A conservative commentator questioned the constitutionality of Donald Trump’s demand to the Senate’s Republican majority to give up their role in approving his nominees for top government positions.
The president-elect is pushing newly elected GOP majority leader John Thune (R-SD) to abdicate the confirmation process outlined in the U.S. Constitution as a legislative check on his executive power by allowing recess appointments, and CNN’s Scott Jennings said that might be the only way Matt Gaetz could become attorney general.
“Scott, can you name anyone on Capitol Hill who likes Matt Gaetz besides Matt Gaetz?” asked CNN host Kasie Hunt.
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“I’m sure there are some people, probably left good tips [for] waiters at various restaurants around the Capitol,” Jennings laughed. “I don’t know, this is an interesting choice, because it is, to me, just Donald Trump testing exactly how powerful he is. Look, second- term presidents, he now is, we went through this with [George W.] Bush a little bit, ran into turbulence with some things we tried to do early in the second term after winning the national popular vote, and it did not work out. Sometimes second-term presidents do feel a little bit more powerful than maybe they are. The Senate is just harder to control, particularly when you’ve got so many senators that probably don’t have any strings on them from Trump the way you would in the House.”
Gaetz is widely disliked by other Republicans, who may be willing to challenge his nomination to boost their own political profiles, but Jennings said Trump may not be able to bypass Senate confirmation.
“How do you get the Senate in to recess for more than three days?” Jennings said. “There’s long been constitutional questions about whether the president can actually figure out a way to engineer a recess, and that would really be pushing the limits because there is a constitutional provision about the president being able to convene [Congress].”
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