Joe Biden has already chosen Susan Rice's replacement, and her name is Neera Tanden. She will assume the position of Director of the Domestic Policy Council on May 26. The new official has experience in presidential campaigns, and the Senate recently rejected her nomination to head the Office of Management and Budget because of her "overtly partisan statements."
Her name is not new to DC, as she made a big splash a few years ago. Associated with Hillary Clinton, she worked in the Obama Administration, where she played a role in drafting the Affordable Care Act. In addition, before coming to work in the current White House, she directed the progressive think tank called the Center for American Progress.
1,000 deleted tweets and an ideological shift
In November 2020, the then-president-elect named her as his choice to head the Office of Management and Budget, which is in charge of preparing the president's budget. Hours after being nominated, Tanden deleted an estimated 1,000 tweets and changed her description from "progressive" to "liberal."
The aforementioned tweets were not randomly deleted. They contained highly critical words about Republican legislators. For example, she used the word "pathetic" to describe Susan Collins after she voted for Judge Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, compared Ted Cruz to vampires and dubbed Senator McConnell' Moscow Mitch'. Because of this, POLITICO defined her nomination as "rubbing salt in the wound" since Biden had come to the Oval Office on the promise of moderation and a return to normalcy.
With a 50-50 Senate tie, Republicans needed at least one Democrat to knock out Tanden's nomination, and Joe Manchin quickly came to the rescue. The West Virginia senator was the first Democrat to oppose it publicly. "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 wrote in a press release.
"For this reason, I cannot support her nomination. As I have said before, we must take meaningful steps to end the political division and dysfunction that pervades our politics. At a time of grave crisis, it is more important than ever that we chart a new bipartisan course that helps address the many serious challenges facing our nation," he added.
Tanden refloated her aspirations after meeting with Lisa Murkowski, Bernie Sanders and Kyrsten Sinema, but Manchin's refusal made it very difficult for her to advance in the Senate. Despite his initial reluctance, the president was forced to withdraw his nomination on March 2, 2021.
"I appreciate how hard you and your team at the White House have worked to win my confirmation. 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," the former nominee said after learning the news.
Two months later, in May 2021, Biden found her a position in his administration as a senior advisor and White House Staff Secretary, positions she holds to this day. She will take office on May 26 as head of the Domestic Policy Council, from where she will greatly influence the president's political agenda.
