Incoming Senate majority leader suggests recess appointments would be a last resort for Trump picks
Republicans want to get President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees approved quickly, and using recess appointments to get that done is one option, Senate Majority Leader-elect John Thune said Thursday, though he added that he hopes it doesn’t come to that.
Whether or not Senate Republicans choose to allow such appointments — temporary hirings made while the Senate is out of session, allowing a president’s nominees to bypass the typical confirmation hearings — depends on “whether Democrats want to play ball,” Thune said.
Thune, appearing on Fox News, said the Senate takes its role of consenting and advising on presidential nominees seriously, “but we also are not going to allow the Democrats to obstruct or block President Trump and the will of the American people.”
Asked whether the Senate would use a recess appointment to push through the most controversial Trump picks, such as Matt Gaetz for attorney general, Thune said, “Hopefully it doesn’t get to that, but we’ll find out fairly quickly whether the Democrats want to play ball or not.”
Thune acknowledged that getting Trump’s Cabinet approved could be contentious, saying, “none of this is going to be easy.”
The majority leader-elect said he has a good relationship Trump.
“We’re speaking regularly,” he said. “We are aligned on the things that we want to get done.”
Some background: Recess appointments were once controversial, last-ditch efforts for presidents to install their nominees after facing long confirmation odds in the Senate. But Senate leaders from both parties dating back to the George W. Bush administration have used procedural means to block the possibility of recess appointments
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