the undercover stuff .
And Gene Roberts was one of them .
He was college-educated .
He was smart @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So he had these different clearances .
And so , he was an informant .
And he fit the mold .
And he took that seriously .
When he joined , you know , the BOSS and got the assignment to infiltrate Malcolm ’ s organization , he did that and joined the security force , and he ended up being on Malcolm ’ s security .
And he was on the security when Malcolm was assassinated in the Audubon .
AMY GOODMAN : And your father interviewed him extensively .
AMY @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we have , and then we ’ re going to do Part 2 , Tami , if you can talk about what most surprised you in the work you did with your father on Malcolm X ’ s life ?
TAMARA PAYNE : Working on this book for 30 years , I mean , there are a lot of things that came out that were interesting .
And I think , for me , it was more that — you know , where this path of the work was taking us , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but just learning and understanding about that time .
I mean , this is a time before I was born , and so this is history that ’ s hugely impactful to us .
AMY GOODMAN : Tamara , we ’ re going to have to leave it there , but we ’ re not leaving it there , because we ’ re going to do a post-show interview with you and post it online at democracynow.org .
Tamara Payne is the daughter of the late journalist Les Payne .
They co-authored the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Life of Malcolm X .
It just won the National Book Award .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Juan González .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, as we turn right now to The Dead Are Arising. That’s the name of a new biography of Malcolm X that was just awarded the National Book Award for Nonfiction last month.
The sweeping account of Malcolm X’s life by the late journalist Les Payne and his daughter, Tamara Payne, has been called a “fiercely analytical examination of the radical revolutionary as a human being.” The New York Times says, quote, “Nobody has written a more poetic account.”
The book is based on decades of research by Les Payne, who died in 2018. It weaves together hundreds of interviews with Malcolm X’s family, friends, colleagues, enemies, to tell his life story, from his early years in Omaha, Nebraska, to his rise to prominence in the Nation of Islam to his assassination in the Audubon Ballroom in New York City February 21st, 1965. He was only 39 years old, just like Dr. Martin Luther King when he was assassinated.
This is Malcolm X in his own words, speaking at the Audubon Ballroom in 1964, about a half-year before he was assassinated. The speech was called “By Any Means Necessary.”
MALCOLM X: One of the first things that the independent African nations did was to form an organization called the Organization of African Unity. The purpose of our Organization of Afro-American Unity, which has the same aim and objective, to fight whoever gets in our way, to bring about the complete independence of people of African descent here in the Western Hemisphere, and first here in the United States, and bring about the freedom of these people by any means necessary.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Malcolm X in his own words, speaking at the Audubon Ballroom in 1964. Just a year earlier, Les Payne heard Malcolm X speak at Bushnell Memorial Hall in Hartford, Connecticut. It was June 1963. At the time, Les Payne was one of only 60 African American students at the University of Connecticut, out of 10,000 enrolled students. This is Les Payne in 2018 reading his essay, “The Night I Stopped Being a Negro,” about his experience hearing Malcolm X speak.
LES PAYNE: By the end of the lecture, I felt — and knew — that something within me had changed, this time irreversibly. Whites henceforth would no longer be superior, Blacks — most important, I, myself — would no longer be inferior. This cardinal message, powerfully delivered to millions, would make Malcolm X a treasure for Black liberation and a serious threat to white America. Previously, my own conditioned sense of self-loathing had proved as difficult to remove as a tattoo, and here it was finally washed away by Malcolm’s acid bath of racial counterrejection, a primer on racial conditioning and tough-love logic. Until this June night, I had been imprisoned. But Malcolm X shook my dungeons, and, as a poet said, my chains fell off. I had entered Bushnell Hall as a Negro, with a capital N, and I wandered out into the parking lot as a Black man.
AMY GOODMAN: That was the late journalist, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, editor at Newsday in New York, Les Payne, author of The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X. The book is based on decades of research. It reveals new details about Malcolm’s assassination and other key parts of Malcolm’s life, including a secret 1961 meeting he had with the Ku Klux Klan and the mysterious death of his father in 1931.
For more, we’re joined by Les Payne’s daughter, Tamara Payne, co-author of The Dead Are Arising. She’s joining us from New York City.
It’s great to have you with us, Tamara. Congratulations on the National Book Award. It must have been so poignant for you, you finishing and also researching with your father this book and then posthumously winning the National Book Award. Talk about first the title, The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, and this joint project you did with your father. Why Malcolm X?
TAMARA PAYNE: Hi, Amy. Thank you for inviting me on to talk about this. You know, Dad was a big fan of your show, Democracy Now!, and he would listen to it every day, and he’d definitely see the video of it.
About the book itself, The Dead Are Arising comes from the language that the members of the Nation of Islam would use to describe people when they were joining the nation. The people outside of the nation were dead and did not know their true selves. And once they came into the knowledge of who they were, they were considered basically members or family in the nation. But the process of that was becoming conscious and learning about who you are and accepting and embracing that, and doing that through the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, as well as the philosophy of the Nation of Islam that he was promoting at that time.
Dad, you know, he was an admirer of Malcolm X. You know, he grew up — he was born in 1941, born in the Jim Crow South, and moved up to Hartford, Connecticut, with his family at the age of 12. But he was aware what was going on in the '60s in the civil rights movement. He was living it. He was of that age. He was very much aware and wanted to know: How do we, as Black people, overcome the obstacles that are placed in front of us, and inside of us, to thrive in this country? And so he listened to all of them. He listened to Martin Luther King. He listened to all the preachers. He listened to Malcolm X. But Malcolm X, in particular, you know, the way he would analyze what was going on with our condition in society as Black people, Dad admired that. But he also admired Martin Luther King. Let's not, you know, say that he didn’t. But the reason why he admired Malcolm was because Malcolm was dealing with the conditions that Black people were facing even internally and how we viewed ourselves in this situation. And so, you know, as you played the clip of him speaking, he talked about how Malcolm had did that for him, when he spoke to him — when he saw him speak at Bushnell Memorial in 1963.
