- President-elect
Joe Biden 's nominee for budget chief,Neera Tanden , has deleted tweets critical of Republican senators who are likely going to vote on her appointment, The Daily Beast reported. - Biden nominated Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget on Monday. The job, which comes with a seat in the president's Cabinet, requires Senate confirmation.
- Since November 1, 2020, Tanden has deleted tweets critical of GOP senators like
Mitch McConnell , Joni Ernst, and Susan Collins. - The Senate is likely going to be controlled by the Republican Party under the Biden administration, and Tanden may need GOP senators' votes to assume the OMB role.
- Her appointment has been controversial and former colleagues have criticized her management style.
Neera Tanden, President-elect Joe Biden's nominee for budget chief, has deleted hundreds of tweets in recent days, many of which were critical of Republican senators who will likely be voting on her appointment, The Daily Beast reported.
Internet archives show that as of November 1, 2020, Tanden had posted 88,639 tweets, but as of Monday evening that number has dropped to 87,588.
A number of those tweets criticized senators like Mitch McConnell, Joni Ernst, and Susan Collins, who will vote on Biden's nomination for her to head the
A June 14, 2019, tweet deleted by Tanden read: "Can people on here please focus their ire on McConnell and the GOP senators who are Up This Cycle who enable him: Cory Gardner, Collins, Ernst, Cornyn, Perdue, Tillis And many more."
The Senate was controlled by the Republican Party during President Donald Trump's administration, and is likely to remain that way during the Biden presidency.
Another of Tanden's tweets, deleted some time since November 1, called Senate majority leader McConnell "Moscow Mitch," a nickname he is said to hate, The Daily Beast reported.
Business Insider has contacted Tanden for comment.
Democrats, Republicans unhappy with Tanden's appointment
A number of Republican figures have said publicly that Tanden is unlikely to be accepted by the Senate.
Drew Brandewie, a spokesperson for GOP Sen. John Cornyn, tweeted on Monday that Tanden "stands zero chance of being confirmed."
Cornyn also told reporters on Monday that Tanden may be Biden's "worst nominee so far," according to Politico reporter Jake Sherman.
Tanden's nomination has also not gone down well among former colleagues and some Democratic Party circles, with many criticizing her leadership style.
Tanden was described by Center for American Progress colleagues as "impossible to trust" after BuzzFeed News reported that she had identified of a victim of sexual harassment in a company meeting.
A former senior Center for American Progress employee also told Business Insider that Tanden used the company as "an engine for her ambition" at her colleagues' expense.
Ali Gharib, a journalist who worked under Tanden on ThinkProgress, a now-shuttered news site connected to the Center for American Progress, tweeted on Monday that she lacked "leadership and moral courage."
Briana Gray, who worked as a press secretary on the Bernie Sanders campaign, also tweeted that "everything toxic about the corporate Democratic Party is embodied in Neera Tanden."
Tanden garnered unwanted newspaper headlines in 2008 when she was accused of punching a top editor at ThinkProgress after he asked her then-boss Hillary Clinton about the war in Iraq, according to The New York Times.
Tanden later said it was a push, not a punch.
As Business Insider's Eliza Relman previously reported, Tanden is a longtime advisor to Clinton, and played a key role in her 2008 and 2016 presidential campaigns.
She also helped engineer the Affordable Care Act during former President Barack Obama's administration.
If Tanden is voted in as budget chief, she will be the first woman of color to hold the office. The agency is tasked with drafting and enacting out the US government's annual spending plan, and its leader has a seat in the presidential cabinet.
Despite the criticism, a Biden transition official told Business Insider that Tandem is the right choice for the role.
"The fact that Neera not only has the policy experience and expertise but also has the background to relate to all of those needs makes her an incredibly compelling choice to lead the office," the official said.
- Read more:
- Joe Biden may spark his first Senate confirmation fight after controversial pick for a top economic job
- Biden's decision to pick Neera Tanden for a top economic role exposes an ongoing rift with Bernie Sanders-allied progressives
- Why Neera Tanden, Biden's new pick for a top economic role, has been called a terrible leader and 'impossible to trust' by some of her former colleagues