joining us is white house correspondent hans nichols of bloomberg news. >> thanks for having me. >> who is on the short list? what is the time line for the president to make an announce snment. >> the short list is larry summers and there could be other names on this list. what i know to be larry summers, susan rice and then john kerry. there are other late breaking and this afternoon kerry, his communications director e-mailed and said he's not interested in the position. so we can scratch kerry off our list. >> what kind of a process is the white house going through to vet through the names? >> well, i guess i would describe it as in three tiers, three stages. they had initial sort of okay who do we want for this? and there are names like bill gates on that. they were thinking pretty wide and broad. unclear to me whether or not how formal the process was at that stage. but then they get a core list. and then the president wanted to expand that list. and in part because he -- there is concern that the white house that is the nominee a candidate who may not be the stronge eses candidate