Joe Biden’s ‘offensive’ budget chief Neera Tanden could be blocked from job

Neera Tanden is under fire from both sides, over ‘offensive’ tweets and her factional fighting for Hillary Clinton, her mentor.

Hillary Clinton and Neera Tanden. Picture: AFP/AAP

Republicans in the US Senate are threatening to block a prominent nominee to Joe Biden’s cabinet over her “offensive” tweets; a trial of strength that highlights the importance of control of the upper chamber.

Neera Tanden, chosen to lead the White House budget office, has been condemned by politicians on the right over her social media comments but she also faces flak from the left for factional in-fighting on behalf of Hillary Clinton, her mentor.

Ms Tanden, 50, has deleted more than a thousand tweets in the past month, many of them targeting Republicans. They are already proclaiming her the “sacrificial lamb” of the Biden team, suggesting that there was always going to be a lightning rod for partisan opposition during the process of confirming his cabinet.

Mr Biden, 78, introduced her warmly on Tuesday as he presented his six-strong economics team – led by Janet Yellen, 74, former head of the Federal Reserve and his nominee for Treasury secretary – knowing that she may not survive Senate hearings unless the Democrats win two run-off votes in Georgia next month.

At the event in his home city of Wilmington, Delaware, he showed off the medical boot that he is being forced to wear temporarily after he fractured his right foot while playing with his dog, Major. “We can build a new economy that works for all Americans,” he said. “Our message to everybody struggling right now is this: help is on its way.”

He appealed for “unity” and “healing” from the Senate after the intense partisanship of recent years where both sides have dug into trenches, especially over the impeachment of President Trump and his choice of controversial Supreme Court judges.

“To the United States Senate, I hope these outstanding nominees will receive a prompt hearing and we will be able to work across the aisle in good faith and move forward as one country,” Mr Biden said.

Ms Yellen vowed to end the “convergence of tragedies” depriving lower-income Americans of well-paid jobs, from the coronavirus to racial inequity. “Out of our collective pain as a nation we will find collective purpose to control the pandemic and rebuild the economy better than before … to make sure our recovery works for everyone,” she said.

Ms Tanden was head of the Centre for American Progress, a liberal think tank, from 2011, where she was a thorn in the side of President Obama from the left. Nominated by Mr Biden as director of the Office of Management and Budget, she is not viewed as radical enough by the left wing of the party because she supported Mrs Clinton. Born in Massachusetts to parents who came to the US from India, she would be the first woman of colour to head the office that scrutinises budget proposals from each department.

Ms Tanden, brought up by a single mother who survived on food stamps in subsidised housing after a divorce, said: “This country gave her a fair shot to reach the middle class and she made it work. I am here thanks to my mother’s grit but also because of a country that invested in our dreams because of social programs, because of budget choices, because of a government that saw my mother’s dignity. Now it is my profound honour to shape those budgets and programs to keep lifting Americans up, to pull families back from the brink.”

Separately, Rudy Giuliani, Mr Trump’s personal lawyer, is believed to have discussed receiving a pre-emptive pardon from the departing president, although it is not clear what criminal charges he might be worried about.

On Tuesday William Barr, Mr Trump’s Attorney-General, contradicted the president’s continuing claims that he has somehow been cheated at the ballot box. “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” Mr Barr said.

The Times