But he originally did not want to write a book about Malcolm, a biography about Malcolm, because he felt that we had everything to know, because there were the speeches, there was the autobiography already. But he had the opportunity to meet Malcolm’s brothers. He met one in Detroit, who was being treated by a good friend of his that he grew up with, Walter O. Evans, who was a surgeon. And he met one of the brothers, talked with him and interviewed him even. And he learned about Malcolm’s childhood life.
And then, when he came back, he spoke with a fellow journalist, Gil Noble, who hosted a show, Like It Is, who also had a love for Malcolm. And he talked about, “Hey, Gil, I met one of Malcolm’s brothers. I interviewed him, and I learned all this stuff about his family life, and it’s stuff that we don’t know. I haven’t seen this in the autobiography.” And Gil Noble asked him, “Which brother did you meet?” And he said, “Philbert.” He says, “I don’t know that one. The one you should talk to is Wilfred.” Philbert was Malcolm’s older brother by two years. Wilfred, it turned out, is Malcolm’s older brother by six years but also was Malcolm’s best friend.
And so, Dad went back, and he went to meet Wilfred and was able to interview him and did it for eight hours, and he recorded these interviews. And he was processing this. And it was from that’s what started, because what he learned — and he’s a journalist to his core — he learned that there’s a lot about Malcolm that we don’t know, his family life. Who is this person? Malcolm is presented to us fully formed and angry. But that’s not what happened. You know, he has a family. He has lineage. And who was — where was that coming from? And also, what was this world that Malcolm was born into? He didn’t just spring out of nowhere, even if he does have a family. You know, he didn’t just come out of the family angry. What was that about? And Dad was interested in exploring that. And that’s what he did with this book.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Tamara, I wanted to ask you — first of all, it’s a masterfully written book. I want to congratulate you. It’s a terrific read. But I wanted to ask about the — if you could talk somewhat about the approach that you and your father took in this book? Because, obviously, it’s more of an investigative reporting approach than, let’s say, Manning Marable’s book of a few years ago, which was much more of a history. Could you talk about the approach that your father took? Obviously, he was one of the pioneers of African American journalists in the late 20th century who broke into mainstream media. I think of people like Chuck Stone, who was a mentor of mine, Earl Caldwell, Bob Maynard, Nancy Hicks Maynard, DeWayne Wickham. These were all the giants — your father was among them — who sort of set the mold for the modern journalists of color. Could you talk about his approach in this book, as opposed to many of the other books that have been written about Malcolm in the past?
TAMARA PAYNE: Well, Dad’s view is that he’s a journalist. And journalists, they deal in source material, meaning that they do interviews. They want to get — first of all, they’re not necessarily drawn to stories that have already been reported out. And Dad has stated, even when talking about this project, that he was not interested in writing a book of his views of what’s already known. What he wanted to do was to talk about what was not known, and investigate and report that out — and wasn’t even so much talking about it, just report it out so that we have the information. The role of the journalist, really, is to provide us with information so that we can make more informed decisions. And that’s how Dad approached this.
And in doing that, that meant going to — starting with the brothers and Malcolm’s sisters and getting their stories and learning about their childhood, and then expanding that out to who their friends were, who Malcolm socialized with when he was taken from the house and planted in Mason in reformatory, and learning about that, those people, learning about — you know, meeting Malcolm Jarvis in Boston, and what those years were like, hustling in New York and meeting the people in New York who he spoke with. Dad met, and I also would transcribe a lot of these interviews.
And in other cases, you know, I also got to me these people, too. One person I met through one of our interviews was Yuri Kochiyama, who was very helpful and generous with introducing me to a lot of people that she knew, because she was a follower of Malcolm. She was a member of the Organization for Afro-American Unity. She lived in Harlem. And she was very much a part of the struggle movement, and she was very generous with her time and her connections, and would introduce me to a lot of people that I had not — I didn’t know. And we would get their stories.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And Yuri was there cradling Malcolm when he died, right? After he was shot.
TAMARA PAYNE: She was there at the Audubon with her oldest son.
AMY GOODMAN: And another person who was there when he was assassinated, who was up there, like Yuri Kochiyama, was Gene Roberts, the New York police informant, the undercover detective. Can you talk about him, Tamara?
TAMARA PAYNE: Sure. I mean, he trained in the military. He was a medic in the military. And when he came out of the military, he ended up joining the police. Now, he didn’t go through police training officially, but they brought him in. And what’s really interesting about this is that Blacks in the ’60s were not necessarily brought into the police to walk the beats of the streets. They were actually brought in to be informants and to do the undercover stuff.
And Gene Roberts was one of them. He was college-educated. He was smart. He had served in the military. So he had these different clearances. And so, he was an informant. And he fit the mold. And he took that seriously. When he joined, you know, the BOSS and got the assignment to infiltrate Malcolm’s organization, he did that and joined the security force, and he ended up being on Malcolm’s security. And he was on the security when Malcolm was assassinated in the Audubon.
AMY GOODMAN: And your father interviewed him extensively.
TAMARA PAYNE: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: In the last 30 seconds we have, and then we’re going to do Part 2, Tami, if you can talk about what most surprised you in the work you did with your father on Malcolm X’s life?
TAMARA PAYNE: Working on this book for 30 years, I mean, there are a lot of things that came out that were interesting. And I think, for me, it was more that — you know, where this path of the work was taking us, and not so much it was surprising, but just learning and understanding about that time. I mean, this is a time before I was born, and so this is history that’s hugely impactful to us.
AMY GOODMAN: Tamara, we’re going to have to leave it there, but we’re not leaving it there, because we’re going to do a post-show interview with you and post it online at democracynow.org. Tamara Payne is the daughter of the late journalist Les Payne. They co-authored the book The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X. It just won the National Book Award. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.


democracynow--2020-12-02--The New Goldman Sachs? BlackRock Sees Clout Growing as Biden Taps Two Execs to Top Economic Posts

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : I want to look at look at President-elect Joe Biden ’ s choice of Brian Deese , the former adviser to Barack Obama , to be the director of the National Economic Council .
Deese was not present on the stage Tuesday when Biden announced his economic nominees .
After leaving the White House , he became global head of sustainable investing at the investment giant BlackRock .
