NPR Host Steve Inskeep Interviewed Omarova As Softly As He Gushed Over Obama

As we’ve reported, Soule Omarova, Biden’s withdrawn nominee for comptroller of the currency, had to withdraw because of her wild statements about how “we want” oil and coal companies “to go bankrupt” for climate change, and she tweeted in 2019 “Until I came to the US, I couldn’t imagine that things like gender pay gap still existed in today’s world. You can say what you like about the old USSR but there wasn’t a gender pay gap. Market doesn’t always ‘know best.’”

The Daily Mail added she appeared in a 2019 documentary film called A**holes: A Theory, where she called Wall Street’s culture a “quintessential a–hole industry.”

Some media outlets claimed Omarova had been smeared by them as a radical, particularly National Public Radio which is home to leftist radicals. Morning EditionSteve Inskeep supported Omarova’s interview on December 15 and ignored evidence about her extremist record. Inskeep made no mention of her radical status, and only quoted Republicans. Then he claimed this was because she was born in Kazakhstan during the Soviet Union. And racism!

STEVE INSKEEP : Soon afterward, she publicly suggested that The criticism was directed at her race.Her ethnicity is Asian. Our conversation with Saule Omarova is her first interview since her confirmation died. How does Omarova feel about her experiences? Was it the same ideas some Republicans, and others Democrats considered so radical? The fact that she was born in the United States is what we started with.

Inskeep ignored all she said and wrote, merely quoting a resume. “She worked in Wall Street and the Administration of President George W. Bush.” Although she accepted the President Biden offer of a position as bank regulator, she said she was aware she wouldn’t be confirmed by the Senate because she favors tighter regulation. This includes limiting banks investment. 

STEVE INSKEEEP: Doesn’t that sound like speculative trading? The way financial institutions define it. Incredibly large sums of money?

SAULE OMAROVA: That’s exactly what it is, and that’s why I expected them to be against my nomination.

If we stated that Steve Inskeep earns “insane amounts” as a taxpayer-funded radio host (453,000 per year), it would be editorializing. Inskeep should be most well-known for his admiration of President Obama’s interviews.

Inskeep didn’t stop at Omarova. When he asked her how she had prepared for the nomination, he said that Inskeep “did you play through every question you could be asked.It didn’t occur in your mind that anyone would question you about being a communist.?”

He then suggested to her that her extreme ideas may be popular. It might even be very popular among people. It would not be difficult to convince many Americans that the banks do not serve ordinary citizens if that is your argument. Are you sure they wanted something less common to talk about you?

Inskeep ended with a cynical take: “Saule Omarova, who says she came to America in part to better understand democracy. After learning yet another lesson, Omarova is back at Cornell.

….you pays for NPR. You can share your opinion on this by contacting NPR Public Editor Kelly McBride here. 

You can find the transcription below. 

NPR Morning Edition

December 15, 2021

STEVE INSKEEP – We held a video conference this week with a woman from the Finger Lakes area of New York, where winter is coming in.

SAULE OMAROVA: Yes, I’m in Ithaca.

INSKEEP: This day seems beautiful, but it is?

OMAROVA – Everything is relative Steve. It’s a wonderful day, compared to any other day.

INSKEEP: Saule Omarova has returned to teaching at Cornell University. It is not likely that she will be moving to Washington, D.C. She was nominated by President Biden as the Comptroller for the Currency, which regulates the banking industry. However, members of Congress attacked her beliefs and writings last week.

PAT TOOMEY: It’s the most radical regulatory choice I have ever seen.

INSKEEP: That’s Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, and this is Louisiana’s John Kennedy, who suggested Omarova was a communist since she came from the former Soviet Union.

JOHN KENNEDY : No disrespect. You can call me professor, comrade or both.

OMAROVA – Senator, I am not communist. I couldn’t choose where I was raised.

INSKEEP She identified as Asian. Our conversation with Saule Omarova is her first interview since her confirmation died. How does Omarova feel about her experiences? Was it the same ideas some Republicans, and others Democrats considered so radical? The fact that she was born in the United States is what we started with.

OMAROVA: My name is Almarova and I was raised in Kazakhstan.

INSKEEP: At that time, it was an isolated part of Soviet Russia. In Moscow she attended college, but after graduation moved to America. As she studied politics and democracy, she became an American citizen.

OMAROVA: I felt like I was a sponge when I arrived in the United States. I tried to absorb everything I could.

INSKEEP: She became a professor. She has worked at Wall Street as well as in the Bush administration. While she agreed to President Biden’s invitation to be a bank regulator she admits that she did not expect to get Senate confirmation as she is a proponent of tighter regulation.

OMAROVA Our financial system should serve more Americans, American businesses, and American real economic interests. It must funnel capital and channel credit into real, productive enterprises. This will help to put more Americans into work. In my opinion, over the last few decades the financial industry and the bank industry as a core have transformed into multi-faceted financial conglomerates. Their main profit and business is trading in complicated financial instruments, rather than lending to communities or families who most require credit.

INSKEEP: Doesn’t that sound like speculative trading?

OMAROVA

INSKEEP

OMAROVA

INSKEEP

OMAROVA, They have every reason to worry. My view is that the regulator has the responsibility to ask private banks and financial institutions about any risks they may be generating. Banks are being subsidized by us, the public. They are subsidizing their private profit making ability in an important way. Therefore, we can press them to make the best decisions.

INSKEEP Is there a way you prepared to pass this confirmation?

OMAROVA That was what I had been thinking about when answering those kinds of substantive questions. The substantive questions didn’t come up, unfortunately. My scholarship’s substance has become completely discredited. It’s also been simplified in such a way that my preparations for debating complex technical issues of banking regulation have not been necessary.

INSKEEP

OMAROVA : I can imagine it. It’s 30 years ago that the Soviet Union collapsed. This country has been extinguished. The regime that ran it is now gone. Even though I was there, that system was already dying. We all knew this. To me it was an outrage that such a fear of communism, especially in Soviet form, still had that much power today in America.

INSKEEP: Do you believe that people might be interested in your views on banks? If your argument is that banks don’t serve ordinary citizens, then it will be very easy for a large number of Americans to support that proposition. Are you sure they wanted something less common to talk about you?

OMAROVA, I agree. Because who, today in America, would want to support another large bank bailout.

INSKEEP: Senators questioned her academic writings. One example was her writing about pushing the Federal Reserve into retail banking, which she is not authorized to do as a regulator.

OMAROVA This idea is not new.

INSKEEP : Some prominent Democrats also doubted her nomination. Omarova maintains they listen too much to the banking lobby, but the Democrats’ opposition made her confirmation impossible. Her withdrawal became another divisive story about race and identity, though Saule Omarova says that was never really the issue.

OMAROVA. In reality, they don’t care much about my race, my sex, or any other such thing. If I had stood up for my interests, and if I were the type of nominee for comptroller that they could trust to do their bidding and treat them like “clients”, then they would have loved me exactly as I am. Because it was politically easiest to kill my nomination, they decided to weaponize me identity.

INSKEEP: Saule Omarova, who says she came to America in part to better understand democracy. After learning another lesson about how the system works, she’s back at Cornell.