Procedural Waters in the Trump Era: Why the White House isn’t Putting a Trump-White House to the Test

“With Trump, there is always the question of raising the stakes as a way of shifting the negotiation onto more favorable grounds without actually expecting to have to go through with everything he is saying,” Wallach said.

The pressure campaign is beginning, with Trump posting on social media that a majority leader in the Senate should agree to allow for recess appointments if his nominees fail to win confirmation. The three candidates in the lead race all agreed that it would be an option and the winner, John Thune, R-S.D., repeated publicly on Thursday that all options were on the table.

Yes, technically. Senate Democrats could make the process difficult through procedural maneuvers. The GOP-controlled Senate can adjourn for 10 or more days. That would give Trump the opportunity to work his will.

Procedures and constitutionality is completely separate from a messaging fight between the White House and Trump. And the fact that this is being debated in Washington — with all the murky procedural waters — underscores just how much Trump seems primed for this fight.

Wallner said that simply passing the bill and sending it to the Senate and the Senate not doing anything doesn’t mean the Senate disagrees with your bill. The Senate can’t be forced into a state of disagreement by the House. The Senate can act on what the House sends them.

He said in order for a state of disagreement to exist, the House would have to pass an adjournment resolution, send it to the Senate, the Senate amends the bill and sends it back to the House and the House would disagree with the changes.

The debate has got out of hand according to James Wallner, a senior fellow at R Street. “This is not going to happen.”

What is the difference between the Senate and House of Representatives? A republican disagreement about how presidents have dealt with the senate

There is a difference of opinion about what constitutes a formal disagreement between chambers. Some people told NPR that if the House adjournment resolution doesn’t pass the Senate it is indicative of a disagreement.

It’s not something that’s happened before in American history. It kind of smacks of this royal model that America was trying to shake off 250 years ago, right?” said Wallach. There is an idea that a king can prorogue parliament. If you had the members of one chamber screaming bloody murder while the president was trying to pull this off it would be an exceptional constitutional crisis.”

If Congress can’t agree, a president can adjourn it and then use that as a way to ram his nominees through. It’s something Trump had previously said he would do.

The chambers have to adjourn longer than 3 days. If one chamber agrees to adjourn and the other doesn’t, then the House and Senate are considered in a state of disagreement.

Republicans could adjust the calendar — staying longer or working on the weekends — to apply pressure and try to get Democrats to cooperate. But that’s a very different story than the Senate deciding to step aside from one of its biggest duties.

If Democrats blocked nominees, John Cornyn, a former top party leader in the Senate, said that recess appointments were a kind of fail safe.

The senators have not voted on whether or not to exercise advice and consent. You have the power to do what you want. Our loyalty to you is so much more important to the rights we have as senators’,” Binder said.

But the larger question is — would Senate Republicans really want to abdicate one of their main job functions? Senators take the advice and consent of presidential nominations seriously and don’t want to be bypassed entirely by the president.

Since the ruling, the Senate has stopped taking long breaks. To make sure a president can’t install someone without their input, the Senate has what’s called “pro forma” sessions. Little if any business is conducted while most of the Senate is away, and one senator comes to the chamber every few days to technically keep the body in session.

Nominees who are not approved by the Senate will be left with no salary if the president makes recess appointments to get them through.

Donald Trump is threatening a major confrontation with the Senate over his Cabinet nominees, which could lead to an unprecedented power struggle between the executive and legislative branches of government.

Trump expects his party members to fall in line, as he often finds ways to get around them. Thune is respected by his colleagues and well liked by his GOP confreres. He raised a lot of money for his party to take back the majority in this fall’s election. But soon he will essentially face a choice between Trump’s demands and the political and personal preferences of the Republican senators who chose him as leader. When those coincide, as they usually will, fine. When they don’t, Thune will need to find a compromise or choose sides.

But the true confrontation may not be between opposing parties. The GOP may have a hard time fighting off the more controversial nominees, such as former Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general. Those nominees pose an early and critical test for Senate Republicans as they navigate fealty to a party leader who they say is responsible for the GOP getting unified government, and holding onto one of their most important job functions.

Philip Wallach, a senior fellow at the American Economics Institute, said that it came off as a shot across the bow from Trump. “You’re forcing legislators to ask themselves, do we want to formally let ourselves be swept out of the way, and what kind of precedent does that set? I don’t think senators will go for that idea of putting our heads between our legs and skulk off, just to watch you put on a show.

Primary fights in the Democratic primary campaign: How much do senators feel? What do they tell us about a candidate’s future?

Presidential nominations are referred to the relevant committees. For instance, the attorney general is referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Most nominees are checked this way, which is different than when a nomination is not referred unless requested by a senator.

