host: nick timiraos, any thoughts? guest: thank you for your service and it is a challenging time for the economy. we have been going through so many shifts. technology at all of these things changing the way we transact -- technology and all of these things that were changing the way we transact before the pandemic, it feels as if we have sped those things up. part of the challenge of this new team is to pick up the back tond to try to get something like we had before, recognizing there has been an incredible amount of change happening in the economy. host: let's go back to joe biden's choice to run the budget office, neera tanden. tells us -- tell us what that role does in regards to the budget and what they do presenting to congress and shepherding it to the congress? guest: the public face is important once the budget is released but a lot of that goes think of a tire with different spokes and the spokes are the different agencies of the government, the domestic agencies, the pentagon. all of their funding requests

host: we welcome wall street journal's chief economic correspondent nick timiraos to talk about the announcement by joe biden introducing his economic team. are us what your thoughts on the people introduced by the president-elect. what does this tell us about the president-elect's economic philosophy? from: what we have seen president-elect joe biden's picks is that he is prioritizing experience. he wants a team that will hit the ground running. you have the first half-dozen people announced yesterday who have extensive backgrounds in the obama administration and the clinton administration. they are washington pros. there is an emphasis on the pandemic. it is the biggest problem facing the economy. this is a downturn like no other. it will probably be a rebound like no other if there is a vaccine next year. he is trying to get a group of people where there wont be much of a learning curve. he wants to hit the ground running. ,ou see that with janet yellen you see that with her deputy, a adeyemo. adewale they have a lot of washington experience. host: let's start with janet yellen. you did a pie

our guest is nick timiraos.n steven mnuchin, what do you think his legacy will be as treasury secretary? guest: he will be remembered as the treasury secretary that managed through the shock of the coronavirus. we had a financial crisis in march and the treasury and congress came together with the cares act to help make sure the system didn't completely come apart. part of what we're likely to see about him later is a partisan fight over components of the relief program. part of what the fed did is they created an emergency landing program so the fed began doing things they had never done before. they were buying corporate debt, they were purchasing loans to small and midsize this is -- and midsize businesses. they were able to buy short-term debt and all of this because the financial markets were in complete shock. everybody wanted to get their hands on cash in those two weeks itmarch when it looks like was going to upend everyday life. part of the nguyen -- part of steven mnuchin's legacy is how he handled tha