Neera Tanden, President Joe Biden’s candidate for the office of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is attending a hearing with the Senate Committee on Budgets on Capitol Hill in Washington on February 10, 2021.
Anna Moneymaker | Swimming pool | Reuters
President Joe Biden said Tuesday he would withdraw the appointment of Neera Tanden as budget chief at his request, a move that came after signs he would not get Senate confirmation due to previous Twitter posts about lawmakers.
Biden also said he hoped Tanden, whom he had taken advantage of to be director of the Office of Management and Budgets, would give another “role to my administration.” But the president does not identify what this job may be.
The withdrawal of Tanden is the first case that a candidate for the Biden Cabinet fails to get Senate approval.
In a letter to Biden, Tanden wrote, “I appreciate the work you have done with you and your team at the White House to earn my confirmation.”
“Unfortunately, it now seems clear that there is no way forward to obtain confirmation, and I do not want the continued consideration of my candidacy to be a distraction from your other priorities,” wrote Tanden, chair of the think tank. from the left for American Progress.
Tanden’s nomination was called into question after three senators — West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Republican Mitt Romney of R-Utah and Maine Republican Susan Collins — said they would vote against him because of the its history criticizing legislators on both sides of the political corridor.
These criticisms were filed in the more than 1,000 tweets reportedly removed by Tanden before the confirmation process began.
Democrats have majority control in the Senate by the narrowest margin. Two independent groups with 48 Democratic senators, giving them the same number of votes as the Republican group of 50 senators.
Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris maintains the tiebreaker vote in the Senate, giving her party approval of candidacies and legislation if the group stays together.
Manchin’s refusal to support Tanden, along with the difficulty of getting a Republican to support her, made the path to Tanden’s confirmation very narrow.
During her confirmation hearing, Tanden was questioned about her previous tweets, which included comparing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., To villain Harry Potter, Voldemort, and writing that “vampires they have more heart ”than Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican.
Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, had also pointed to Tanden’s “vicious attacks” on him and other progressives in the past, especially when Sanders ran against former Sen. and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the nomination. 2016 Democrat. Tanden had been an adviser to the Clinton campaign.
In his confirmation hearings, Tanden said, “I deeply regret and apologize for my language and for my past language.”
Biden, in a statement released by the White House, said of Tanden, “I have the utmost respect for his track record, experience and advice, and I hope he can play a role in my Administration.”
“She will bring valuable perspective and knowledge of our work,” the president said.
White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said last week that if Tanden is not confirmed, “we will find some other place to serve the administration that does not require Senate confirmation.”