Senator Lisa Murkowski said on Wednesday she was surprised to learn that President Biden’s nominee for White House budget director, Neera Tanden, once attacked her as “high” with her “own supply”.
The nasty tweet that reappeared against the Alaskan Republican centrist may help seal Tanden’s fate as a failed candidate to lead the White House Office of Administration and Budget. The White House is expected to win at least one evenly divided Republican vote after Senator Joe Manchin (D-WVA.) Said he opposes Tanden.
“Really? I didn’t know,” Murkowski told reporters on Capitol Hill, when she was told it had been destroyed by Tanden in a 2017 tweet contesting her support for a tax reduction project that cut corporate tax rates.
Tanden retweeted Murkowski at the time, writing, “No offense, but it looks like you are tall with your own stock. You know, we know, and everyone knows that this is all rubbish. Just stop.”
Murkowski told reporters that he knew Tanden attacked his colleagues, but not that she was among the subjects of the malicious message de Tanden, who heads the Center for American Progress, aligned with the Democratic Party.
“High on my own supply? This is interesting. I must ask her: ‘My own stock of what?’ ”Said the senator.
Murkowski said he had not spoken to Tanden about his appointment and asked reporters, “What is she responding to? What did I say?”
A journalist told Murkowski that Tanden was criticizing her because of the “Republican Party tax law at the time”.
Murkowski replied, “Oh, the tax law that really helped people in my state and helped us open ANWR [to oil drilling]?
“Okay, well, now see that it shows how much homework I still have to do about her, if I didn’t even know she had tweeted about me.”
Murkowski said that members of the White House team talked to her about Tanden’s appointment and that “I suggested to the White House that my colleagues were very critical of the statements and with good reason. I think that some of them were clearly exaggerated. It seems that in this world we are kind of insensitive to derogatory tweets. I don’t think this is a model that we want to define for anyone, whether it’s a candidate, a president or a senator. “
Murkowski added: “I was trying to look at competence, but apparently I will have to do more research on what she thinks about me.”
Republican colleagues from the center Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah said this week that they oppose Tanden because of his tweets.
Tanden recently deleted more than 1,000 tweets that attacked Republican senators, but also destroyed Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential candidacy as Russia’s choice against Democratic Party favorite Hillary Clinton. The message that attacks Murkowski has not been deleted.
Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) reminded Tanden at one of his confirmation hearings: “You wrote that Susan Collins is ‘the worst’, that Tom Cotton is a fraud, that vampires have more heart than Ted Cruz, you called leader McConnell ‘Moscow Mitch’ and Voldemort. “
Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) Joked: “You called Senator Sanders everything but an ignorant slut.”