The White House said Monday it will continue to push for the Senate confirmation of Neera Tanden, its nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
“Neera Tanden = accomplished policy expert,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki wrote on Twitter, adding that she would be the first Asian American woman to lead the OMB.
Psaki also repeated the White House emphasis that Tanden was the beneficiary of federal welfare programs as a child, which made her a qualified choice to lead the agency.
“[L]ooking ahead to the committee votes this week and continuing to work toward her confirmation,” she concluded.
Neera Tanden=accomplished policy expert, would be 1st Asian American woman to lead OMB, has lived experience having benefitted from a number of federal programs as a kid, looking ahead to the committee votes this week and continuing to work toward her confirmation
— Jen Psaki (@PressSec) February 22, 2021
Psaki again backed up Tanden after Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) announced her decision to oppose President Joe Biden’s nominee.
“Neera Tanden has neither the experience nor the temperament to lead this critical agency,” she wrote in a statement, noting that, “Her past actions have demonstrated exactly the kind of animosity that President Biden has pledged to transcend.”
Tanden’s history of activism and social media vitriol against Republicans and even leftist Democrats has won her few friends in the Senate, despite an attempt to apologize for her past statements. She even mocked Biden in 2015 when she was pushing for failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to win the 2016 Democrat presidential primary.
Collins also referred to Tanden’s decision to delete more than a thousand tweets before she was officially nominated by Biden as a concern.
“Should Congress need to review documents or actions taken by OMB, we must have confidence that the Director will be forthcoming,” she said.
On Friday, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced he would also oppose Tanden.
“I believe her overtly partisan statements will have a toxic and detrimental impact on the important working relationship between members of Congress and the next director of the Office of Management and Budget,” he said in a statement.
Biden signaled Friday that he was still confident that Tanden would get the votes needed for confirmation. “I think we’re going to find the votes to get her confirmed,” he said.
But without support from Manchin and Collins, the two moderates of the Republican and Democrat parties, it is unclear where Biden will find those votes.
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