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White House Pulls Nomination For Neera Tanden To Lead Budget Office

Neera Tanden

President Joe Biden pulled Neera Tanden’s nomination to lead the White House Management and Budget Office Tuesday amid swelling bipartisan opposition.

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President Joe Biden pulled Neera Tanden’s nomination to lead the White House Management and Budget Office Tuesday amid bipartisan opposition growing on Capitol Hill.

In a statement, Biden said Tanden requested the White House remove her from consideration for the budget job but he is still looking at other roles for the former head of the Washington progressive think tank Center for American Progress in the new administration.

“I have accepted Neera Tanden’s request to withdraw her name from nomination for Director of the Office of Management and Budget,” Biden said. “I have the utmost respect for her record of accomplishment, her experience, and her counsel, and I look forward to having her serve in a role in my Administration.”

In a letter to Biden, Tanden reportedly acknowledged her sinking chances of a successful Senate confirmation over her online vindictiveness towards Republican senators, which included moderates.

“Unfortunately, it now seems clear that there is no path forward to gain confirmation, and I do not want continued consideration of my nomination to be a distraction from your other priorities,” Tanden wrote, according to Fox Business.

Shortly after the announcement of her nomination in November, Tanden was caught having deleted hundreds of tweets that spread conspiracies and attacked lawmakers whose support she needed in the 50-50 chamber, including Maine Republican Susan Collins, who frequently gives Democrats the votes they need to move controversial legislation against Republican voters’ priorities.

Collins and Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney both announced their opposition to Tanden’s confirmation last week. West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin became the first Democrat to publicly oppose her confirmation days earlier.

Tanden was grilled over past online comments at her Senate confirmation hearing in February, where she apologized for the troll activity.

“I’m very disturbed about your personal comments about people. It’s not just one or two. I think you deleted about 1,000 tweets, and it wasn’t just about Republicans,” Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy said. “I don’t mind disagreements in policy. I think that’s great. I love the dialect, but the comments were personal. I mean, you called Sen. Sanders everything but an ignorant slut.”

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski was seen as a potential swing vote in the upper chamber but had not yet made her decision shortly before the nomination was pulled, according to Politico. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky had encouraged the conference to oppose Tanden’s nomination. Murkowski is up for re-election next year.