President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday formally unveiled his economic policy nominees, including Janet Yellen to be Treasury secretary and already-beleaguered Neera Tanden to be White House budget director.

“From the most unequal economic and job crisis in modern history, we can build a new American economy that works for all Americans,” Biden said at an event in Wilmington, Del., referring to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yellen, 74, is former chairwoman of the Federal Reserve and is widely expected to win Senate approval, but Tanden’s inflammatory record as president of the Democrat-aligned Center for American Progress has Republicans vowing to block her if they hold the Senate pending two runoff elections in Georgia.

Tanden, 50, tweeted after President Trump won the 2016 election that “Russians did enough damage to affect more than 70k votes in 3 states,” referring to Hillary Clinton’s losing margin in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

She also has irked the Democratic left. In 2008, Tanden reportedly punched a journalist from the since-defunct outlet Think Progress for grilling Clinton on her past support for the Iraq War.

Biden said Tanden was raised on food stamps by an immigrant mother from India and “understands the struggles that millions of Americans are facing.”

Tanden “would be in charge of laying out the budget that will help us control the virus, and deal with the economic crisis and build back better. But above all, she believes what I believe, that a budget should reflect our values,” Biden said.

As director of the Office of Management and Budget, Tanden would hold a powerful position not only to roll out budget proposals to Congress, but to implement Biden’s policies and steer agency spending across the federal bureaucracy.

Biden took no questions from reporters at the event and he did not directly reference the controversy around Tanden’s nomination, nor did she.

Tanden recounted how her mother used public assistance after her parents divorced when she was 5 years old.

“We relied on food stamps to eat. We relied on Section 8 housing vouchers to pay the rent. We relied on the social safety net to get back on our feet,” Tanden said. “This country gave her a fair shot to reach the middle class, and she made it work. She got a job as a travel agent. And before long, she was able to buy us our own home in Bedford, Massachusetts, and eventually see her children off to college and beyond.”

Tanden said, “I’m here today because of social programs, because of budgetary choices, because of a government that saw my mother’s dignity and gave her a chance. Now it is my profound honor to help shape those budgets and programs to keep lifting Americans up, to pull families back from the brink, to give everybody the fair chance my mom got.”

Biden said there is a “K-shaped” economic recovery from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning wealthier people have seen a recovery but poorer people have not.

“Some people are seeing their prospects soar upward, while others are watching their economic prospects drop sharply,” Biden said.

“For those at the top, jobs have come back and their wealth is rising. For example, luxury home sales are up over 40 percent compared to last year. But for those in the middle and the bottom, it’s a downward slide. They’re left figuring out how to pay the bills and put food on the table. Almost one in every six renters was behind in rent payments as of October.”

Biden described Yellen as someone “from a working-class Brooklyn neighborhood, who never forgot where she came from.”

In her remarks, Yellen recalled living above her father’s Brooklyn medical practice, which she said served working-class people who faced economic difficulties.

Biden also confirmed his selection of labor economist Cecilia Rouse to lead the Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey as council members.

And Biden formally unveiled former Obama Foundation president Adewale “Wally” Adeyemo to be deputy Treasury secretary. He said Adeyemo was recommended by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and would be the highest-ranking black person at the department.

The president-elect did not formally unveil his pick of Brian Deese, 42, to be his top in-house West Wing economist, replacing Trump adviser Larry Kudlow.

Deese does not need Senate confirmation. He was a negotiator of the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement, from which Trump withdrew the US, arguing it was an unfair economic inhibitor. Since 2017, Deese has worked as the chief of environmentally friendly investments at the firm BlackRock.

More than any Biden nominee to date, Tanden’s fate will face a fierce battle. Republicans will hold at least 50 Senate seats next year and can block her if they win at least one of the two Georgia runoff elections on Jan. 5.

Drew Brandewie, a spokesman for Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), put Tanden’s chances of confirmation at “zero.”

“Neera Tanden, who has an endless stream of disparaging comments about the Republican Senators’ whose votes she’ll need, stands zero chance of being confirmed,” he wrote Monday.

Biden called on the Senate to give his nominees “a prompt hearing” and said he hoped that “we will be able to work across the aisle in good faith and move forward as one country.”