After just over a month in office, Joe Biden is about to be dealt the first major blow to his Presidency.
And it’s all thanks to a member of his own party.
This Senate Democrat just torpedoed a top Biden cabinet pick that left Democrats in disarray.
Since taking office just over a month ago, Joe Biden has been a roll.
From a series of Left-wing executive orders, to a slew of liberal administration appointees, Biden was clearly paving the way for the most progressive administration since Lyndon B. Johnson.
But the wheels are beginning to come off of the Biden bus.
And now, the President seems to be on the verge of stumbling straight into his first major political defeat since being sworn into office.
Worse yet, this defeat appears to be brewing at the hands of one of his own Senate Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Perhaps the most “moderate” Democrat in Congress, Manchin has continued to defy political gravity by winning re-election in West Virginia in 2018, despite the fact that Donald Trump twice won every county in the state with well over 60% of the vote in 2016 and 2020.
Manchin increasingly appears to be left behind by the rest of his caucus however, which continues to move further and further to the political left with each election cycle.
But in a Senate chamber that is equally split between Republicans and Democrats, Senators like Machin have increasingly found themselves to be virtual kingmakers in Congress, with the power to single handedly make or break the President’s agenda.
And this week, Manchin broke a key part of Biden’s agenda when he torpedoed the President’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OBM).
The Hill reports, “Manchin appears to have derailed President Biden’s nominee to head the White House budget office, Neera Tanden, by announcing last week that he would vote against her because of sharp criticisms she leveled on Twitter against Senate colleagues. In a 50-50 Senate, Tanden now needs the backing of at least one Republican, and perhaps more, which appears unlikely.”
Tanden has had a history of viciously attacking not just Republicans, but even members of her own party, and that record is now coming back to haunt her with Manchin’s decision to oppose her nomination.
The move prompted Senate Democrats to delay an expected vote on Tanden’s nomination, which was originally scheduled to be held in late February.
But now without the votes to actually pass, that process has been delayed.
“The two Senate committees tasked with approving Neera Tanden’s nomination to be White House budget chief postponed their Wednesday votes, hours before senators were expected to vote on the nominee,” writes Rollcall, when discussing the unraveling of Biden’s OMB nomination.
But it isn’t Manchin that’s the only thorn in Biden’s side at the moment.
“During the [confirmation] hearing, Sanders rebuked Tanden for past statements, saying some of her comments were “vicious attacks made against progressives, people I have worked with and me personally,” adds Rollcall.
Sanders has yet to state whether or not he will vote to support Biden’s nomination.