Committees assemble information about nominees before, or sometimes instead of, a hearing. This is where senators look at the qualifications, statements and experience of the nominees. The Senate is expected to give a public confirmation hearing to high-profile nominations such as secretaries of state and defense.

The committee can either favorably or unfavorably recommend the nominee to the full Senate, or it cannot take no action.

While Cabinet-level positions get a lot of media attention, there are thousands of executive nominations made each Congress. There’s simply not enough time for the Senate to approve all of them individually so the Senate can approve “en bloc” — essentially a bulk approval.

Sarah Binder, a professor at George Washington University, believes that limitation is not a bad thing for the Trump administration.

And even if incumbents feel confident they can mend fences in the meantime and beat back a primary challenge, primary fights drain their campaign resources. They also force incumbents to take a harder partisan line to hang on to the nomination. And they give a president of the same party a considerable degree of leverage. That has always been the case, even before Trump was involved.

Not every Republican voter would feel bad if their senator stood up to Trump by a longshot. But be prepared for Republicans in the Senate to calculate that opposing Trump on anything notable in the next two years is inviting a primary challenger in their next election cycle.

Republican officeholders know Trump’s voters are largely their voters. They know that if they run again they will need these votes in the general election and quite possibly in a Republican primary as well.

What they are likely concerned by are Trump’s voters, especially now that Trump has won a second election and carried the popular vote as well as his biggest share yet of the Electoral College.

Trump is renowned for his rhetorical bluster and force of personality. His supporters can help amplify the effects on the internet. But as unpleasant as such a flaming must be, at least a few senators have shown they can withstand a bit of heat.

But in the 119th Congress, it is far from certain that a meaningful number of Senate Republicans will show up to oppose any of these nominees. They may make their objections known in a variety of ways, including off-the-record comments. But it will not matter unless at least four of them band together to make a unified stand in the 53-47 Senate. But that could carry enormous consequences for the few GOP senators who held out.

If there were just one controversial nominee taking all the heat, a withdrawal of a defeat in committee or on the floor might seem likely — or even probable.

There have been controversial choices in the past, but these choices seemed highly likely to antagonize the agencies they would be overseeing. That appeared to be what the intent was.

Trouble with the Nominated Secretary of State Tulsi Gabbard: The Case against Rubio and the ‘Forever Wars’

And then, to top off a week of show stoppers, Trump announced that the anti-vaccine activist and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would be his secretary of Health and Human Services Department. That gives him responsibility for the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and countless programs providing medical care and protecting the public. Trump said he and Kennedy would “make America safe and healthy again.”

Gaetz has a lot of admirers in the Senate and also a lot of critics. If you get all your news from TV, you might well think his nomination is the biggest story since, well, the last Trump-linked scandal or outrage. Moderate senators are raising concerns and pointing out the importance of the Senate’s advise and consent process.

Here’s what could be: Gabbard has no senior military or national security experience and acquired a reputation as a defender of Vladimir Putin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which she blamed on the hostile posture of President Biden and the NATO alliance toward Russia. Commentators, including some conservatives, have wondered aloud just how deep Gabbard’s sympathy with Putin’s positions might go.

Consider Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s choice as the new director of national intelligence. The veteran has criticized “forever wars.” She was also briefly a Democratic member of the House before becoming a Trump fan. But all that would be little or no problem for the senators.

Real trouble started brewing with Pete Hegseth, an Army vet known for his weekend commentary on Fox News, being named secretary of defense. He does not hold the background that senators have come to expect from someone appointed to lead the Department of Defense, despite having served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hegseth’s frequent attacks on the uniformed leadership of the armed services has included talk of firing current generals, including at the highest levels. Some outsiders thought the president-elect was mostly giving the Pentagon a shot and didn’t think he was serious about the choice.

The week started calmly enough with the news that Trump wanted Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to be his secretary of state. Senators usually don’t object to having one of their own elevated to Cabinet status, as long as they are politically reliable like Rubio has been.

In 2020, there will be a critique of Trump by the author. He called Trump’s pick for director of intelligence “the worst Cabinet appointment in history.”

President George W. Bush used it to install John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2005 (circumventing a Senate committee that included senior Democrat Joe Biden and a first-term member named Barack Obama.) Bolton did serve in the job on that basis and has continued his long-running career as a leading hawk on military and foreign policy. He was the national security adviser during Trump’s first term.

At least four of Trump’s second term picks have a chance of becoming a “problem nominee.” Any one of them is likely to get a lot of negative coverage in the media, which can cause Republican senators to find themselves in a tough spot if they vote to confirm them.

At this point, the newly elected Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota is hedging his bets. He said Thursday that it won’t be easy.

The nominees for several key Cabinet posts in the new administration of President-elect Donald Trump caught officials in Washington off guard this week and ignited a firestorm of criticism — not all of it from Democrats.