you look at the selection of bob rubin under bill clinton. the selection of john snow and hank paulson and now jack lew, there are two things that all of them have? common. the one is they're all close to the president in terms of ideology and thoughts. the second thing is they essentially compound on what the president ran on. if you look in the case of baker, reagan, reagan was one of the key people in charge of the budget office in 1981, and then reagan makes him his treasury secretary. same thing with bob rubin. the issue that the president ptsdz to tackle are domestic debt issues. he wants to get -- he wants to get this. in his opinion there's no better person sitting in treasury to tackle that than jack lew. >> i do want to point out one thing as we talk about diversity, and we had jen saki on the show yesterday. she said while the president has a very diverse -- >> a woman who works for president obama. >> and she made the point that we have a pipeline problem. if you actually look at sort of where women are at -- we did a little resea

we had bob rubin, we had larry summers in the clinton administration. it means is that he will be very aggressive in pushing the president's agenda in budget talks to make sure that when we restrain spending, when we cut spending, as we surely will have to do at some point, if not in this presidential term. melissa: i don't know. >> some future term, that we won't cut those investments as they put it that they think are vital for the future. i also think it is interesting though that we have a treasury secretary, although he was at the state department, he was a management job there. although he did work a couple years at citibank, has basically not had a lot of wall street experience. hasn't had a lot of experience in international negotiations. so i suspect there will be looking for someone to comply meant him in the deputy's job who has strong in --. lori: follow up on this point. sorry to cut you off. we're always on a tight time clock here. you know, as far as his track record when he was omb director in the clinton administration he did get a bipa

just about every mistake in the book -- >> bob rubin was worth millions and never punished in any way. >> i don't get it. he shows up in conferences and in -- i can tell he never really accepted responsibility for any of this. he helped create the beast and he was secretary of the treasury and to go become the chairman or executive chairman -- a beneficiary of this major change, it was terrible. >> another piece you were involved in, suzie ormann and sheila bair. >> ever lose one of these? everyone has except those whose money is in the fdic. good to know in times like these. here's the question. do you know if your money is safe and sound? go to fdic -- and the more you know, the safer your money. >> first question. did you pay her to do that? >> she makes out like a bandit with the fdic. >> i started engaging her -- she'd criticized about the complexity of our deposit insurance rules. we simplified it and -- we set this up to better define our deposit insurance and our limits. as we got into the crisis more and more, people were raising questions about the safety of insured deposits

he was there when bob rubin was there like timothy geithner, very much in the mode of washington and working together and not necessarily for the benefit of the american people. i think the concern is, that knows little about business or finance. outside of the political --. melissa: what is your evidence of that? just he hasn't worked anywhere? >> look at the resume'. melissa: yeah. >> ask a question, these jobs that these guys get when they leave washington to work for a too big to fail bank, by the way there will be more spotlight on that. this is a disaster. this is essentially the only business line on his resume'. melissa: that's a great point, kimberly. you build on that he worked at citigroup. he was the cheap operating officer in part for the alternative investments unit. was also global wealth management. alternative investments? those were the ones that were doing riskiest things when he was there, when he was questioned about that, i was just the operations guy, i was not looking at day-to-day book. that is never the good answer when you're the boss. i didn't know what my

you had bob rubin under clinton. you had john snow under bush. experience in global finance and economic policy. jack lew really has no, he is pretty much -- connell: and a project i. what is your view on how much these things matter? he has been around a long time. at the end of the day, the foreign policy will come out of the white house. >> i think there is some truth to that. treasury policy will be run out of the white house. the president will have a strong partner. and articulate partner with a reputation for pushing a hard bargain. jack lose primary role here will be to pushing for that. dagen: jack lew may be staring at a sudden unexpected spike in interest rates. >> that is why it is interesting they chose someone with no expertise. it could come back to haunt them. i do not think that will be his role. his role will be the press. if he cannot succeed, then to push for the 2014 elections. connell: they do not know that much about her. what should they know? >> she deserves high marks for her prosecution for the first world trade center

i worked under secretary bob rubin, who is known for probabilistic thinking. he wrote about this in his book "an uncertain world," which is very good. how do you look at these lists? if you see things on both sides, how do you really know? looking at people, talking to other people, understanding these things, whether the decisions you are making are more expensive or narrowing? that is the way to think about some of these decisions. >> we will quickly up a couple of questions from the audience. do you still skate, by the way? >> i do not. >> when do you give it up? >> i was skating in los angeles for thanksgiving. >> so, you still skate, just not competitively? >> i see these will 10-year olds and i am like -- you know, -- >> you are not a big person, but you have to be so strong. how do you do that? >> working out a lot. my legs are actually -- now i do a lot of yoga and i am surprised. there is a muscle i had when i was skating, and it is three times your weight when you are coming down from a jump. >> right. >> another thing i wonder -- when 1 million peop