AUGUST

**7, 2020**

Kuttner on TAP

**Did Summers Jump, or Was He Pushed?**

****

On Thursday, Larry Summers told a virtual forum

hosted by the Aspen Institute: "I am very, very happy being able to
speak freely. My time in government is behind me and my time as a free
speaker is ahead of me."

My sources told me that the Biden campaign, yielding to serious pressure
from progressive groups, asked Summers to take himself out of contention
for a job in the administration. Summers made it sound like a purely
voluntary decision.

My recent

**Prospect** piece, cataloguing Summers's serial policy disasters and
zombie-like survival
as an
influential adviser, demonstrated why Summers had become a lightning rod
for a broad range of progressive groups.

But don't count Larry out. He has all sorts of back channels to the
Biden campaign, including to Biden himself, who is said to like him.
Summers did not say that he'd cease to be an informal adviser, and may
yet turn up in some kind of transition team role. He also exercises
significant behind-the-scenes influence through his numerous protégés.

According to several sources, Summers still covets the career-capper job
that has twice eluded him-chair of the Federal Reserve. If Summers
makes another run at the Fed, he can always say that, technically,
chairing the independent Fed is not exactly serving "in government."

Keep an eye on this guy. He has more lives than a cat.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

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