Former President Donald Trump is now urging the Senate to go into recess so he can make executive branch appointments without requiring congressional approval — potentially including controversial picks like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) for attorney general. This move has left some GOP allies uneasy, and one of Trump’s own White House press secretary candidates has noted it would be “pushing the limits” of his authority.
CNN’s Phil Mattingly told Jake Tapper that while presidents have often used recess appointments, no president has tried to strong-arm the Senate into recess solely to make these appointments.
“It would create — in terms of separations of powers and authority of the Senate, you heard some senators take very, very seriously, it would create a massive issue for the Republican conference,” said Mattingly.
“Have presidents used this method before like this? Is there any precedent?” asked Tapper.
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“No precedent for a president asking the majority leader to do it just for the sole purpose of a recess appointment,” confirmed Mattingly.
“Now to be clear, before the Supreme Court decision during the Obama administration,” limiting when recess appointments can be made, “this was done 100 times in both the George W. Bush administrations and in the Bill Clinton administrations,” said Mattingly. “Sometimes it was an end-around for a troubled nominee. A lot of times it was just to speed up the process to get a lot of people done at once. What the former president and president-elect is putting on the table right now is unprecedented.”
“What he is doing is he’s essentially challenging his new Republican majority, his allies ostensibly, out of the gate, and putting them in a position where they either have to move his nominees incredibly fast, even though it doesn’t seem like they have 50 votes, or run up against a very real blowup, intraparty, right off the bat,” said Mattingly.
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