Summary
Donald Trump has publicly involved himself in the race for Senate Majority Leader, insisting that any Republican candidate for the role must support his demand for recess appointments, allowing him to bypass Senate confirmation for cabinet positions.
Trump’s statement on Truth Social emphasized the need for rapid appointments to avoid delays. GOP candidate Sen. Rick Scott endorsed Trump’s call, while opponent Sen. John Thune criticized it as a violation of the separation of powers.
Trump also calls on Democrats to halt judicial nominations during the lame duck session.
Believe it or not, this is a good thing. This is a recognition that Trump realizes he can’t just do whatever he wants. He needs the Senate to voluntarily give up oversight of Cabinet appointments. And Senators are not normally ones who will voluntarily give up power.
Rick Scott looks like he is about to, though. So who wins this one will make a huge difference regarding how much damage Trump will do. The Majority Leader is elected by Senate Republicans only, so we will have to see whether a majority of them choose to neuter a key Constitutional power they have just because Trump asked them to.
And make no mistake, Trump is getting his appointments regardless. This is all about whether they can skip the hearings, where Democrats can ask uncomfortable questions that might make his appointments look bad.
For now.
I read the situation differently then OP. Either Trump learned from the pass (unlikely) or now people are telling him the correct ways to subvert democracy… He didn’t have those people before, and now they are giving him plays before he is even in office.
Trump will do whatever he wants, and he’s going to take the easiest path to doing it. If the Senate doesn’t want to give up oversight of cabinet appointments, he’ll just ignore the Senate and make whatever appointments he wants. Anything else would require someone to insist that he can’t do that, and there will be nobody to do that.
Then what? The DoJ isn’t going to do anything about it, because Trump will just tell them not to. Even if DoJ did somehow try to do something about it, it would either be a slow walk for show, or interminable delays by Trump, et al. Even if it eventually goes to trial, the judiciary and SCOTUS have a mandate to shield Trump from consequences at any cost.
All the while, they’ll just charge forward with the unconfirmed appointments, do more crimes, lather, rinse, repeat.
Prepare to resist.
Congress has been ceding power to the President for decades.
I see your angle, but it’s not good. This is just the heritage foundation and power hungry around him telling him he needs to go through the process to lay a “defensible” legal path. He says they need to do it, instead of him unilaterally just doing it by decree. So they do it, and if/when challenged up to the Supreme Court, they just say all the boxes were checked, technically legal, moving on.
He’ll do that dance, initially at least, for them to support the “is he being presidential today?!!!” BS narrative that they couldn’t stop drooling over last time. He’ll eventually collapse and regress, but this time when mask comes off all the way (or more like skin peels off of his face, as the mask has been off) he has absolutely nothing left to lose. Things are going to get dark.