Summers Says ‘More Dangerous World’ Requires an FDR-Like Pivot

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.”