The confirmation of Neera Tanden, Biden’s polarizing pick for head of the Office of Management and Budget, has been further derailed after Republicans suggested they’d vote against it, insider sources told the media.
Both the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Budget Committee postponed meetings set for Wednesday in which they were scheduled to vote on Tanden’s confirmation, according to sources cited in several US outlets.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki refused to say whether the Biden administration was planning to withdraw Tanden, instead gushing over her “broad spectrum of support” and her potential status as the first South Asian woman to lead the OMB.
However, Tanden’s history of partisan sniping on social media has not won her many friends in the Senate, with a history of attacks leveled at precisely the senators whose approval she now needs to secure the directorship.
US Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), for example, suggested 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.” Several Republican senators, including Maine’s Susan Collins and Ohio’s Rob Portman, also said they too would vote against her.
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