Trump presses next GOP Senate leader to allow ‘recess appointments’

President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday said Senate Republicans’ next leader must embrace so-called “recess appointments,” temporary appointments when the chamber is out of session that occur without the chamber’s formal seal of approval.

“Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” Trump wrote in a post to the social media network X. “Sometimes the votes can take two years, or more. This is what they did four years ago, and we cannot let it happen again.”

Notably, Trump did not endorse any of the three GOP candidates for Wednesday’s upcoming leadership election — Sens. John Thune (S.D.), John Cornyn (Texas) and Rick Scott (Fla.) — though influential figures in the conservative movement have rallied around Scott in the aftermath of last week’s Republican electoral victories.

Scott, though, came out strongly in support of Trump’s idea. “100% agree. I will do whatever it takes to get your nominations through as quickly as possible,” he wrote in response to Trump X post, prompting the site’s owner, Elon Musk, to post “Rick Scott for Senate Majority Leader!”

Neither Thune nor Cornyn ruled out the idea in their own responses. Thune said "all options are on the table" toward delivering on Trump's agenda "including recess appointments," while Cornyn noted in a post: "The Constitution expressly confers the power on the President to make recess appointments."

In recent years, the Senate has routinely come into brief pro-forma sessions specifically to prevent the president from making recess appointments and sidestepping the chamber’s advice and consent. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 2014 that three recess appointments made by then-President Barack Obama were unconstitutional because the chamber was not truly in a recess, effectively undercutting the future use of the practice.

Recess appointments can last at the most for two years unless senators later come back and confirm the nominee.

Neither Trump nor President Joe Biden has been able to make recess appointments throughout their presidencies — even when their parties had unified control of Congress and the presidency — because of how the chambers arranged their schedules.

Trump himself has toyed with the idea previously, floating the idea of using extraordinary powers in 2020 to force the adjournment of both chambers of Congress to allow recess appointments. “The current practice of leaving town while conducting phony pro forma sessions is a dereliction of duty that the American people cannot afford during this crisis,” Trump said in April 2020 during the opening days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In addition, the president-elect said the Senate should refuse to confirm any further judicial nominations put forth by President Joe Biden in the waning days of this Congress, saying “Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership.”

However, Trump’s request is almost certain to fall on deaf ears. Democrats maintain control of the Senate through the end of the year and have made filling judicial vacancies a top priority for the lame duck session.

Trump’s invective is the latest wave to ripple through the quickly evolving race to replace Mitch McConnell as leader of the Senate Republicans.

Scott, who just won reelection last week and was previously seen as a long shot over Thune and Cornyn, has racked up public endorsements from four GOP colleagues: Sens. Ron Johnson (Wis.), Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.).

“I will be voting for my Florida colleague @ScottforFlorida to be our next Senate GOP leader,” Rubio wrote Sunday in a post on X.

Endorsements have also rolled in for Scott from influential figures in the Trump-aligned MAGA movement such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Glenn Beck, Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk.

Scott sought the top GOP post two years ago, challenging McConnell, but garnered little support. Just 10 Republican senators voted for Scott, compared to 37 for McConnell, who’s led the conference since 2007.

He made his pitch on Fox News on Sunday, vowing to seek common ground with Democrats while also pushing through Trump’s nominees expeditiously.

“I'm a deal guy,” Scott said. “I know that to get things done you've got to look at yourself in the mirror and say what do we have to do differently. We can't keep doing what we're doing. We have to be the change. … It's going to take somebody that is a deal-doer, knows how to sit down with people and find common ground.”

Cornyn hasn’t weighed in on the matter of recess appointments but vowed “no weekends, no breaks” until all members of Trump’s Cabinet nominees are confirmed in a post Saturday, a promise that would break with recent Senate tradition of truncated work weeks in Washington.

“If I am the majority leader, I will keep the Senate in session until those confirmations occur,” the Texas Republican wrote. “Democrats can cooperate in the best interest of the country, or continue the resistance, which will eventually be ground down. Take your pick.”

Thune said during an interview last week on CNBC that he hoped Trump would stay out of the race for Republican leader, a secret vote that will take place Wednesday once lawmakers return to Washington. “These Senate secret ballot elections are probably best left to senators, and he's got to work with all of us when it's all said and done,” he said.

Greta Reich contributed to this report.