President Joe Biden withdrew his nomination of Neera Tanden as leader of the Office of Management and Budget after senators made it clear that her path to confirmation was unlikely.
“I accepted Neera Tanden’s request to withdraw her name from the appointment as director of the office of management and budget,” Biden said in a statement on Tuesday night. “I have the utmost respect for her record of achievements, her experience and her advice, and I look forward to having her serve in a role in my administration.”
Teeth was a controversial choice for Biden, and it was clear from the outset that she would have trouble getting confirmed in a Senate with scant Democratic control.
The head of the Center for American Progress, Tanden, has been a close adviser to Hillary Clinton for the past five years and has a firm role in political battles, including within the Democratic Party. It regularly flushed out on Twitter, where she regularly attacked Republican senators who would now have to vote on her nomination.
But she has experienced problems even among Democrats. The Senate Budget Committee is now chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders, with whom Tanden clashed during the 2020 presidential election following his attack on Clinton in 2016. Sanders not made clear how he would eventually vote on Teeth. Sen. Joe Manchin, a heavily Democratic voter, announced his opposition to Teeth last month, meaning at least one Republican will have to support her nomination to succeed in a split 50-50 Senate. Hearings on her nomination in the Senate were postponed last week, making it seem inevitable.
“I appreciate how hard you and your team worked at the White House to win my confirmation,” Tanden wrote in a letter to Biden issued by the White House on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, it now seems clear that there is no way forward to get confirmation, and I do not want my nomination to continue as a distraction from your other priorities.”