president-elect joe biden has received
his first
security up briefing a transition
briefing that's crucial
right now i believe kamala harris was
also part of that
jackie heinrich has more from wilmington
delaware hey jackie
good afternoon neil good to see you hope
you had a good holiday vice
president-elect kamala harris received
her
briefing at the department of commerce
that is where the official transition
office is located it's been rarely used
since it was first made available in
september and
president-elect joe biden received his
first briefing presidential daily
briefing at his home
here in wilmington we can deduce that it
has now been
concluded from the language that i just
received from one of the transition
officials
it marks the very first time biden has
received this briefing as the
president-elect
he was previously receiving limited
intelligence briefings as a democratic
nominee but after he won the election he
was blocked from the pdb as it's called
for several weeks while the white house
held up the formal transition
it led to a really unusual situation
where for about three weeks
vice president-elect kamala harris had
access to more classified information
than biden himself
because she was a member of the senate
intel committee biden at one point
resorted to holding a national security
briefing with outside intelligence
diplomacy and defense
experts meantime biden announced six key
choices for his economic team today
nominating former
fed chair janet yellen for treasury
secretary if confirmed she will be the
first woman to lead the department
and she'll face a unique set of
challenges managing economic fallout
from the pandemic
biden also tapped near a tandon from the
liberal think tank the center for
american progress to lead the office of
management and budget
her nomination though is already being
met with
a lot of pushback there are reports that
democrats have floated the idea
of a sort of sacrificial lamb to let the
senate
flex its muscles so to speak maybe nix a
confirmation of one person to allow
others to
more easily pass through and
she is being eyed potentially as someone
who might fit that description
lots and lots of pushback against her
her nomination here today neil
all right there's always one in those
cabinet choices invariably that someone
that just doesn't get through
jackie heinrich thank you very much jack
of course in wilmington delaware
following the president-elect
charlie gasparino following the
president-elect's economic team choices
what we know of them thus far
charlie what can you tell us well
um i think janet yellen is going to pass
i think they're all going to get through
except for
new york handed and we'll get to that in
a second i mean here's what i think
listen this is all you know this is all
based on this analysis that i'm going to
give you that the gop
keeps the senate and i think people
inside the binding camp believe it's a
very good chance
that their the gop is going to take one
of those
georgia senate runoffs if that happens
there's 51
republicans and you know you need votes
to uh to get through
uh you need you need republican votes to
get through um
that being said janet yellen she'll be
approved
uh not saying they won't break her her
chops a little bit which they will
if you saw the column i wrote in the new
york post uh her stuff about
incoming inequality just doesn't really
jive with the record of income
inequality during the
obama years where income inequality just
just exploded
and uh the gaps between the rich and the
poor and not only that
the wage rate of those on the lower end
fell dramatically where rich people made
a lot of money uh feasting on
janet yellen's zero percent near zero
percent interest rates and
and fed easing so uh she's going to have
to answer to that and i think that's
going to be
but that'll be more rhetorical she'll
get through even some of the the the
guys that
like brian diese does as uh head of the
um
i believe the nec uh he doesn't need to
be approved but again
he's more again he's in that tradition
of janet yellen much more mainstream
much more policy oriented
it's the near attendant thing that i
keep hearing from my republican sources
that they're going to try to light her
up when she gets out
out there she's been very partisan over
the years uh on the cable tv circuit
doing the doing partisan uh do make
making her partisan points um
and i think they they believe that they
have good grounds to deny her i don't
know
if she's been put up as a sacrificial
lamb i i i kind of don't believe that
that's a little too
conspiracy oriented to me i i just think
that uh
you know they didn't they don't realize
the type of pushback they they
underestimated the type of pushback
they're going to get from her
thinking that republicans are are just
going to like roll over and
allow anybody to get through including
someone who
you know kind of fits the bill she's a
woman maybe one of the first woman
one of the few women that held that held
that job but that doesn't negate her
record and her record was
highly partisan she attacked some of the
gop senators from what i understand
that could be making the decision i mean
this thing has
battle written all over it and if the
republicans keep the senate
she's probably based on what i'm hearing
she's probably not going to get through
neil
i mean that's the one the rest of them i
think go through easy
you know all right buddy thank you very
much gasparino following all of that