Biden Cabinet Confirmation Live Thread ***hearings, votes, etc.***

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Respect for Murkowski for that one.

Considering that native Americans are the only reason she still has her seat, it would've been stupid of her to even think about voting no.

True. However, Alaska Natives =/= Natives in the Lower 48.

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Every Biden nominee so far has received the vote of both of their respective home state U.S. Senators.

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Another question, why does Granholm already have an official portrait and why is it so good? When will POTUS and VPOTUS get theirs?

Yeah, Granholm took her official portrait on Day 1, I was surprised. Meanwhile, Janet Yellen doesn't have an official portrait yet and she's been in office for a while now.

Austin, Blinken, Haines, Thomas-Greenfield, Granholm, McDonough, Mayorkas, Raimondo all have official portraits. Yellen, Vilsack, Cardona, Buttigieg don't have official portraits.

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https://twitter.com/sgurman/status/1370015694138585090
https://twitter.com/TheJusticeDept/status/1370023440904716291
Garland will be ceremonially sworn-in by VP Harris later today at around 5:15 PM EST.

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Biden needs to start naming ambassadors, especially to important allies and adversaries (NATO, EU, Japan, South Korea, UK, Russia, China, etc).

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https://mobile.twitter.com/SenateCloakroom/status/1371899998384840707

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https://twitter.com/CraigCaplan/status/1371908751163281410

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https://twitter.com/SenateCloakroom/status/1372220130831269889?s=20

Congrats to Katherine Tai! Unanimous votes like that are very rare nowadays in the Senate. It just goes to show how qualified she is.

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Is that the best they could do for NASA? 78 year old space man Bill Nelson?

With all due respect to the man, he is a career politician who had a special interest in outer space. Could we not find an actual scientist (or someone similar) with an actual career in that field to lead that agency? Maybe someone a wee bit younger who is on top of their game?

Yeah, but I never liked that about Biden either. I'm fine with it at this point but it was not my ideal scenario, and for a variety of reasons.

I agree with you 100%.

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We're going to go nowhere on climate change, if we have to keep capitulating to "pro-energy" (aka pro-fossil fuel industry) Senators. They still have too much of a grip on climate policy.

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Senators do represent states.  And the "pro-energy" senators do, in fact, represent states where the energy sector is a relatively large part of the local economy (i.e., LA, TX, ND, WY, AK, etc.)

The economy of those states SHOULD and MUST become diversified and less reliant on fossil fuels. The 21st century is here, those states should should join this century.

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Join the 21st century?  Fossil fuels still supply 84 percent of global energy.  Investment in fossil fuel technology and efficiency should take center-stage in our energy policy   

Absolutely NOT. Fossil fuels are toxic for the environment (and people) and we have to combat climate change. Fossil fuels are 19th & 20th century energy sources that we have to move away from.

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Biden is the first president since Bush 41 to not have an Asian Cabinet Secretary. Also, neither Tai nor Harris are "Cabinet Secretaries". "Cabinet Secretary" = head of a federal government agency/department.

Unilaterally opposing all Biden nominees is probably the wrong move but I don't disagree with Duckworth's message. Also, saying "What about Kamala? She's the VP!" is tokenism. That's like how some white people told us (Black people) that "racism is over" because "Obama is/was president".

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I agree in a general sense, but I think that it’s a bit silly to say that Harris is a token or the equivalent to “racism is over” when the whole complaint is explicitly predicated on a desire for more officials of Asian descent. When someone says “Biden hasn’t picked Asian candidates for high-level executive positions”, it’s personally reasonable to point out that the highest-level position he can pick is an Asian woman. I don’t see how the situation would be meaningfully different if, say, Susan Rice were VP and Julie Su (who I think would be a fine pick) were Labor Secretary.

I was just giving an example. I wasn't saying that Kamala is a token or anything like that.

However, it's fair for Duckworth (and apparently Hirono as well) to be upset at Biden over the lack of high-level Asian representation in the Biden administration. BEFORE Biden finalized his Cabinet, he received a letter from the Congressional Asian Pacific Caucus, Hispanic Caucus AND Black Caucus urging him to choose an AAPI Cabinet Secretary - and yet he still didn't. That was very tone-deaf on Biden's part and looks worse now in recent light.

Instead of appointing his "friends" like Vilsack, McDonough, Walsh - Biden could have appointed a person of Asian descent to any of those positions. Instead of choosing Gina Raimondo, he could have chosen an AAPI person to be Commerce Secretary (like Indra Nooyi).

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Narrowly defining the term in order to suit an incorrect narrative ought to be her problem, not Joe Biden's.

The VP isn't a Cabinet Secretary. Neither is the USTR, which a "Cabinet-level" position.