This is Deese speaking to Christiane Amanpour earlier this year about BlackRock ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ treasury secretary nominee Wally Adeyemo also has ties to BlackRock .
He ’ s the former chief of staff to BlackRock ’ s chief executive , Larry Fink .
In addition to Briahna Joy Gray , I want to bring in Kate Aronoff .
She is a staff writer at The New Republic .
Her latest piece , just out , “ The Problem with Putting a BlackRock Alum in Charge of Greening the Economy , ” it follows up on her story in June that asked “ Is BlackRock the New Vampire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ co-author of A Planet to Win : Why We Need a Green New Deal .
Kate , if you can talk about the choice of Brian Deese ?
KATE ARONOFF : Sure .
Thanks for having me .
So , Brian Deese has spent a lot of time in Washington and has spent a lot of time at BlackRock , right ?
So , a lot of the sort of talk about Brian Deese ’ s nomination in the last couple of days , since sort of rumors came out about him being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he ’ s a good person , that he spent time in the Obama administration working on things like the Paris Agreement and conservation work .
And I think , like many of the progressives who have put a real question about Brian Deese ’ s record out there — don ’ t necessarily think that ’ s enough — right ?
— for someone to serve on one of the most important economic bodies in the world , right ?
So , BlackRock has very smartly cultivated its reputation as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wall Street , right ?
They ’ re not an investment bank .
They just handle the money of retirees .
They ’ re an asset manager .
And they have very cannily cultivated this reputation and an enormous amount of unaccountable power .
Time after time , they have sought to shirk regulation and — in the last year especially , and while Brian Deese has been there — really greenwashed their image , so put out this sort of idea that BlackRock is taking the climate crisis seriously , all the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at an enormous rate .
So , you know , I think that it doesn ’ t necessarily matter so much whether Brian Deese is personally a good person .
You know , he may well be , right ?
I don ’ t know .
I don ’ t know Brian Deese personally .
But I think it deserves looking at both BlackRock ’ s ambitions , the kind of power they ’ re trying to amass in government , both here and in the European Union , which maybe we can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s own record , which is not sterling , right ?
Like I said , he ’ s worked more on climate issues for BlackRock now than he ever did for the Obama administration , and was , by all accounts , just a very stalwart defender of business as usual in the Obama administration .
We ’ ve seen nothing really to suggest that he has changed — right ?
— that he doesn ’ t support all of the above , what he did in the Obama administration , really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ praising the fact that oil production had been expanded under Obama ’ s tenure .
So I think there ’ s just not enough evidence out there to think that Brian Deese ’ s own personal character can overcome the sort of danger of putting one of the largest companies in the world in charge of a very , very important economic body in the U.S. JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Well , Kate , specifically to that point of one of the largest financial companies in the world , most people are not familiar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Citigroup or Goldman Sachs or Chase .
Could you talk a little bit about the extent of BlackRock ’ s financial prowess around the world ?
And also if you could comment about the choice of John Kerry as a climate envoy by Joe Biden ?
KATE ARONOFF : Sure .
So , to talk about BlackRock a little bit , they control $ 7 trillion worth of assets .
And that has grown enormously in the last 10 years .
So , prior to the Great Recession , when interest rates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ big institutional investors like pension funds would put their money into sort of safe assets , like Treasury bonds , which offer reliable returns , right ?
And so , as interest rates have gone down as a response to the crisis of the financial crisis , that has become a less attractive option , and so you have these big institutional investors who are seeking reliable returns , right ?
And so , the products that BlackRock offers , like other asset managers , have become very attractive , and particularly these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and which , notably , are not subject to the sort of sustainability screens that Brian Deese has spent his last four years at BlackRock talking about .
So , these are enormously powerful sort of bodies .
Institutional investors , generally — sorry , these big asset managers , generally , have become sort of bigger than anyone would have imagined .
And BlackRock , in particular , is a sort of monopoly provider of risk management software , through this thing called Aladdin , to central banks around the world .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the debt-buying programs that the Fed has run , both in the last financial crisis and in the most recent recession .
And so , they have really tried to just accumulate an enormous amount of power and , by all accounts , are very much striving to be a fourth branch of government , which has included hiring Obama-era alumni to create a sort of positive reputation among Democrats especially , and with the full knowledge that these people might get hired back , which , you know , has borne out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pick for Treasury and for the National Economic Council .
So I think there ’ s just a lot of questions , that I have been sort of concerned to see folks in the climate world coming to Brian Deese ’ s defense without really thinking about what the problem with putting BlackRock in the National Economic Council means .
And just briefly on this , I mean , we ’ ve seen this before , right ?
We ’ ve seen what putting allies of Wall Street into important economic posts has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — right ?
— not just in putting forth a much too small stimulus like Larry Summers pushed for in 2008 , when he was head of — incoming head of the National Economic Council , but electorally , right ?
Democrats lost in a blowout in 2010 and continued to lose every branch of government , because they pursued austerity .
They pursued the sort of fiscal discipline that Brian Deese himself preached when he was the deputy and then acting director of the Office of Management and Budget .
So , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sort of self-evidently , in Democrats ’ own self-interest , right ?
So , you know , that ’ s — I ’ ll talk a little bit about John Kerry now .
So , he was appointed to head this new climate envoy on the National Security Council .
I think a lot of climate activists can rightly see this as a win , that there is a Cabinet-level post for climate , right ?
That is nothing to sort of take for granted .
It ’ s a huge step forward @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is at least claiming to take the climate crisis .
But again , I think there ’ s a lot of questions remaining about whether John Kerry has changed his views since the Obama administration , where he was a very vocal defender of the Trans-Pacific Partnership , which would have opened up the U.S. to challenges from investor-state dispute settlements , that allow corporations to sue governments for things like environmental and climate protections .
He has consistently preached that climate change is primarily a national security threat , which I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ envoy post and the rest of Biden ’ s foreign policy team , who are , by all accounts , really hawks on foreign policy , I think , you know , sets up maybe seeing this crisis not as a threat to humanity , but as a threat to U.S. military assets — right ?
— which I think is a sort of dangerous way to view this problem .
AMY GOODMAN : Can you also comment on Cedric Richmond , the Louisiana congressmember , former Congressional Black Caucus chair , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ House Office on Public Engagement ?
