Richard Chew is joined by Aya Ibrahim, former senior adviser at the White House National Economic Council and the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff; now a fellow at Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy. 

Ibrahim highlighted her work in the Biden administration, where she focused on policies aimed at supporting working families and applying "lessons learned from what we didn't get right with how we dealt with the financial crisis in 2008-2009," she said. "So, for example, Black Americans went from being majority homeowners to majority renters on the other side of the crisis, because so many had lost their homes as a result of the financial crisis. This go around, we spent a lot of time, devoted a lot of resources, energy and attention to keeping people in their homes, whether it was through the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which I worked on myself, or the efforts that we pursued around foreclosures and minimizing and preventing foreclosures all around. The real fulcrum of of our response was the American Rescue Plan, which is the largest expansion of the social safety net in 50 years. . . . And what we saw is that when you give people what they need, the economic outcomes are better. And so overall, the United States had the best recovery of any of the any our developed peer nations." 

Ibrahim criticized the Republican Party's current policies, particularly the recently enacted tax and spending bill and President Donald Trump's tariffs.

"They don't care about working people," she said when asked for her top concern about the Trump administration. "It's the lack of thought. It's a lack of care, it would seem, for anyone who's not able to sign a check to be a donor. And for everyone at home who is trying to navigate this very tumultuous economic period, I cannot imagine that you are watching this president, this administration, and you feel like 'these people have my best interest in mind; they have my family's best interest in mind.' And if you do, I would love to talk to you, because I have a lot of questions." 

Ibrahim also addressed Trump's attempted firing of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and the broader implications of the administration's chaotic economic policies, emphasizing the need for Congress to take a more active role in shaping economic policy.

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