The wide-ranging role would mean she oversees US intelligence agencies like the CIA, FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA).

The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate Budget Committee will move ahead on confirming President Donald Trump's pick for budget chief Russell Vought despite calls from top Democrats for a delay after an order halting all federal grants and loans.

Donald Trump’s move to pause trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans awakened widespread Democratic resistance to the new president’s second term that was felt Tuesday on Capitol Hill, in governors’ offices and in the race to helm the party’s national committee.

In their first unified opposition to President Trump, Democrats across the ideological spectrum accused him of preying on the nation’s most vulnerable citizens by denying them government aid.

Senate Democrats are demanding Republicans postpone a vote scheduled for Thursday on Russell Vought, President Trump’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, after the budget office on Monday issued a broadly worded memo freezing large swaths of federal assistance.