Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers urged President Joe Biden to ditch the “usual laundry list of policy proposals” in his State of the Union speech, in favor of a pivot toward grappling with a global environment dramatically altered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its tightening links with China.
In the same way that President Franklin D. Roosevelt pivoted from battling the Great Depression to winning World War II, Biden “needs to shift from being the ‘protect the middle class from the pandemic’ president to being ‘prepare America for the struggle ahead’ president,” Summers told Bloomberg Television’s “Wall Street Week” with David Westin on Friday. He said he was hoping for a “real change in tone.”
“We are looking at an event of potentially vast significance and concern,” Summers said in a follow-up interview Monday, referring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the tightening alignment of Russia with China. “Our ability to meet these challenges depends on recognizing them for what they are.”
