Business and Media Institute's Dan Gainor appeared on Fox Business News "Money for Breakfast" March 17 to discuss the Obama economic team's performance in the administration's first 50 days.
Gainor dubbed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner "the worst" because "when he came out and talked about the housing plan that he didn't have, the markets tanked."
Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman, earned a "B-minus," partly because "he showed his strength on Sunday" during a "60 Minutes" interview. Director of the White House's National Economic Council Larry Summers received a "C grade" for being "not great, not horrible."
Gainor gave President Obama a "C-minus/D" because it "clearly took a long time for him to wake up and do what he had to do here.
When pressed by Anchor Jenna Lee on the fairness of grading the team only 50 days into the administration, Gainor replied:
Well the market's giving them the grades. So I mean in that, we, we have to. The market dropped 20 percent in less than, less than these 50 days. It's rebounded some now, and that's great. I think we all love to see that. But you have to look at what he's been doing right now. One of the people I included in my grading was Gibbs, [Obama's] press secretary, who's been on a full-on P.R. offensive against anybody who has been questioning Obama whether it's the people on a competing network or whether its talk-show hosts or whatever. And I think that scares people and makes them think they're not taking this seriously.
