GOP senators rebel against Trump’s 'recess appointments' threat

22 November 2024

President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to use a process known as "recess appointments" if GOP senators give him a hard time with his more controversial administration picks, who range from anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (whose critics consider her an apologist for Russian President Vladimir Putin) as intelligence director.

Trump's threat is to force the U.S. Senate into recess in 2025, then ram through nominees who were unlikely to be confirmed.

But according to The Hill's Alexander Bolton, some GOP senators are "pouring cold water" on Trump's scheme.

Democrats presently have a small U.S. Senate majority under Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), but that will change in early 2025. Having flipped the Senate, Republicans will have a 53-47 majority next year under Sen. John Thune (R-South Dakota).

Thune wasn't Trump's first choice for that position — the president-elect would have preferred far-right agitator Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida). But GOP senators went with Thune, a more traditional conservative who will replace Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) as the U.S. Senate's top Republican.

Bolton, in an article published on November 22, reports, "Republican senators are pouring cold water on the idea that President-elect Trump could force the Senate into an extended recess next year so that he would be able to fill key positions in his Cabinet without going through the Senate confirmation process. Republican senators and aides say that Trump allies who claim that the incoming president would have power under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution to force an extended recess don't understand how Congress really works."

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) doesn't believe that Article II gives Trump the power to force a Senate recess whether senators like it or not.

Cornyn told The Hill, "I don't think so. The separations of powers doctrine is pretty fundamental: Three coequal branches of government. One branch can't commandeer the other two. I think that would be the outcome."

Similarly, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) — a Thune ally — told The Hill, "I think you would have to have a majority in the Senate that would agree to that. I think it would be extremely difficult to get done."

Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) said of an extended forced Senate recess, "I don’t anticipate the Supreme Court would sustain that."

Read The Hill's full report at this link.

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