Trump nominee hit at hearing: 'You can't want the big job but not to answer big questions'

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) grilled President Donald Trump's budget office nominee, warning that his confirmation would enable "anti-American" policies.

Slotkin zeroed in on Hal Duncan, Trump's pick for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday.

At issue: a sweeping OMB proposed rule that would allow the government to yank federal grants from organizations deemed to promote "anti-American values" or "damage the reputation" of the federal government.

The Michigan Democrat pressed Duncan on a direct hypothetical — if a university received federal cancer research funding but allowed a peaceful protest of the Iran war on campus, would that cost it its grant?

"Is a peaceful First Amendment protest on a college campus enough to threaten the federal dollars they are getting for cancer research under the rules that you will be enforcing? Yes or no?" Slotkin demanded.

Duncan would not answer directly.

"In the hypothetical question that you're asking, related to grants for cancer research, this administration is committed to gold-standard science and wants to advance the best cancer research that we possibly can," he said.

Slotkin pushed further — would a domestic violence shelter that publicly criticized the administration's funding cuts risk being labeled "anti-American"?

Again, Duncan deflected, saying decisions on specific grants would fall to agency political appointees, not OMB.

"The ultimate deciders of these grants will be the political appointees at the agencies," Duncan said.

"The political appointees — like yourself?" Slotkin shot back.

"You can't want the big job but then not answer the big questions," she continued. "The idea that the administration would put that kind of language out there to intimidate and scare people out of freedom of speech is the most anti-American thing I've seen in a long time."