Trump warns he’ll adjourn Congress to make recess appointments. How would that work?

President Trump is threatening to use his powers to adjourn Congress so he can make recess appointments for at least some of his top Cabinet nominees and their deputies, enabling them to begin running the largest federal departments. 

Mr. Trump most recently raised the prospect of plunging the executive and legislative branches into uncharted constitutional territory during his White House meeting Tuesday with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson, mulling the option if Democrats opt to slow-walk or delay his top national security and public health nominees, according to two people familiar with the meetings. 

“This remains a significant possibility in the eyes of the White House,” one of the people familiar with the meetings said, emphasizing this is not expected to happen this week, but remains under active consideration.

Mr. Trump has signaled he wants the Senate to move quickly to confirm his top Cabinet picks, and Republican senators have said for weeks they want to move swiftly, particularly on his top national security appointments. On Monday night, the Senate unanimously confirmed Marco Rubio as secretary of state, but votes on John Ratcliffe to serve as CIA director, Pete Hegseth to serve as defense secretary, and Kristi Noem to serve as homeland security secretary, are still in the queue for consideration. 

Procedural issues are delaying those votes, with Democrats slowing consideration of Ratcliffe and Republicans warning they’ll hold a final up-or-down vote on him over the weekend, if necessary. 

It is unclear how long Mr. Trump would recess Congress, given that a possible government shutdown looms in mid-March and Republican leaders have set an April goal of passing massive economic, tax and immigration legislation that would authorize Mr. Trump’s plans to cut inflation and taxes and dramatically overhaul border security policy.

How can Trump adjourn Congress?

The second clause of Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution gives the president the power to convene the House and Senate in certain cases. While presidents over the course of U.S. history have frequently summoned both chambers for special sessions, or the Senate to vote on key nominees or treaties, no president has ever exercised his constitutional power to adjourn the two chambers. 

The lack of precedent means any Trump decision to adjourn the Senate would likely face immediate legal challenge ultimately resulting in appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Here’s one example of how it would work: The House is scheduled to leave Washington for up to 10 days starting Friday, so the two parties can hold their annual policy retreats. The GOP-controlled House could pass a resolution formally adjourning for that length of time and send the resolution to the Senate. The upper chamber, where at least 60 votes would be needed to consider a consent resolution, would either also adjourn or fail to agree to do so. Under the Constitution, both houses of Congress must agree to adjourn for more than three days. If the Senate does not agree, the president could try using his adjournment power to send the Senate home, launching the executive and legislative branches into uncharted constitutional territory.

Talk about flexing this never-used power dates back to the last year of the first Trump presidency, when Democrats were blocking hundreds of executive and judicial nominees. Conservative activists began pushing the White House to consider the adjournment powers, something Mr. Trump never used. Now, emboldened by his second victory and far more familiar with the powers of the presidency, Mr. Trump is actively discussing the option. 

The president raised the prospect of recess appointments in an advisory way to Thune on Tuesday, the sources said, who would prefer that Mr. Trump avoid this move to preserve and protect institutional prerogatives. On Tuesday after the Mr. Trump meeting, the Senate majority leader expressed public skepticism and said any move by Mr. Trump to adjourn Congress should be blamed on Democrats. 

“I think we’re going to find out here pretty quickly whether or not the Democrats want to help us get through some of these nominations in a way that gets us back on track with the way it was done prior to the last two presidencies,” he said.

Both parties have spent much of the 21st century using what had been obscure procedural tactics to delay or slowly derail presidential nominees for Cabinet posts, regulatory agency boards and federal judgeships. 

What are recess appointments?

Any president can appoint someone to a position requiring Senate confirmation whenever the chamber is in recess. Back when the country began and traveling to and from Washington by horse or train took far longer, recess appointments were a far more urgent need. Now, with Congress able to function year-round, it’s more of a political tactic. 

Any nominees appointed to a position during a congressional recess must be confirmed by the end of the next calendar year, meaning if Mr. Trump were to make recess appointments early this year, they could serve in their roles until December 2026. Once a new congressional session begins, a president can renominate recess appointees for Senate confirmation — or issue a fresh recess appointment for them.

The biggest legal test of the power came in 2014, when the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled President Obama had violated the recess appointments clause by naming three picks to the National Labor Relations Board in 2012. The justices said the Senate was not actually in a formal recess when Obama acted.