As the president-elect had promised, the incoming Biden administration unveiled a major chunk of his appointees who will deal with economic policy in a Tuesday event similar to the one for foreign policy positions the week before. Despite the newest appointees’ impressive collective experience, expertise, credibility, and some significant racial/gender diversity, these nominations did not entirely escape controversy. In particular, one nominee – Neera Tanden – may have already become a zombie nominee, even before the Biden administration actually begins its first day in office.

However, rivalling the Biden appointments announcements for the public’s attention, inevitably, are the final weeks of Donald Trump’s eye-watering, but not especially funny, comic opera of a presidency. Even now, the Trump presidential campaign (yes, it still exists, despite every swing state now having had its vote totals officially certified and confirmed) continues to solicit contributions, ostensibly for its mad fight to overturn the election results.

This self-serving public appeal for money to fight the good fight in the courts has now raised more than $150-million. However, the very small print – those diabolical T’s and C’s – explains to donors that their gifts are not really going to pay the lawyers in all those increasingly futile legal filings and lawsuits being carried out in various state and federal courts, and may, instead, may actually be used for almost anything he wants for himself or even for a 2024 presidential run. Really. Meanwhile, along the way, various legal hangers-on for the Trump campaign have taken to issuing death threats to state officials who have carried out these certifications of vote totals. Someone may get seriously hurt in this “fun”.

There are now also rumours swirling around that the president is considering giving pardons to his adult children, to son-in-law Jared Kushner, to Rudy Giuliani, and maybe even to himself, for things that they may have done that are not – yet – the subject of criminal investigations. If these are issued, it is crucial to note that such pardons would not apply to criminal acts that would be charged under New York State law.

Even as this poisonous clown show with Giuliani and company has continued without let-up (but with no further hair dye malfunctions or press conferences in front of landscaping companies and adult bookstores), the president’s very own, most faithful, exceedingly loyal political slave and equerry, Attorney General William Barr, suddenly announced he had found no evidence of electoral corruption, fakery, fraud, theft, black magic, the miraculous transmutation of elements, or any other chicanery in the 2020 election. None. Bupkis. Now let that announcement settle into readers’ thoughts for a minute. 

The very man who had exerted superhuman efforts to dilute or divert the impact and import of the Mueller investigation into Russian electoral interference and cooperation, or “accidental” collusion, between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and elements of Russian secret services, was now saying the core, fundamental tenet of the Trump 2020 campaign – the lament that “we wuz robbed” by those demonic forces of Democrats, a vast network of the fake news media, the so-called “deep state”, those nefarious Chinese, the Venezuelans and the mysterious reach of the long-dead Hugo Chavez, and insidious hi-tech and vote tabulating companies – simply was not true. Hearing this news must have been a rather painful shot into the solar plexus over in the Oval Office.

Trying to clean up the story slightly, after the fact, a justice department spokesperson told Politico on late Tuesday evening:

“Some media outlets have incorrectly reported that the Department has concluded its investigation of election fraud and announced an affirmative finding of no fraud in the election. That is not what the Associated Press reported nor what the Attorney General stated. The Department will continue to receive and vigorously pursue all specific and credible allegations of fraud as expeditiously as possible.”

Meanwhile, in response to all these goings-on, the Wall Street Journal editorial board cut to the chase, writing:

“We’re open to evidence of major fraud, but we haven’t seen claims that are credible. Now comes Mr. Barr, who has no reason to join a cover up. He likes his job. He wanted Mr. Trump to win. As the election timetable closes, Mr. Trump should focus on preserving his legacy rather than diminishing it by alleging fraud he can’t prove.”

Just to be on the safe side, though, in a very clever CYA move, Barr also assigned counsel to look into the justice department and FBI’s handling of the 2016 Russian interference probe, thereby giving a little poison pill to the incoming Biden administration. On the one hand, if they shut down this inquiry as a silly waste of money, they get to hear the howls of Trumpian true believers reach incredible decibel levels. Alternatively,  if there actually are any sorts of miscues uncovered, no matter how tiny or technical, the true believers will have a teensy-tiny smoking gun to wave about during the Biden administration’s entire term of office. Sweet.

Meanwhile, over in the real world of the president-elect’s efforts to set up an administration that can enter office ready to get to work from 20 January to deal with the pandemic, and amid coming to grips with the complex logistics of vaccine delivery and the continuing economic crunch, Biden formally introduced his pick for Treasury secretary, the ultra-experienced Janet Yellen (formerly chair of the Federal Reserve Bank, a board member there, and prior to that the head of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Obama).

