Jacobin editor-at-large David Sirota said Friday that Neera Tanden’s past controversial social media posts served as a “distraction” from other key issues at her confirmation hearing to become head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
In an interview on Hill.TV’s “Rising,” Sirota said members of the Senate Budget Committee this week could have focused more on Tanden’s corporate ties, especially in her role as the head for the Center for American Progress (CAP) think tank.
Tanden, who previously referred to current Budget Committee Chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as “crazy,” said in her Wednesday hearing that her past social media attacks were “vicious,” and that she regretted making them.
However, Sirota, who previously served as a senior adviser on Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, said, “there are deeper questions germane to policy about the Center for American Progress’s corporate ties… about her past statements on Social Security, and for the most part that wasn’t really in the conversation.”
Sirota added, “In some ways people thought that the social media aspect of Neera Tanden’s nomination would make it hard for her to get confirmed. In fact, in some ways, it kind of provided a distraction from the other issues that really should be at the center of a Budget Committee hearing.”
Watch part of Sirota’s interview above.
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