AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File
- A GOP Senator said Neera Tanden called Bernie Sanders “everything but an ignorant slut” on Twitter.
- Tanden is Biden’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
- She previously ran The Center for American Progress and has clashed online with Sanders supporters.
- Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.
Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana accused President Joe Biden’s Cabinet nominee Neera Tanden of calling Sen. Bernie Sanders “everything but an ignorant slut” in a Wednesday confirmation hearing.
Tanden, who previously ran The Center for American Progress, a center-left think tank, is Biden’s nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget.
A staunch supporter of 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign and an active Twitter user, Tanden has often clashed online with progressives and Sanders supporters. Politico reported that some in Sanders’ orbit were “seething” over the Tanden pick when it was announced last November.
Tanden deleted thousands of tweets and other social media posts upon her Cabinet nomination, and appeared apologetic and contrite during the confirmation hearings when talking about some of her more bombastic and aggressive posts, especially those about Sanders and his supporters.
But some GOP lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee pressed Tanden on her social media history.
"I have to tell you, I'm very disturbed about your personal comments about people. And it's not just one or two, I think you deleted about a thousand tweets. It wasn't just about Republicans. And I don't mind disagreements on policy, I think that's great, I love the dialectic, but the comments were personal. I mean, you called Senator Sanders everything but 'an ignorant slut,'" Kennedy said.
"That's not true, Senator," Tanden responded, adding, "Senator, I have to say, I deeply regret my comments, and I feel badly about them."
—CSPAN (@cspan) February 10, 2021
The "ignorant slut" reference originally comes from a famous 1979 "Saturday Night Live" skit, with cast members Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin doing a talk show-style "Weekend Update" segment debating Michelle Triola Marvin's highly publicized legal battle seeking benefits from a long-term partnership with actor Lee Marvin.
"Jane, you ignorant slut!" Aykroyd said with a straight face to uproarious laughter from the crowd after Curtin argued in favor of Triola Marvin's case.
While she was mocked at the time, Triola Marvin, who died in 2009, made history in 1976 when the California Supreme Court ruled she could pursue division of property from the relationship, creating the concept of palimony in family law.
In subsequent 1979 civil proceedings that the Los Angeles Times characterized as "sensational," Triola Marvin won $104,000 for "rehabilitative purposes."
In a 2007 episode of season three of the NBC sitcom "The Office," a paper company branch manager Michael Scott, played by Steve Carrell, also yells, "Dwight you ignorant slut!" from the complex's rooftop while the two staged a poorly thought-out fake suicide attempt in an awkward effort to highlight the importance of workplace mental health.