The Sunrise Movement called the move a “ betrayal , ” adding Richmond has , quote , “ taken more donations from the fossil fuel industry during his Congressional career than nearly any other Democrat , cozied up to Big Oil and Gas , and stayed silent and ignored meeting with organizations in his own community while they suffered from toxic pollution and sea-level rise.
” If you can talk about BlackRock , as well as the Cedric Richmond appointment and the whole issue of who is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this say to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party , that feels that they threw in their lot wholeheartedly and pushed hard for the Biden-Harris ticket and are wondering what kind of sway they have at this point ?
KATE ARONOFF : Yeah , I think , you know , the statement from Sunrise about Cedric Richmond is pretty spot on , I would say .
So , he represents a part of the country known as Cancer Alley in Louisiana , which has just been inundated by pollution from chemicals companies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and has routinely just ignored concerns from his constituents about the fact that many , many of their neighbors are coming down with cancer , that they didn ’ t need to have , because these companies are not being held accountable for polluting these communities .
And so , I think it ’ s a real — it ’ s a real thumb of the nose to the folks who worked to elect Joe Biden , right ?
Young people made a lot of phone calls for Joe Biden .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , you know , in places like Ilhan Omar ’ s district and Rashida Tlaib ’ s district , really fought to deliver him key states .
And with appointments like Brian Deese and like Cedric Richmond , you know , they ’ re not getting anything for their buck , right ?
I mean , they really went to bat for a candidate who was not their choice , who was not the person they wanted to see in the White House , and yet knew the stakes of this election , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Democrat and get Donald Trump out of office .
And they ’ re just not really — they ’ re not really seeing any gift from the Biden administration .
I think that ’ s disappointing , you know , for the fact that we have a giant climate crisis , which I am personally not so confident that Biden ’ s picks so far will take on at the scale that that crisis desires , but also that — you know , why would you so actively try to turn off @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of the Democratic base in the coming years , right ?
If you look back to the history of the Democratic Party , when was the party winning big majorities ?
When was it controlling Congress for decades on end ?
It was after the New Deal , when it delivered for people , when it built new coalitions , when it sought to actually expand its base — certainly not when it tried to target tiny , tiny slivers of suburban white women to win them over with the most sort @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , right ?
I think there ’ s a lot of — just a big lack of self-reflection from people who have been doing politics the same way for 20 years , at a time when the Democratic Party has really faced a crisis in terms of who its base is , moving forward .
And so , I think it ’ s concerning for all those reasons .
And , you know , I would like Democrats to control the Senate , if they don ’ t win these runoff elections .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ push through climate action .
And I ’ m just not sure that that is really the goal that Joe Biden is chasing .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Hello , Kate .
If I can , I just wanted to ask Briahna , in the few seconds we have left — Briahna , can you give us a sense whether you believe that there ’ s still a role for Bernie Sanders in a Biden administration ?
AMY GOODMAN : Briahna , could you start again ?
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY : Yeah .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if there were a role , that Bernie Sanders could have any significant influence , given the overwhelming gestalt of the picks so far and what Joe Biden has very firmly committed to throughout his campaign , which is that nothing will fundamentally change .
And it ’ s not clear to me that Bernie will have more leverage or influence within Biden ’ s administration than he would as a relative outsider in the Senate .
Moreover , it seems , by the — you know , every indication is that Joe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in giving anything over to the left , offering anything to the left .
You see olive branches being extended to Republicans , Cindy McCain .
You know , we all saw the extent to which Republicans were given a platform at the national convention .
And I think that that ’ s a trend we should expect to continue , that this isn ’ t an administration that ’ s particularly interested in offering much to the base of the Democratic Party .
AMY GOODMAN : We want to thank you both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , these conversations will continue .
Briahna Joy Gray , former national press secretary for Bernie Sanders 2020 , co-host of Bad Faith podcast and contributing editor to Current Affairs .
And thanks to Kate Aronoff , staff writer at The New Republic , co-author of A Planet to Win : Why We Need a Green New Deal .
We ’ ll link to your latest piece in The New Republic .
When we come back , The Dead Are Arising : The Life of Malcolm X.
We ’ ll look at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to look at look at President-elect Joe Biden’s choice of Brian Deese, the former adviser to Barack Obama, to be the director of the National Economic Council. Deese was not present on the stage Tuesday when Biden announced his economic nominees. After leaving the White House, he became global head of sustainable investing at the investment giant BlackRock. This is Deese speaking to Christiane Amanpour earlier this year about BlackRock’s climate plan.
BRIAN DEESE: The most important thing to identify is not necessarily are you going to divest from entire sectors or segments, but, instead, where are those companies and where are those business models that are most prepared for this transition. And so, we spend a lot of time asking the question, not necessarily are you going to exit the entire oil and gas industry or all utilities globally, but, instead, within those sectors, which are the companies that are the most prepared, that are investing the most in the clean technologies of the future, and which of those companies are less prepared.
AMY GOODMAN: Deputy treasury secretary nominee Wally Adeyemo also has ties to BlackRock. He’s the former chief of staff to BlackRock’s chief executive, Larry Fink.
In addition to Briahna Joy Gray, I want to bring in Kate Aronoff. She is a staff writer at The New Republic. Her latest piece, just out, “The Problem with Putting a BlackRock Alum in Charge of Greening the Economy,” it follows up on her story in June that asked “Is BlackRock the New Vampire Squid?” She’s the co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal.
Kate, if you can talk about the choice of Brian Deese?
KATE ARONOFF: Sure. Thanks for having me.
So, Brian Deese has spent a lot of time in Washington and has spent a lot of time at BlackRock, right? So, a lot of the sort of talk about Brian Deese’s nomination in the last couple of days, since sort of rumors came out about him being appointed to NEC, has focused on that he’s a good person, that he spent time in the Obama administration working on things like the Paris Agreement and conservation work. And I think, like many of the progressives who have put a real question about Brian Deese’s record out there — don’t necessarily think that’s enough — right? — for someone to serve on one of the most important economic bodies in the world, right?
