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Welcome to POLITICO’s 2021 Transition Playbook, your guide to the first 100 days of the Biden administration
It’s the end of an era.
Since the 2016 Democratic primary, NEERA TANDEN, JOE BIDEN’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget, has been one of the most prolific and combative tweeters in American politics.
She has sparred with Bernie bros and MAGA hats, and racked up more than 368,000 followers in the process.
She once called Senate Minority Leader MITCH McCONNELL “Voldemort.” When NBC News reported in 2017 that RUPERT MURDOCH’s house had caught fire, she tweeted, “There’s a God. And she’s unhappy,” before deleting it. Her online battles with Sen. BERNIE SANDERS and his supporters were so legendary that Sen. JOHN KENNEDY (R-La.) told Tanden at her confirmation hearing today, “You called Sanders everything but an ignorant slut.” (she disputed that characterization).
She joined Twitter a year after DONALD TRUMP, but has tweeted 30,000-plus times more than the former president (about 88,000 to 57,000).
But Tanden testified before the Senate Budget Committee today that her fights with college students on Twitter at 1:40 a.m. are behind her. She has reformed, she says. She is a tweeter, born again.
“We don’t need to make personal attacks, no matter what views somebody may hold,” Sanders, the committee’s new chairman, chided Tanden. “Can we assume that as the director of the OMB we’re going to see a different approach if you are appointed than you have taken at [The Center for American Progress]?”
“Absolutely,” she replied. “And I would say social media does lead to too many personal comments, and my approach will be radically different.”
But some of her fiercest opponents are sad (sort of) to see her go.
“With the suspension of @realDonaldTrump and now the temporary retirement of Neera, it does feel like the end of an era,” said RYAN GRIM, the D.C. bureau chief of The Intercept who frequently jousted with Tanden (seriously, check out the endless search results).
“It's up to all of us to carry on their 3 a.m. arguments with bots about the 2016 primary. I'm not sure we're up to the task.”
Of course, it’s possible that the Senate could vote against Tanden and she will fall off the Twitter wagon. But Tanden seems headed for confirmation.
People close to Sanders expect him to vote to confirm her. “It seems all but inevitable,” said one. The center-right U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has been trying to make some bipartisan inroads lately, issued a statement Monday supporting her nomination. Republican complaints about Tanden’s mean tweets have not been persuasive after four years of pretending to ignore Trump’s Twitter feed.
Even her online foes agree that Twitter won’t be the same without her.
“There are a lot of her adversaries who felt like Neera was a true poster and respected her for her commitment to the form,” said Grim. “To see her apologize, rather than double down and tweet through it, felt like a betrayal for many. Are there no true posters left?”
Kennedy asked Tanden at least eight times during the hearing today whether she'd meant what she said in her tweets.
"Senator, I must have meant them, but I really regret them," Tanden finally replied.
PROGRAMMING NOTE: Transition Playbook will not publish on Monday, Feb. 15. We'll be back on our normal schedule on Tuesday, Feb. 16.
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Where's Joe
At the Pentagon, where he met with Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN. He also discussed the measures his administration is taking in response to the coup in Myanmar earlier in the day.
Where's Kamala
In the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with JEFF ZIENTS and MARCELLA NUNEZ-SMITH, where she met with members of the African American Mayors Association. She also traveled to the Pentagon with Biden this afternoon.
Presidential Trivia
From special guest trivia host BEN JACOBS after he kept saying our questions weren’t difficult enough (follow him, if you must).
With MERRICK GARLAND’s confirmation hearing scheduled for next week, BARACK OBAMA’s erstwhile pick for the Supreme Court looks to be in good shape to become the country’s next attorney general — a consolation prize after not receiving a vote on his high court nomination in 2016. If confirmed, Garland would actually be the third failed Supreme Court nominee to become attorney general. Name at least one of the other two.
(Answer is at the bottom.)
Pro Exclusive
BIDEN PICKS AN ENERGY DEPUTY SECRETARY — Biden has nominated DAVID TURK to hold the No. 2 post at the Energy Department, ZACK COLMAN reports. Turk currently serves as the deputy executive director at the International Energy Agency and also advised the Biden DOE transition efforts. Turk is an Obama-era veteran, where he worked on international technology and clean energy strategy in the Energy Department. Turk’s nomination will require Senate confirmation.
The remaining articles and infographics in this section are exclusively available to POLITICO Pro subscribers. Pro is a smart, personalized policy intelligence platform from POLITICO. If you are interested in learning more about how POLITICO Pro can support your team through the 2020 transition and beyond, visit this webpage.