There were also introductions for the head of the National Economic Council, Brian Deese, now at investment giant BlackRock; Princeton University economist Cecilia Rouse as the new chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and the two other statutory members, economists Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey; longtime political and economic adviser Adewale “Wally” Adeyemo as the deputy secretary of the Treasury; and Biden’s choice to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Neera Tanden.

In his introductory remarks, Biden was at pains to describe his team as a cohesive group who will understand the predicaments and anxieties of working and middle-class families, and will be prioritising the kind of economic growth that focuses on employment. (This was obviously meant as a contrast to the Trump administration’s four-year obsession with the stock market indexes.)

Within hours of these announcements, there was already some muttering (and a bit of snarling) about Biden’s choices. From one corner, there are voices from among allies of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party offering concerns about some nominees’ ties to the world of banking and finance such as in the case of Deese. 

As Politico reported: “ ‘We are concerned, as our name suggests, with revolving door hires,’ Jeff Hauser, who founded the Revolving Door Project to scrutinize executive branch appointees, told Politico last week. ‘And Brian Deese’s [relationship] to BlackRock makes it less likely that the federal government will rein in BlackRock as it should be.’ ”

A second critique of Biden’s picks so far, in foreign policy and now with economic policy, has been the relative paucity of African Americans on the roster, despite their major role in Biden’s electoral success. At this point, African American appointments include US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield, CEA Chair Cecilia Rouse and Treasury deputy  Adeyemo, but the muttering is that, so far at least, no first-prize, first-chair Cabinet appointments have been made. Yes, the secretary of homeland security is a Hispanic American and the OMB head is South Asian-American, but, so far, the real demographic different from a Republican Cabinet and related offices has come in the gender balance sphere where a significant number of Biden’s appointees, especially in economics, are female, and his entire communications team in the White House is female as well.

Republican presidents usually have an easier time dealing with the demographic puzzle since a Republican Cabinet’s biggest diversity issues come from whether there are enough real business voices in the mix (and, previously, sufficient numbers of full-throated global interventionists); or whether there are enough far-right economic fundamentalists to balance the inevitable Wall Street contingent. By contrast, the Democrats’ balancing act must take into account gender, race, ethnicity, and progressive fire-breathers versus middle of the road/politically experienced/moderates as appointees. In this incoming administration, the Biden plan seems to be to pick people he is already comfortable with and, largely, those with whom he has worked before in the Senate or as vice president.

The third voice of opposition, however, is coming from well outside the Democratic universe, as a growing number of Republicans say Tanden’s style has bruised their feelings with her sharp-edged tweets and other public pronouncements. (Imagine that, those poor Republican senators with their tender, but now-wounded egos and those horrific emotional bruises from Tanden’s reputation as an electronic street fighter.)

Tanden was a Hillary Clinton protagonist as well, so that may be salt in the wounds of some. (One Washington observer and friend wrote to this writer to say, “I suspect Tanden is dead in the water. She has spent WAY too much time saying partisan things on partisan networks to have an easy time in the Senate. She’d be an easy one to pick off, if the GOP wants a few scalps.”) For her part, at her introduction, she made a point of explaining that her family survived on housing coupons and food stamp aid and so she fully understands the plight of the poor.

But in recognising her potential vulnerability, as Yahoo reported:

“The first order of business for Neera Tanden, Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the federal Office of Management and Budget, appears to be deleting more than a thousand tweets, some of which contain criticisms of the senators who will vote to confirm her. Ms Tanden is the president of the Centre for American Progress [a moderately progressive think tank in Washington]. Like many people involved in national politics, she spends a lot of time online, especially on Twitter. Also like many Americans, Ms Tanden gets into fights on social media and makes incendiary posts.

“Unlike most Americans, however, the people she often tweets about will now have a hand in determining whether or not she will join a presidential administration.

“Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, called Ms Tanden Mr Biden’s ‘worst nominee so far’ specifically because of her ‘insulting’ tweets. ‘I think, in light of her combative and insulting comments about many members of the Senate, mainly on our side of the aisle, that it creates certainly a problematic path,’ he said to USA Today.” 

It is not even 20 January yet and already the GOP is bringing out their howitzers because their feelings are hurt by a sharp-tongued policy wonk who has had lots of media exposure.

In times gone by, a president’s first round of appointees was usually given a pass on grounds the president should have the people he wants around him to help succeed or make his mistakes. Back in 1959, when Allen Drury wrote the best-selling Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Advise and Consent, the very idea of a knockdown, drag-out fight over a Cabinet-level confirmation – complete with evidence, variously, of long-ago, far-left political sympathies and closeted homosexuality – was a stunner. Now, all it seems to take is some acerbic tweets to make real trouble for a nomination.

It will be increasingly interesting to see how many needles Biden manages to thread for his remaining picks, including such heavyweight positions as secretaries of defence and health and human services, and director of the CIA, among others. DM