So, BlackRock has very smartly cultivated its reputation as a sort of “good guy” on Wall Street, right? They’re not an investment bank. They just handle the money of retirees. They’re an asset manager. And they have very cannily cultivated this reputation and an enormous amount of unaccountable power. Time after time, they have sought to shirk regulation and — in the last year especially, and while Brian Deese has been there — really greenwashed their image, so put out this sort of idea that BlackRock is taking the climate crisis seriously, all the while continuing to invest in fossil fuels at an enormous rate.
So, you know, I think that it doesn’t necessarily matter so much whether Brian Deese is personally a good person. You know, he may well be, right? I don’t know. I don’t know Brian Deese personally. But I think it deserves looking at both BlackRock’s ambitions, the kind of power they’re trying to amass in government, both here and in the European Union, which maybe we can talk about, and also Brian Deese’s own record, which is not sterling, right?
Like I said, he’s worked more on climate issues for BlackRock now than he ever did for the Obama administration, and was, by all accounts, just a very stalwart defender of business as usual in the Obama administration. We’ve seen nothing really to suggest that he has changed — right? — that he doesn’t support all of the above, what he did in the Obama administration, really going to bat for Arctic drilling, praising the fact that oil production had been expanded under Obama’s tenure. So I think there’s just not enough evidence out there to think that Brian Deese’s own personal character can overcome the sort of danger of putting one of the largest companies in the world in charge of a very, very important economic body in the U.S.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Kate, specifically to that point of one of the largest financial companies in the world, most people are not familiar with BlackRock. They certainly are familiar with Citigroup or Goldman Sachs or Chase. Could you talk a little bit about the extent of BlackRock’s financial prowess around the world? And also if you could comment about the choice of John Kerry as a climate envoy by Joe Biden?
KATE ARONOFF: Sure. So, to talk about BlackRock a little bit, they control $7 trillion worth of assets. And that has grown enormously in the last 10 years. So, prior to the Great Recession, when interest rates were a bit higher, sort of big institutional investors like pension funds would put their money into sort of safe assets, like Treasury bonds, which offer reliable returns, right? And so, as interest rates have gone down as a response to the crisis of the financial crisis, that has become a less attractive option, and so you have these big institutional investors who are seeking reliable returns, right? And so, the products that BlackRock offers, like other asset managers, have become very attractive, and particularly these passive funds which are managed by algorithms and which, notably, are not subject to the sort of sustainability screens that Brian Deese has spent his last four years at BlackRock talking about.
So, these are enormously powerful sort of bodies. Institutional investors, generally — sorry, these big asset managers, generally, have become sort of bigger than anyone would have imagined. And BlackRock, in particular, is a sort of monopoly provider of risk management software, through this thing called Aladdin, to central banks around the world. People might also know that they managed the debt-buying programs that the Fed has run, both in the last financial crisis and in the most recent recession.
And so, they have really tried to just accumulate an enormous amount of power and, by all accounts, are very much striving to be a fourth branch of government, which has included hiring Obama-era alumni to create a sort of positive reputation among Democrats especially, and with the full knowledge that these people might get hired back, which, you know, has borne out in picks for — Biden’s pick for Treasury and for the National Economic Council. So I think there’s just a lot of questions, that I have been sort of concerned to see folks in the climate world coming to Brian Deese’s defense without really thinking about what the problem with putting BlackRock in the National Economic Council means.
And just briefly on this, I mean, we’ve seen this before, right? We’ve seen what putting allies of Wall Street into important economic posts has meant, not just for the country — right? — not just in putting forth a much too small stimulus like Larry Summers pushed for in 2008, when he was head of — incoming head of the National Economic Council, but electorally, right? Democrats lost in a blowout in 2010 and continued to lose every branch of government, because they pursued austerity. They pursued the sort of fiscal discipline that Brian Deese himself preached when he was the deputy and then acting director of the Office of Management and Budget. So, this is a dangerous strategy, just sort of self-evidently, in Democrats’ own self-interest, right?
So, you know, that’s — I’ll talk a little bit about John Kerry now. So, he was appointed to head this new climate envoy on the National Security Council. I think a lot of climate activists can rightly see this as a win, that there is a Cabinet-level post for climate, right? That is nothing to sort of take for granted. It’s a huge step forward in terms of how seriously this administration is at least claiming to take the climate crisis.
But again, I think there’s a lot of questions remaining about whether John Kerry has changed his views since the Obama administration, where he was a very vocal defender of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have opened up the U.S. to challenges from investor-state dispute settlements, that allow corporations to sue governments for things like environmental and climate protections. He has consistently preached that climate change is primarily a national security threat, which I think, combined with the position of his envoy post and the rest of Biden’s foreign policy team, who are, by all accounts, really hawks on foreign policy, I think, you know, sets up maybe seeing this crisis not as a threat to humanity, but as a threat to U.S. military assets — right? — which I think is a sort of dangerous way to view this problem.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you also comment on Cedric Richmond, the Louisiana congressmember, former Congressional Black Caucus chair, that Biden has named to lead the White House Office on Public Engagement? The Sunrise Movement called the move a “betrayal,” adding Richmond has, quote, “taken more donations from the fossil fuel industry during his Congressional career than nearly any other Democrat, cozied up to Big Oil and Gas, and stayed silent and ignored meeting with organizations in his own community while they suffered from toxic pollution and sea-level rise.” If you can talk about BlackRock, as well as the Cedric Richmond appointment and the whole issue of who is making up this Cabinet? What does this say to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, that feels that they threw in their lot wholeheartedly and pushed hard for the Biden-Harris ticket and are wondering what kind of sway they have at this point?
KATE ARONOFF: Yeah, I think, you know, the statement from Sunrise about Cedric Richmond is pretty spot on, I would say. So, he represents a part of the country known as Cancer Alley in Louisiana, which has just been inundated by pollution from chemicals companies and the petrochemicals industry and oil companies, and has routinely just ignored concerns from his constituents about the fact that many, many of their neighbors are coming down with cancer, that they didn’t need to have, because these companies are not being held accountable for polluting these communities.