The West Wing
THE LATEST IMPEACHMENT DODGE — Each day, White House press secretary JEN PSAKI is finding new ways to say nothing about the impeachment trial.
“I’m just not going to have any more for you on weighing in on impeachment,” she said on Monday in response to the seventh question about it (which was followed by an eighth).
“Joe Biden is the president; he’s not a pundit,” she said Tuesday when she got three questions about the trial. “He's not going to opine on the back-and-forth arguments, nor is he watching them, that are taking place in the Senate.”
Today, she came up with a new way to say the same thing.
“The American public should — should read it as his commitment to delivering on exactly what they elected him to do, which is not to be a commentator on the daily developments of an impeachment trial,” she said.
Despite her efforts, the questions don’t seem likely to stop. “Indulge me,” one reporter said today when asking an impeachment question.
Psaki’s response wasn’t completely believable: “Sure, always happy to.”
TWEET COUNT: Chief of staff RON KLAIN: 742; President Biden: 132
Advise and Consent
GARLAND HEARING SET — The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing for Garland’s nomination to be Biden’s attorney general, MARIANNE LeVINE reports. The hearing, set for Feb. 22 and 23, sets Garland up for a vote out of committee on March 1. The date for Garland’s nomination hearing had been in limbo, the result of protracted Senate leadership negotiations over the organizing resolution for the evenly divided chamber.
Agenda Setting
COUNTERING CHINA — Biden announced the establishment of a China task force during his first presidential visit to the Pentagon on Wednesday, LARA SELIGMAN reports, signaling his intent to make countering Beijing’s rise a top priority for the military.
The move underscored the message that the administration is prepared to counter China on the military front, after some former officials expressed concern to NAHAL TOOSI and GAVIN BADE that Beijing is taking advantage of the White House’s deliberate approach to Asia policy.
HOTLINE BLING: Toosi and Bade also pointed out that while Biden has held calls with about a dozen world leaders so far, from French President EMMANUEL MACRON to Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN, he has yet to call Chinese President XI JINPING.
And Xi isn’t the only world leader getting the cold shoulder. DANNY DANON, Israel’s former permanent representative to the United Nations, complained in a Tweet this morning that there’s been no readout of a call with Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, either. “Might it now be time to call the leader of #Israel, the closest ally of the #US?” Danon asked Biden.
Biden spoke with Netanyahu — who pleaded not guilty in his corruption trial Monday — as well as Israeli President REUVEN RIVLIN in November, but they don’t appear to have chatted again since his inauguration.
STRANGE BEDFELLOWS — The Biden administration is backing former Education Secretary BETSY DeVOS as she tries to avoid testifying in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s lengthy delays and sweeping denials of student loan forgiveness claims, MICHAEL STRATFORD reports.
The Justice Department joined with DeVos on Monday to fight a subpoena seeking her deposition as part of a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of some 160,000 former for-profit college students seeking loan forgiveness on the grounds that they were defrauded.
What We're Reading
Businesses want Biden to repeal Trump’s work visa ban (The Wall Street Journal)
Will Biden make arms control a priority? (The New York Times)
Raimondo says Biden hasn’t barred her from speaking to reporters in first interview since December (The Providence Journal)
The Oppo Book
Will BRUCE REED be the Biden administration’s ambassador to the Senate Finance Committee? Because Biden is unlikely to find another Democratic official who likes Sen. MIKE CRAPO (R-Idaho), the committee’s ranking member, more than Reed.
Crapo, who served with Reed on the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction commission, is “the greatest,” Reed told McClatchy in 2010. (Another member of that commission: XAVIER BECERRA, Biden’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary.)
“If we had a Congress full of Mike Crapos, this problem would be solved already. He’s a principled conservative, a patriot, and determined to get something done,” Reed continued. “He is just a joy to work with, and I’ve been incredibly impressed by how determined he is to prove that we can do this.”
Crapo was complimentary but less gushing in his praise of Reed, calling the Democrat “a solid guy and a solid thinker.”
TRIVIA ANSWER
JOHN CRITTENDEN was nominated to the Supreme Court by JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, but his confirmation vote was "postponed indefinitely" after ANDREW JACKSON won in 1828. He twice served as attorney general after his failed nomination — the first time under WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON and JOHN TYLER and the second under MILLARD FILLMORE.
HENRY STANBERY was nominated to the Supreme Court by ANDREW JOHNSON but, rather than act on his nomination, Congress reduced the size of the court. Stanbery then was nominated and confirmed as Johnson's attorney general but resigned to represent him in his impeachment trial.
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