White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked during a press briefing Wednesday whether the postponement of Senate hearings for Biden's pick to manage the Office of Management and Budget was a setback and Psaki said she wouldn't "put it in those terms."

Psaki emphasized that the administration is still "fighting" for Tanden's nomination and remains committed to getting Biden's pick confirmed. When asked whether Tanden had offered to withdraw her nomination, Psaki said that is "not the stage" the administration is in.

"The stage we’re in is working to continue to fight for her nomination. And, as you know, it’s a numbers game, right? It's a matter of getting one Republican to support her nomination," Psaki said. "We're continuing to do that outreach, answer questions they have, and continue to reiterate her qualifications."

National Economic Council Deputy Director Sameera Fazili and National Security Council Senior Director of International Economics and Competitiveness Peter Harrell joined a White House press briefing to discuss the executive order Biden will sign Wednesday afternoon that will commence an investigation and deliver recommendations to fix supply chain vulnerabilities revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Make no mistake, we are not simply planning to order up reports. We are going to be taking actions to close gaps as we identify them..." Harrell said.

The executive order will mandate a 100-day review of critical product supply chains in the U.S. focused on those for computer chips, large capacity batteries, active pharmaceutical ingredients and critical minerals and strategic materials, including rare earth minerals.

Fazili argued the investigation could be good for the U.S. economy.

"There are opportunities for small business development to help diversify supplier networks and alleviate the risk of too-big-to-fail companies in the supply chains for critical goods," Fazili said. "There are opportunities to improve worker readiness and training so they have the skills needed to ramp up research, production, or distribution of a critical good."

One hundred and sixty chief executive officers sent an open letter to congressional leadership Wednesday, urging lawmakers to pass "immediate and large-scale federal legislation to address the health and economic crises brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic" on a bipartisan basis.

The letter asks Congress to "to authorize a stimulus and relief package along the lines of the Biden-Harris administration’s proposed American Rescue Plan," perhaps leaving some room for negotiation on what the final package will look like. But the letter makes clear that major business CEOs, including the heads of Morgan Stanley, Visa, United Airlines, BlackRock, Comcast and Google are pushing for relief on the scale of Biden's plan.

"The American Rescue Plan provides a framework for coordinated public-private efforts to overcome COVID-19 and to move forward with a new era of inclusive growth. The country’s business community is prepared to work with you to achieve these critical objectives," the letter says.

Just Tuesday, though, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, one of the few Senate Republicans who has shown willingness to buck his party, criticized the $1.9 trillion bill in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

"The $1.9 trillion bill is a clunker. It would waste hundreds of billions of dollars, do nothing meaningful to get kids back to school, and enact policies that work against job creation. The Congressional Budget Office’s recent analysis of the plan found that more than a third of the proposed funding—$700 billion—wouldn’t be spent until 2022 or later, undermining the administration’s claim that the massive price tag is justified for urgent pandemic-related needs," Romney wrote.

Whether the pressure from big business will sway any Republicans in the Senate remains to be seen, but Wednesday morning's messaging from GOP lawmakers is pretty clear: They have no intentions of budging.

-ABC News' Sarah Kolinovsky

The White House will send 25 million masks to more than 1,300 community health centers, food pantries and soup kitchens to deliver for vulnerable communities, it says.

The masks, which are “high-quality, washable, and consistent with the mask guidance from the CDC,” will be delivered by the Department of Health and Human Services, in partnership with the Department of Defense starting in March through May.

“As a result of these actions, an estimated 12 to 15 million Americans will receive masks. More than 25 million masks total will be distributed,” the administration said in the release.

-ABC News' Molly Nagle

Garland described the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol as "the most heinous attack on the democratic processes I have ever seen and one I never expected to see in my lifetime." He added he will make sure to provide career prosecutors all the resources they need to carry out their investigations while also taking a broader look at the symptoms behind the country's domestic extremism problem.

Asked by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., whether the president "has the absolute right to do what he wants with the Justice Department," Garland said presidents are "constrained by the Constitution as are all government officials" and cited comments by Biden committing to not interfere with Justice Department matters. At the same time, Garland said that the Department of Justice is part of the executive branch and because of that, on policy matters they do "follow the lead of the president and the administration as long as it is consistent with the law." When asked who an attorney general represents when his interests conflict with the president's, Garland said the attorney general "represents the public interest, particularly and specifically as defined by the Constitution and the statutes of the United States."

Asked whether the president can order an attorney general to open or close an investigation, Garland said such a question was a hard one for constitutional law but that he did not expect it to be a question for himself given President Biden's statements assuring independence for the department.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., took a contentious tone with Garland in his line of questioning as he pressed him on multiple topics. At one point, when Graham asked Garland whether he thought former FBI Director Comey was a good FBI director, Garland declined to answer, which Graham said he found "stunning" because he thought Comey was terrible. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., pressed Garland on whether he would commit to investigating not only the rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, but those "upstream" like the funders, organizers, ringleaders or others not actually at the Capitol.  Garland cited his past experience as a line prosecutor, noting "we begin with the people on the ground and we work our way up to those who are involved and further involved -- and we will pursue these leads wherever they take us."

Asked about whether he would end the Trump Justice Department's policy of generally stonewalling in the face of oversight requests from Congress, Garland committed to Whitehouse that the department would be "as responsive as possible" to any requests and "at the very least why if it can't answer a question or can't answer a letter." Garland also committed that he would work with Whitehouse on getting answers to the committee on requests that the Justice Department under Attorneys General Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions previously ignored.

In an exchange with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Garland committed that his personal politics will have no impact on prosecutions and investigations he oversees as attorney general. Asked what he would do if he was ordered to do something that he considered to be unlawful, Garland said he would first tell the president or whoever else was asking him that what they were ordering was unlawful and would resign if no alternative was accepted.

Asked by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., what he will do to improve morale in the department, Garland said he would on his first day make an oath to career prosecutors and agents "that my job is to protect them from partisan or other improper motives." Klobuchar then asked Garland whether he believes he'd need "additional authorities" to combat the country's domestic terrorism problem. Garland said while the department "is probably always looking for new tools ... the first thing we have to do is figure out whether the tools that we have are sufficient."

-ABC News' Alexander Mallin