And so, I think it’s a real — it’s a real thumb of the nose to the folks who worked to elect Joe Biden, right? Young people made a lot of phone calls for Joe Biden. They knocked doors for Joe Biden. Progressives, you know, in places like Ilhan Omar’s district and Rashida Tlaib’s district, really fought to deliver him key states. And with appointments like Brian Deese and like Cedric Richmond, you know, they’re not getting anything for their buck, right? I mean, they really went to bat for a candidate who was not their choice, who was not the person they wanted to see in the White House, and yet knew the stakes of this election, knew that it was important to have a Democrat and get Donald Trump out of office. And they’re just not really — they’re not really seeing any gift from the Biden administration.
I think that’s disappointing, you know, for the fact that we have a giant climate crisis, which I am personally not so confident that Biden’s picks so far will take on at the scale that that crisis desires, but also that — you know, why would you so actively try to turn off what is going to be the biggest part of the Democratic base in the coming years, right? If you look back to the history of the Democratic Party, when was the party winning big majorities? When was it controlling Congress for decades on end? It was after the New Deal, when it delivered for people, when it built new coalitions, when it sought to actually expand its base — certainly not when it tried to target tiny, tiny slivers of suburban white women to win them over with the most sort of poll-tested talking points they could find, right?
I think there’s a lot of — just a big lack of self-reflection from people who have been doing politics the same way for 20 years, at a time when the Democratic Party has really faced a crisis in terms of who its base is, moving forward. And so, I think it’s concerning for all those reasons. And, you know, I would like Democrats to control the Senate, if they don’t win these runoff elections. I would like strong Democratic majorities to push through climate action. And I’m just not sure that that is really the goal that Joe Biden is chasing.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Hello, Kate. If I can, I just wanted to ask Briahna, in the few seconds we have left — Briahna, can you give us a sense whether you believe that there’s still a role for Bernie Sanders in a Biden administration?
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY: [inaudible] or influence Bernie Sanders —
AMY GOODMAN: Briahna, could you start again?
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY: Yeah. It’s difficult to say that even if there were a role, that Bernie Sanders could have any significant influence, given the overwhelming gestalt of the picks so far and what Joe Biden has very firmly committed to throughout his campaign, which is that nothing will fundamentally change. And it’s not clear to me that Bernie will have more leverage or influence within Biden’s administration than he would as a relative outsider in the Senate.
Moreover, it seems, by the — you know, every indication is that Joe Biden doesn’t have any interest in giving anything over to the left, offering anything to the left. You see olive branches being extended to Republicans, Cindy McCain. You know, we all saw the extent to which Republicans were given a platform at the national convention. And I think that that’s a trend we should expect to continue, that this isn’t an administration that’s particularly interested in offering much to the base of the Democratic Party.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you both for being with us. Of course, these conversations will continue. Briahna Joy Gray, former national press secretary for Bernie Sanders 2020, co-host of Bad Faith podcast and contributing editor to Current Affairs. And thanks to Kate Aronoff, staff writer at The New Republic, co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal. We’ll link to your latest piece in The New Republic.
When we come back, The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X. We’ll look at the new National Book Award-winning biography. Stay with us.


democracynow--2020-12-02--Where Are the Progressives? Briahna Joy Gray on Neera Tanden & Other Biden Picks for Economic Team

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : With stimulus talks in a stalemate amidst a devastating economic crisis generated by the coronavirus pandemic and how it ’ s been dealt with , President-elect Joe Biden ’ s proposed top economic advisers addressed the nation for the first time Tuesday , setting the tone for his incoming administration ’ s recovery plan .
Speaking in Wilmington , Delaware , Biden introduced Janet Yellen as his treasury secretary pick .
Yellen led the Federal Reserve from 2014 to '18 .
If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be the first woman to lead the Treasury in its 231-year history .
This is Janet Yellen .
AMY GOODMAN : President-elect Biden also noted that Wally Adeyemo , his pick to be second-in-command to Yellen , would be the highest-ranking African American in the history of the Treasury Department .
Other new economic advisers on Biden ’ s team include Princeton University economist Cecilia Rouse , who will be the first Black woman to lead the Council of Economic Advisers , and Brian Deese , an executive at investment giant BlackRock , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He was not present on the stage Tuesday .
In a move that ’ s drawing outrage from progressives , Biden also announced Neera Tanden , president of the Center for American Progress think tank , as his pick for head of the Office of Management and Budget .
While Tanden would be the first woman of color and the first South Asian woman in the role , critics oppose her organization ’ s cozy relationship with corporate funders , her record of antagonizing and undermining progressive Democrats , including then-presidential candidate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy positions .
This is Neera Tanden speaking Tuesday .
AMY GOODMAN : Biden ’ s Cabinet nominees still face approval by the Senate , and The Daily Beast reports Tanden has now deleted more than a thousand of her own tweets , some of which were critical of the senators who would vote on whether to confirm her .
Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas has said her nomination is , quote , “ radioactive.
” To look more at Biden ’ s incoming Cabinet , we are joined by Briahna Joy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bernie Sanders 2020 , co-host of Bad Faith podcast and contributing editor to Current Affairs .
Welcome back to Democracy Now !
It ’ s great to have you with us , Briahna .
Let ’ s start off with Neera Tanden .
You were tweeting up a storm , tweets you did not delete .
Can you talk about your thoughts on the person proposed to be head of the Office of Management and Budget ?
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY : Yeah .
I mean , there ’ s been a lot of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the nomination , about the efforts to unify the Democratic Party and his efforts to reach out to the left .
And a lot of his moves have been characterized as a kind of sop to the left , while there hasn ’ t been a lot of substance behind those characterizations .
So , what you ’ ve seen in this latest slate of picks is a lot of emphasis on the identity of the individuals picked , a lot of firsts in the group .
And even folks with less — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more attenuated relationships to traditional identity characters have gone as far as to talk about the struggles of their stepfather ’ s family , right ?
And I think that ’ s very intentional , because substantively several of these individuals have real problems , and none of them truly represents a progressive in the mindset of most Americans , especially those who identified with Bernie Sanders .
