Austan Goolsbee

We got $700 billion of negative equity and everybody may walk away.

And if they do, we don't even know what's going to happen.

Tim Geithner's like, half the financial institutions in America may be insolvent.

They blew through all the TARP money.

We may need another trillion dollars of TARP.

Christy Romer's like, we're going to need the biggest stimulus of all times, bigger than the New Deal.

Partway through the thing, Obama's like, is it too late to ask for a recount?

You know, he says everything.

So it finishes.

The meeting finishes.

And I go up to him and I say, that's the worst briefing that the incoming president has had since 1932.

Franklin Roosevelt, 1932.

Maybe since Abraham Lincoln, 1860.

You know, where they tell him, oh, you know, the country is going to break apart.

Obama says, he's not even joking.

And he says, Goolsbee, that's not my worst briefing this week.

I was like, oh God, oh God.

So that's mostly what I remember from that time.

In January, it was like one mess after another.

But hold on.