Vox Sentences - Confirmation controversies

Some Biden Cabinet nominees face a difficult confirmation path; vaccine corruption is causing scandals in Argentina and Peru.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Gabby Birenbaum.

• The path to 50 confirmation votes for Biden’s Office of Management and Budget nominee Neera Tanden is looking unlikely after Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (WV) said he would oppose her confirmation. [Vox / Ella Nilsen]
• Tanden, who ran the center-left think tank Center for American Progress, has come under fire in the confirmation process for her hundreds of since-deleted “mean” tweets against both Republicans and further-left Democrats, including Sen. Bernie Sanders. [The Washington Post / Seung Min Kim, Annie Linsky, and Jeff Stein]
• While Tanden has apologized for her tweets and the White House has stuck by her, she will likely need at least one Republican senator to support her. But the pool is slimming, with Sens. Collins and Romney saying they would vote against her. [NPR / Alana Wise]
• Democrats and advocates are calling out the “double standard” of punishing Tanden, a woman of color, for adversarial tweets after Republicans, and Manchin on some occasions, voted to confirm a number of controversial Trump nominees and, of course, supported Trump himself. [Politico / Laura Barrón-Lopez and Christopher Cadelago]
• Assuming she does not find the support, Tanden will be the first Biden nominee to be rejected by the Senate. But two other upcoming picks — interior nominee Deb Haaland and health and human services nominee Xavier Becerra — could also face contentious hearings. [The Wall Street Journal / Andrew Restuccia and Eliza Collins]
• Haaland’s nomination is historic; she is the first Native American nominated to a Cabinet position — at a department with a history of mistreating Indigenous people. But her anti-fracking views and opposition to oil and gas exploration on public land have drawn the ire of Republicans, who have called her radical. [The New York Times / Coral Davenport]
• Her hearing is expected to be tense. At the center of the debate, again, is Manchin, who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee that she appeared in front of. He appears undecided thus far, but Haaland could also receive votes from some Republicans in states with large Native populations. [CNN / Clare Foran, Kristen Holmes, and Liz Stark]
• Indigenous activists and organizers have flooded social media with support for Haaland, who also enjoys good standing among the Democratic Party’s left wing, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA). [Indian Country Today / Aliyah Chavez]
• California Attorney General Becerra is another nominee facing stringent Republican opposition. A group of 11 Senate Republicans authored a letter expressing “grave concerns” over Becerra’s past support for Medicare-for-all and abortion rights. [NBC News / Sahil Kapur]
• Activists and others have said the fact that nominees of color are being so intensely challenged has not gone unnoticed. In the center of it all is Manchin, whose support, or lack of, will be critical in determining which nominees advance. [The Guardian / Ed Pilkington]