And Neera Tanden is someone , in particular , who was very notorious for being openly antagonistic of Senator Sanders , who , again , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in this country ; perhaps most notorious for physically assaulting Bernie Sanders ’ campaign manager when he was an employee at — an editor at ThinkProgress , a vertically integrated media institution under CAP .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And , Briahna , I ’ d like to ask you — The New York Times and The Washington Post both sort of talked about these nominees as basically being pro-labor and friendly to labor unions .
Could you talk about this emphasis on the policies toward labor , supposedly , that all of these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yeah .
I mean , what ’ s most — the thing I would say would most accurately characterize Neera Tanden , in particular , is that she is fundamentally a party loyalist .
Even her mother has described her as such , as someone who ’ s very aggressive and very devoted , in particular in 2016 to Hillary Clinton .
So , what we ’ ve seen over the course of her career is that she has repeatedly kind of represented herself as open to the kind of moderate , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pushes , to cut entitlements , for instance .
She said in a notable clip in 2012 that entitlements had to be on the table .
And that ’ s in stark contrast with this portrait of a woman whose mother very sympathetically relied on public assistance in her youth , and who has used that experience to try to , I think , shield herself against the substantive criticism that she has been open to Medicare cuts , Social Security cuts , and has spoken about these things , even using the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that is not at all typical of someone you would describe as progressive , and which is really distressing given the extent of economic crisis this country is in now .
AMY GOODMAN : Well , let me go to that comment Neera Tanden made around the issue of slashing Social Security .
This is Tanden speaking to C-SPAN after the 2010 midterms .
AMY GOODMAN : So , she ’ s talking about her group , the Center for American Progress .
Briahna ?
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY : Yeah .
I mean @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the emphasis on the firsts , of the diversity of this crew , but less emphasis on whether or not these individuals represent the interests of the group that they are assumed to represent because of what they look like , right ?
So , we live in a country where 50 % of African Americans rely on Social Security for upward of 90 % of their income .
And you have someone being put forward by Joe Biden — Joe Biden who , again , relied overwhelmingly on the support of African @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is speaking in such cavalier terms about cutting one of the most important social safety net programs .
And I think it ’ s rightfully distressing to a lot of progressives , on top of the interpersonal issues and kind of lack of decorum she ’ s demonstrated on the internet .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Well , one of the big questions , clearly , especially among young people in this country , is how the Biden economic team will deal with the issue of student debt , which is now into the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you have from these picks so far where the direction of his policies might go in that area ?
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY : I ’ m not overly optimistic .
You know , I don ’ t know that Neera Tanden or any of the others have spoken directly on this issue , but she ’ s someone who over the course of her career has emphasized moderation , right ?
So , back when she was working for Hillary Clinton in 2016 , she was one of her advisers that was advising @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wage , something which is hardly some far-left radical program .
She ’ s on record as having said that we will never have Medicare for All , because people are going to be unwilling to let go of their private health insurance — this at a time where I believe we ’ re up to 14 million Americans losing their employer-based health insurance because of the COVID crisis and , of course , unemployment .
So , in a world where student loan debt , especially in the course of the primary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overwhelming bulk of Democratic Party candidates as something that was a far-left , inappropriate policy to pursue , and which , even in the context of Joe Biden , is still being framed as something that should be pushed in a very minimalist way — right ?
— he has the power to cancel all student debt on day one but is talking about canceling a maximum $ 10,000 ; Chuck Schumer , some others are pushing for more — I ’ m not overly optimistic that this policy , which is one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is going to be dealt with in the maximalist way that the crisis compels .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: With stimulus talks in a stalemate amidst a devastating economic crisis generated by the coronavirus pandemic and how it’s been dealt with, President-elect Joe Biden’s proposed top economic advisers addressed the nation for the first time Tuesday, setting the tone for his incoming administration’s recovery plan. Speaking in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden introduced Janet Yellen as his treasury secretary pick. Yellen led the Federal Reserve from 2014 to '18. If confirmed by the Senate, she'll be the first woman to lead the Treasury in its 231-year history. This is Janet Yellen.
JANET YELLEN: The pandemic and economic fallout together have caused so much damage for so many and have had a disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable among us. Lost lives, lost jobs, small businesses struggling to stay alive or closed for good, so many people struggling to put food on the table and pay bills and rent — it’s an American tragedy, and it’s essential that we move with urgency. Inaction will produce a self-reinforcing downturn, causing yet more devastation.
AMY GOODMAN: President-elect Biden also noted that Wally Adeyemo, his pick to be second-in-command to Yellen, would be the highest-ranking African American in the history of the Treasury Department.
Other new economic advisers on Biden’s team include Princeton University economist Cecilia Rouse, who will be the first Black woman to lead the Council of Economic Advisers, and Brian Deese, an executive at investment giant BlackRock, as director of the National Economic Council. He was not present on the stage Tuesday.
In a move that’s drawing outrage from progressives, Biden also announced Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress think tank, as his pick for head of the Office of Management and Budget. While Tanden would be the first woman of color and the first South Asian woman in the role, critics oppose her organization’s cozy relationship with corporate funders, her record of antagonizing and undermining progressive Democrats, including then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and her aggressive foreign policy positions. This is Neera Tanden speaking Tuesday.
NEERA TANDEN: Mr. President-elect, Madam Vice President-elect, I am here today thanks to my mother’s grit, but also thanks to a country that had faith in us, that invested in her humanity and in our dreams. I am here today because of social programs, because of budgetary choices, because of a government that saw my mother’s dignity and gave her a chance. Now it is my profound honor to help shape those budgets and programs to keep lifting Americans up, to pull families back from the brink, to give everybody the fair chance my mom got.
AMY GOODMAN: Biden’s Cabinet nominees still face approval by the Senate, and The Daily Beast reports Tanden has now deleted more than a thousand of her own tweets, some of which were critical of the senators who would vote on whether to confirm her. Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas has said her nomination is, quote, “radioactive.”
To look more at Biden’s incoming Cabinet, we are joined by Briahna Joy Gray, former national press secretary for Bernie Sanders 2020, co-host of Bad Faith podcast and contributing editor to Current Affairs.
Welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us, Briahna. Let’s start off with Neera Tanden. You were tweeting up a storm, tweets you did not delete. Can you talk about your thoughts on the person proposed to be head of the Office of Management and Budget?
