President-elect Donald Trump has drawn vehement criticism from Democrats and Never Trump conservatives for threatening to use a process known as "recess appointments" if U.S. senators reject the more extreme picks for his incoming administration — who include Kash Patel for FBI director, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for intelligence director, and anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The idea is to force a recess of the U.S. Senate, then ram through the nominees who are more likely to have a hard time getting confirmed. This scheme, critics say, blatantly disregards the "advice and consent" role the Senate has in the U.S. Constitution.
In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on December 3, journalist A.B. Stoddard argues that many GOP senators have been much too timid where Trump's more controversial administration picks are concerned.
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"Especially considering that the most consequential nominations include Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Kash Patel — the overall response from Senate Republicans has been pitifully weak," Stoddard explains. "So it's worth keeping an eye on the two who have, in the time since Trump was reelected to a second term, dared to speak out against parts of his agenda."
The two GOP senators Stoddard is referring to are Kentucky's Rand Paul and South Dakota's Mike Rounds.
"Sen. Rand Paul has slammed Trump's tariff threats and has pledged to oppose the use of the military to round up and deport millions of illegal immigrants," Stoddard observes. "And while Sen. Mike Rounds attempted to dodge any substantive comments about Patel on Sunday, he has described Trump's plans to resolve the war in Ukraine by negotiating with Vladimir Putin as folly."
Stoddard continues, "These aren't disagreements on process — like Republican senators insisting on mandated FBI background checks for nominees, which the Trump team wants to skip, or their pledge to protect the filibuster that Trump pressured them to jettison during his first term. The comments from Rounds and Paul amount to a rejection of ideas upon which Trump explicitly campaigned."
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Paul, according to Stoddard, "has made clear that while he supports deporting immigrants residing here illegally, he opposes a declaration of an emergency to deploy our armed forces in place of state and local law enforcement."
"While Paul made clear he intends to limit Trump's quest for unchecked executive power, Rounds, in essence, said Trump doesn't have the power he thinks he does when it comes to Russia," Stoddard notes. "In casting doubt upon the wisdom of negotiating with Putin, Rounds dismissed a core Trump selling point — his supposed 'great relationship' with the Russian dictator and his promise to end the war in one day."
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A.B. Stoddard's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.