- you would not, if you were in the betting market at the beginning of the obama first term, wount sthauy is going to be the guy who makes economic policy, this guy is going to be influential and go in the history books as one of america's most influential and important for better or ill treasury secretaries because he got a really bad start to the job. he stumbled out of the gate. he gave press conference that's were panned. he was not particularly close to barack obama. yet he managed to have by all accounts across the spectrum, tremendous influence and as someone who worked with him and sat across tables with him, neil, how did he pull that off? >> i think he has a sense of president obama. and i think they connected on a personal level. and he somehow earned the president's trust. but i think when you look at what he's done, it is a remarkable thing. most of the policies that he engineers or did in response to financial crisis were failed policies. and i think, you know, part of his legacy going to be what we're going to have to deal with in the coming years as a result of the faile