On Monday, MSNBC Live host Hallie Jackson discussed Biden's pick of political operative Neera Tanden to run the Office of Management and Budget. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Tanden has zero chance of getting confirmed. On reason is Tanden's history of Twitter insults. Jackson showed two examples, "Tanden has named Ted Cruz ‘Weasel Ted,’ for example, and compared Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to Lord Voldemort, A.K.A Tom Riddle, A.K.A the evil villain of the Harry Potter series."
But then Jackson spotlighted reaction from Mark Salter, a longtime top aide to pseudo-Republican Sen. John McCain, who accused Republicans of being hypocrites: '"oh, did she hurt the feelings of Republicans who’ve excused or ignored hundreds of offensive statements by Trump who’s belittled people for their race, background or looks? Poor baby.'"
After spotlighting this very MSNBC-pleasing tweet, Jackson added: "I truly don't mean to be glib here, but you and I for the last four years have heard many Republicans they say don't have time to look at Twitter when it comes to President Trump because they have jobs to do and policies to implement, and yet, that seems to be some of the basis for the opposition to Neera Tanden."
Haake agreed: "Yeah look, mean tweets are hardly a typical reason for which someone doesn't get confirmed to a cabinet-level post." Maybe because Twitter has not been around that long.
But Haake did note she's never been Senate-confirmed and managed to acknowledge that Tanden "has been a political operator" and predicting that Tanden "might be the person who becomes something of a sink for Republicans who are angry about Biden, don't like his policies, what have you, pick your issue, to kind of go after."
It is not just the mean tweets that Republicans will object to. Tanden was one of the biggest propagators of the Steele dossier. She also sought to delegitimize the 2016 election by suggesting that Russia hacked and changed the vote totals, because, for the media, some election deligitimizers are better than others.
This segment was sponsored by Progressive.
Here is a transcript of the November 30 show:
MSNBC
MSNBC Live with Hallie Jackson
10:39 AM ET
HALLIE JACKSON: President-Elect Joe Biden announced his new economic team, but even before he did that, there was resistance to one of those people on Capitol Hill. Neera Tanden, according to a spokesperson for Republican Senator John Cornyn Neera Tanden, who is Biden’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget has, quote, “no chance” of getting confirmed should the Republicans keep control of the Senate. The spokesperson said it’s because of a history of disparaging comments about Republican senators whose votes she'll need. Tanden has named Ted Cruz ‘Weasel Ted,’ for example, and compared Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to Lord Voldemort A.K.A Tom Riddle A.K.A the evil villain of the Harry Potter series. Joining me now, NBC news Capitol Hill correspondent Garrett Haake.
So Garrett, former chief of staff to John McCain, Mark Salter had this tweet where he pointed out, what he described as the hypocrisy of Republicans who sort of slammed Tanden’s Twitter history while for years staying silent on what he called many comments on Twitter saying, “oh, did she hurt the feelings of Republicans who’ve excused or ignored hundreds of offensive statements by Trump who’s belittled people for their race, background or looks? Poor baby.”
I mean listen, I truly don't mean to be glib here, but you and I for the last four years have heard many Republicans they say don't have time to look at Twitter when it comes to President Trump because they have jobs to do and policies to implement, and yet, that seems to be some of the basis for the opposition to Neera Tanden. How concerned should the Biden team be here?
GARRETT HAAKE: Yeah look, mean tweets are hardly a typical reason for which someone doesn't get confirmed to a cabinet level post, but in case Tanden has been a political operator. She worked for the Hillary Clinton campaign and leads the Center for American Progress and she's not someone who has been previously senate confirmed. So if you're looking at the landscape of these appointees that we've seen from Biden so far, here you see someone with a political background, doesn't have a history of already being confirmed and someone who Republicans find personally distasteful for mean tweets we've mentioned. She might be the person who becomes something of a sink for Republicans who are angry about Biden, don't like his policies, what have you, pick your issue, to kind of go after. You see some of the other appointees out there, the national security oriented picks, Treasury Secretary and so forth. Governing-minded Republicans want to make sure that even someone who is on the opposite party will have a team that allow the government to function early on. This may be one where they think they can go after somebody with fairly little consequence that they see as a partisan fighter.
