Former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says he was instructed by
the Obama White House to say things he didn’t believe on the Sunday morning
news shows.
FILE - In this July 25, 2012, file photo, then-Treasury Secretary
Timothy Geithner testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. Two of President
Barack Obama’s closest first-term advisers will soon spill insider details on
the administration’s handling of the early days of the Great Recession, the
White House’s cautious response to the Syrian civil war and the genesis of
clandestine talks with Iran. The memoirs from former Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton and Geithner will be the latest installments in an often awkward
Washington ritual: one-time confidants signing big book contracts to examine a
presidency that is ongoing and policy decisions that still are being
implemented.
“I remember during one Roosevelt Room prep session before I appeared on
the Sunday shows, I objected when Dan Pfeiffer wanted me to say Social Security
didn’t contribute to the deficit. It wasn’t a main driver of our future
deficits, but it did contribute. Pfeiffer said the line was a ‘dog whistle’ to
the left, a phrase I had never heard before,” Geithner reveals in his
forthcoming memoir, “Stress Test.”
“He had to explain that the phrase was code to the Democratic base,
signaling that we intended to protect Social Security,” he added.
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