However, "Cabinet-level" changes frequently based on who is the President. Trump had the CIA Director as a "Cabinet-level" position but Biden doesn't. Biden elevated the US Ambassador to the UN back to a "Cabinet-level" position after Trump removed it from "Cabinet-level" status in 2018. Bush 43 removed the SBA from being a "Cabinet-level" position after it was in that rank in the Clinton administration - Obama elevated back in 2012.

"The Cabinet" is formally the VP and the heads of the 15 federal executive departments that are ranked in the presidential order of succession. USTR is neither the head of a federal executive department OR in the presidential order of succession.

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Apparently according to her if it's not someone who has the word "secretary" in their job title, the AAPI community won't get or appreciate that it's a high ranking official...

That's not what she said.

https://mobile.twitter.com/mkraju/status/1374444638006747142
This is a very valid point.

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*snip*

Bringing up the fact that Asians make up "6.8% of the population" is irrelevant. Until very recently, White men made up 90-100% of the Cabinet - way larger than their population percentage. The first wave of Asian immigration to the U.S. happened in the 1850s and it took until 2000 to have the first Asian Cabinet Secretary (Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta).

Also, having more than 1 Asian person as a Cabinet Secretary is a perfectly justifiable demand - Obama literally had 3 (Locke, Chu and Shinseki). Furthermore, it's not like Duckworth/Hirono are saying to just appoint random Asians. There are a plethora of qualified Asian people who could fill many high-ranking governmental roles.

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*snip*

Duckworth made a VERY valid point. Full stop.

Anyways, view my post above.

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Not when Biden - again - literally pledged to nominate a Cabinet that "looked like America," a pledge he clearly fulfilled.

And yet he couldn't appoint a single Asian Cabinet Secretary? Even Trump had one (Elaine Chao - corrupt as she is), Bush 43 had two (Chao and Mineta). Biden has ZERO. That's called regression.

You can come up with any explanation/excuse or whatever but the fact still remains: Biden SHOULD have appointed an Asian Cabinet Secretary.

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If you're just gonna make this conversation go round & round in circles, then it's not a conversation worth being had.

But it's literally a fact. USTR =/= Cabinet Secretary. VP =/= Cabinet Secretary.

But whatever, I'll leave it at that, we've had this convo a few times now. We're not going to agree with each other on this topic. So yeah, let's agree to disagree ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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If the premise of your point is correct,  though, what does Duckworth expect Biden to do about it now? All of the cabinet secretaries have been confirmed. Why didn't she do this earlier?

Duckworth & Hirono want Biden to appoint some Asians to high-level governmental positions (like OMB, Deputy Cabinet positions, etc).

Also, like I mentioned earlier, lack of AAPI representation was pointed out to Biden BEFORE he finalized his Cabinet. The Congressional Asian Pacific Caucus, Hispanic Caucus and Black Caucus (known as the Tri-Caucus) released a statement to Biden on December 19th urging him to appoint an Asian Cabinet Secretary. Then, 100 Congress members sent a letter to Biden on December 29th urging him to appoint an AAPI Cabinet Secretary.


Here is the link to the statement: https://capac-chu.house.gov/press-release/tri-caucus-leaders-urge-president-elect-biden-nominate-aapi-cabinet-secretary

The letter: https://capac-chu.house.gov/press-release/over-100-members-congress-call-aapi-cabinet-secretary-president-biden%E2%80%99s-administration

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how is demanding a nominee of a particular race not itself tokenism??

Because Duckworth/Hirono are calling out the lack of representation. Also, they're not calling for random Asian people to be appointed but qualified people. Furthermore, Duckworth/Hirono didn't say that they would only vote for Asian nominees.

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Okay, but if your premise is that the VP and Cabinet level officials don't count,  then why would appointing more people of AAPI background to other positions that still aren't Cabinet secretaries be good enough?

Because it's still important to have diverse representation in high-level government positions outside of the Cabinet.

Also, I said that the VP and USTR aren't Cabinet Secretaries not that they aren't important, in general.

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Anyway, I'll actually leave it at that, because you & I both know that you're probably not gonna end up agreeing with a single word of what I just said, even though I believe (& it seems as if other posters also agree with me in believing) that to not agree means to declare that you disagree with what the literal basic reality of the situation is, but I digress.

LOL, yeah right. Biden having ZERO Asian Cabinet Secretaries is a literal fact.


Anyways, Duckworth and Hirono have backed down:
https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1374552459771805698
https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1374564729004384257

Let's see what those "assurances" are.

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Are you serious right now? Jesus christ. Welp, thank you for at least proving that you didn't actually bother to read what I just said, since this statement of yours would indicate that you didn't read the paragraph that was literally posted right before what you just quoted, which you so conveniently chose to omit from your quote, & which constitutes the basic reality that you've evidently chosen to continue ignoring:

I'm not going over this. Give it a rest. Also, Duckworth & Hirono have backed down based on "assurances", so let's see what happens.