Trump can bypass Mitch McConnell to force through recess Cabinet hires: expert
Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has vowed that Donald Trump will not be successful in pushing the Senate into recess so that his Cabinet nominees can bypass the confirmation process.
The problem is, an expert said, neither he nor incoming Republican Senate leader John Thune (R-SD) have the power to stop him.
The New Republic's Greg Sargent spoke to Sarah Binder, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings and a professor of political science at George Washington University, Tuesday about the way Senate Republicans could be circumvented.
Sargent noted that Trump has appointed "profoundly unqualified people" to serve as the heads of top agencies like Fox host Pete Hegseth, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (HI).
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McConnell and Thune could be circumvented by using Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, which allows the president to adjourn the House the two chambers cannot agree on a recess, Binder said. For that, House Speaker Mike Johnson would need to be on Trump's side.
The president could then push through his nominations, though they can only serve for the life of that Congress — which would take them to the 2026 midterm elections.
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It's a rule that conservative lawyer Edward Whelan pointed out on X.
"These recess appointments (if they were lawful--they wouldn't be) would last through the end of the Senate session in 2026," he wrote on a thread Tuesday and in a National Review column. "Plus, the Trump team has in mind using the Vacancies Reform Act to extend the terms of executive-branch officials, as 'acting' officers, for at least 210 days (and perhaps for much longer), deep into 2027."
He said that if Trump's plan works, he could then simply use it again.
"So, the Senate might never be able to play its core constitutional advice-and-consent role with respect to Trump's Cabinet officials or other important picks," he wrote.
He later posted that Democrats could use the same tactic.
He also called on Johnson to pledge now that he won't allow Trump to use the tactic.
Binder said that it creates a complicated legal quandary because the congressional rules actually define what a "disagreement" is between the two houses — and disagreeing on adjourning likely wouldn't fit under such a definition.
That said, the case would likely go to the Supreme Court, where Trump has a friendly conservative majority.