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY: Yeah. I mean, there’s been a lot of talk, ever since Biden officially clinched the nomination, about the efforts to unify the Democratic Party and his efforts to reach out to the left. And a lot of his moves have been characterized as a kind of sop to the left, while there hasn’t been a lot of substance behind those characterizations.
So, what you’ve seen in this latest slate of picks is a lot of emphasis on the identity of the individuals picked, a lot of firsts in the group. And even folks with less — or less, shall we say, more attenuated relationships to traditional identity characters have gone as far as to talk about the struggles of their stepfather’s family, right? And I think that’s very intentional, because substantively several of these individuals have real problems, and none of them truly represents a progressive in the mindset of most Americans, especially those who identified with Bernie Sanders.
And Neera Tanden is someone, in particular, who was very notorious for being openly antagonistic of Senator Sanders, who, again, represented the largest coalition of progressive voters in this country; perhaps most notorious for physically assaulting Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager when he was an employee at — an editor at ThinkProgress, a vertically integrated media institution under CAP.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Briahna, I’d like to ask you — The New York Times and The Washington Post both sort of talked about these nominees as basically being pro-labor and friendly to labor unions. Could you talk about this emphasis on the policies toward labor, supposedly, that all of these folks represent?
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY: Yeah. I mean, what’s most — the thing I would say would most accurately characterize Neera Tanden, in particular, is that she is fundamentally a party loyalist. Even her mother has described her as such, as someone who’s very aggressive and very devoted, in particular in 2016 to Hillary Clinton.
So, what we’ve seen over the course of her career is that she has repeatedly kind of represented herself as open to the kind of moderate, I would describe it as, corporate Democratic pushes, to cut entitlements, for instance. She said in a notable clip in 2012 that entitlements had to be on the table. And that’s in stark contrast with this portrait of a woman whose mother very sympathetically relied on public assistance in her youth, and who has used that experience to try to, I think, shield herself against the substantive criticism that she has been open to Medicare cuts, Social Security cuts, and has spoken about these things, even using the language “entitlement” in a way that is not at all typical of someone you would describe as progressive, and which is really distressing given the extent of economic crisis this country is in now.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me go to that comment Neera Tanden made around the issue of slashing Social Security. This is Tanden speaking to C-SPAN after the 2010 midterms.
NEERA TANDEN: Center for American Progress has put forward ideas and proposals to reform the beneficiary structure of Social Security. Some of our progressive allies aren’t so — aren’t as excited about that as we are, but we’ve put those ideas on the table.
AMY GOODMAN: So, she’s talking about her group, the Center for American Progress. Briahna?
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY: Yeah. I mean, and, look, all of the emphasis on the firsts, of the diversity of this crew, but less emphasis on whether or not these individuals represent the interests of the group that they are assumed to represent because of what they look like, right?
So, we live in a country where 50% of African Americans rely on Social Security for upward of 90% of their income. And you have someone being put forward by Joe Biden — Joe Biden who, again, relied overwhelmingly on the support of African Americans to clinch the nomination — who is speaking in such cavalier terms about cutting one of the most important social safety net programs. And I think it’s rightfully distressing to a lot of progressives, on top of the interpersonal issues and kind of lack of decorum she’s demonstrated on the internet.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, one of the big questions, clearly, especially among young people in this country, is how the Biden economic team will deal with the issue of student debt, which is now into the trillions of dollars. Any sense that you have from these picks so far where the direction of his policies might go in that area?
BRIAHNA JOY GRAY: I’m not overly optimistic. You know, I don’t know that Neera Tanden or any of the others have spoken directly on this issue, but she’s someone who over the course of her career has emphasized moderation, right? So, back when she was working for Hillary Clinton in 2016, she was one of her advisers that was advising her against adopting a $15 minimum wage, something which is hardly some far-left radical program. She’s on record as having said that we will never have Medicare for All, because people are going to be unwilling to let go of their private health insurance — this at a time where I believe we’re up to 14 million Americans losing their employer-based health insurance because of the COVID crisis and, of course, unemployment.
So, in a world where student loan debt, especially in the course of the primary, was still being characterized by the overwhelming bulk of Democratic Party candidates as something that was a far-left, inappropriate policy to pursue, and which, even in the context of Joe Biden, is still being framed as something that should be pushed in a very minimalist way — right? — he has the power to cancel all student debt on day one but is talking about canceling a maximum $10,000; Chuck Schumer, some others are pushing for more — I’m not overly optimistic that this policy, which is one of few that Biden has control over, is going to be dealt with in the maximalist way that the crisis compels.


democracynow--2020-12-02--Headlines for December  2, 2020

Headlines for December  2, 2020

Britain has become the first country to approve use of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine .
Pfizer has said the vaccine @ @ @ @ @ preventing COVID-19 in a large clinical trial .
Authorities said the first 800,000 doses will @ @ @ @ @ starting next week .
British health minister Matt Hancock spoke earlier today .
Matt Hancock @ @ @ @ @ start with those who are most vulnerable to coronavirus .
… And then , once @ @ @ @ @ and protected the most vulnerable , it will help us all get back to normal @ @ @ @ @ things that we love.
” The U.K. has Europe ’ s highest COVID-19 death toll @ @ @ @ @ over 1.6 million confirmed cases .
Here in the United States , Food and Drug @ @ @ @ @ Hahn , was summoned to the White House Tuesday to explain why the FDA has @ @ @ @ @ .

Britain has become the first country to approve use of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine. Pfizer has said the vaccine is 95% effective at preventing COVID-19 in a large clinical trial. Authorities said the first 800,000 doses will become available across the country starting next week. British health minister Matt Hancock spoke earlier today.
Matt Hancock: “We’ll start with those who are most vulnerable to coronavirus. … And then, once we’ve started to and protected the most vulnerable, it will help us all get back to normal and back to all the things that we love.”
The U.K. has Europe’s highest COVID-19 death toll, nearing 60,000, and over 1.6 million confirmed cases. Here in the United States, Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Dr. Stephen Hahn, was summoned to the White House Tuesday to explain why the FDA has not yet approved a vaccine.