OMB nominee Neera Tanden is now sworn in at the Budget Committee, in a hearing chaired by Bernie Sanders.

These two are allied in shared goals today but they are not — to put it mildly — the best of friends.
Neera Tanden, giving her opening statement at the Budget Committee, says she regrets some of her past social media comments.
Sanders tells Neera Tanden her social media remarks include not just jabs at Republicans but also “vicious attacks against progressives.”

She acknowledges that her remarks “caused hurt to people...I apologize to people on the left or right who have been hurt by what I’ve said.”
From there Sanders moves to policy and you can see the alliance here. He asks Tanden if she’ll commit to supporting a higher minimum wage, negotiating drug prices, a lower Medicare eligibility age, free college tuition for middle class, climate action.

She says yes to all.
Graham tries to pin Neera Tanden on what the maximum individual and corporate tax rates should be; she won’t be pin down, says she’ll work to implement Biden’s agenda. Asked if she favors Bowles-Simpson to reduce the debt, Tanden rejects it - “deep challenges” with that approach.
A number of Republicans are citing the deficit as a problem at this Neera Tanden OMB hearing and want to know what she plans to do about it.

"You have got a lot to work on," Mike Braun tells her.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan) needles Republicans at the Neera Tanden hearing for being newly concerned about mean tweets. "We've endured four years of the ultimate mean tweets," she says. "I don't want to hold you to a higher standard but we certainly want to turn the page."
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pennsylvania) asks Neera Tanden, citing her tweets about Russian meddling, if she thinks Trump was legitimately elected.

"Absolutely," she says.
Rick Scott, NRSC chairman, is now questioning Neera Tanden on rising deficits at the Budget Committee hearing.

This is a theme of the Republican questioning.
"We're talking about unbelievable amounts of debt here," says Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida).
WOW —> Sen. John Kennedy tells Neera Tanden: "You called Senator Sanders everything but an ignorant slut."
"That is not true," Tanden replies.

Pressed repeatedly by Kennedy about her past tweets, Tanden says, "I feel badly about them." She says, under further questioning, "I must have meant them" at the time, but emphasizes that she regrets them.
Sen. Kennedy ends by saying he would like to make it clear that he is not calling Bernie Sanders an "ignorant slut." Sanders says he doesn't know how he should take that. The committee moves on.

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More from @sahilkapur

9 Feb
Trump lawyer Bruce Castor praises the "outstanding presentation" from managers.

"You will not hear any member of the team representing former President Trump say anything but in the strongest possible way denounce the violence of the rioters and those that breached the Capitol."
Trump's lawyer Bruce Castor calls US senators "extraordinary people, in the technical sense." Then discusses Everett Dirksen and his "commanding, gravely voice that just oozes belief and sincerity."
Bruce Castor: "This trial is about trading liberty for the security from the mob? Honestly, no. It can't be. We can't be thinking about that."
Read 5 tweets
8 Feb
NEW: "The era of small government is over."

Democrats want to bulk up the Covid package with more cash relief, this time for families with kids, the latest sign of a shift within the party away from deficit fears and toward a larger economic safety net.

nbcnews.com/politics/congr…
Democrats are haunted by memories of 2009, when they downsized their crisis aid bill only to see a slow recovery and get hammered for it politically the following year. nbcnews.com/politics/congr…
On Democrats’ new child allowance: A Columbia study of a similar plan found it’d cut child poverty 42%.

“The ACA — Biden called that a 'big f---ing deal,' and I think this is of the same magnitude in terms of investment in children,” says @SethHanlon.

nbcnews.com/politics/congr…
Read 4 tweets
7 Feb
Liz Cheney tells Fox News Sunday she won’t resign. “People have been lied to. The extent to which President Trump for months leading up to Jan. 6th spread the notion that the election had been stolen or that the election was rigged was a lie and people need to understand that.”
Liz Cheney on Marjorie Taylor Greene: “We are the party of Lincoln, we are not the party of QAnon or anti-Semitism or Holocaust-deniers, or white supremacy or conspiracy theories. That's not who we are. We believe in conservative principles and conservative values.”
Cheney: “Somebody who has provoked an attack on the US Capitol to prevent the counting of electoral votes, which resulted in 5 ppl dying, who refused to stand up immediately...& stop the violence, that is a person who does not have a role as a leader of our party going forward.”
Read 4 tweets
1 Feb
NEW: Democrats are confronting a dilemma with using reconciliation to pass Covid relief —> statutory PAYGO.

It'd trigger automatic cuts to Medicare which experts say needs 60 Senate votes to stop.

@BernieSanders' office tells me he'll fight to avert it.

nbcnews.com/politics/congr…
Republicans faced a similar problem in 2017 when they used reconciliation to pass a deficit-raising tax cut. But Democrats helped them stop some $25 billion in automatic Medicare cuts. Now, some wonder: Would the GOP do the same? nbcnews.com/politics/congr…
tl;dr —> The 2010 PAYGO law enacted by Democrats forces automatic cuts to Medicare and other safety-net programs if new policies raise the debt. Congress can stop the cuts (and often does). But that probably can't be done in reconciliation. Needs 60 votes. nbcnews.com/politics/congr…
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31 Jan
New: 10 Republican senators write a letter asking to meet w/ Biden and discuss a Covid relief counter-proposal they’re working on. They say it’ll have $160b for vaccines, $4b for abuse services, existing UI, nutrition + unspecified policies on “targeted” economic aid and schools.
Notably, no Democrats are on this letter—it’s a GOP-only plan at a time when they’re in the minority in both chambers. It’s sure to face pushback from progressives who see $1.9T as a minimum. And it’ll test President Biden’s incompatible calls for going bold and being bipartisan.
The Republican letter comes as Dems are eying reconciliation to bypass the 60-vote rule on a Covid relief bill—it’s an attempt to steer Biden toward a different path. Schumer has insisted that going small isn’t an option.
Read 7 tweets
30 Jan
NEW: After Trump, Democrats set out on a mission to “repair the courts”

Biden and senators begin recruiting civil rights lawyers and public defenders to be judges—seeing an outpouring of interest.

Growing vacancies. A wafer-thin majority. 2 years to act. nbcnews.com/politics/polit…
BIDEN has begun to staff his commission to review the structure of the courts. It’ll be co-chaired by Bob Bauer and Cristina Rodriguez, per a source familiar with @POTUS plans, who promises a “wide range of expert views” from across the spectrum. nbcnews.com/politics/polit…
Biden and Senate Democrats are quickly coalescing around a desire for more public defenders and fewer prosecutors or corporate lawyers on the bench. They have dozens of vacancies to fill—mostly in district courts—after Trump & McConnell raced to fill many. nbcnews.com/politics/polit…
Read 9 tweets

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