Despite having carried out a secret diplomatic meeting in North Korea, Mike Pompeo is facing challenges at home in becoming America's next top diplomat.

Pompeo is a hard-line Republican, former businessman turned politician and President Donald Trump's pick to replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of State. Ahead of his nomination, Pompeo served as CIA director and delivered Trump's intelligence briefing nearly every day. He has been quoted saying that the president "asks really hard questions."

Pompeo, 54, now waits for the 51 U.S. Senate votes that he needs in order to be confirmed as the country's top diplomat.

Earlier this week, Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he hopes to hold a vote as early as next week.

Currently, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is the lone Republican on the committee who has announced that he will not vote in favor of Pompeo.

Paul said Pompeo's support for the Iraq War and enhanced interrogation techniques were in contradiction to the Trump administration.

"I'm perplexed by the nomination of people who love the Iraq War so much that they would advocate for a war with Iran next," Paul said last month. "It goes against most of the things President Trump campaigned on, that the unintended consequences of regime change in Iraq led to instability in the Middle East."

If Paul does not change his position, Pompeo would be short of the votes needed to win the recommendation from the Foreign Relations Committee, which means he'd need Democrats to step up.

But there have yet to be any Democrats to come out in his favor.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said that Democrats were operating under "blind partisanship."

"It's no good thing though to continue to have an electoral grudge when you're talking about foreign policy and national security," Cotton said. "If anything they [Democrats] should want to have a professional like Mike Pompeo as the Secretary of State representing the United States interests abroad."