Thune Says ‘All the Options’ Are on the Table to Confirm Nominees after Trump Demands Recess Appointments

Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune said “all the options” will be on the table to confirm President-elect Trump’s cabinet picks, saying he hopes Senate Republicans can work with Trump to “see that he gets his team installed as quickly as possible so he can implement his agenda.”

While Republicans will control the Senate in the next Congress by a margin of 53-47, some senators have raised concerns that some of Trump’s more controversial picks will have a tough time securing the simple majority support they’d need to be confirmed. 

Several of Trump’s nominees have raised eyebrows in recent days, including his selection of Matt Gaetz as attorney general, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, and vaccine-skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary. 

Trump has pushed Republican Senate leaders to allow recess appointments of his picks, in an effort to circumvent the traditional Senate confirmation process. Recess appointments can be used to fill vacancies while the Senate is out or in recess, but have not previously been used for top-level Cabinet picks. After President Obama made 32 recess appointments to lower positions, the Supreme Court limited a president’s power to make such appointments in a 2014 ruling.

Trump argued without the use of recess appointments “we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner.”

“We need positions filled IMMEDIATELY!” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Thune and Senators John Cornyn and Rick Scott all expressed willingness to use recess appointments to confirm Trump’s picks during the battle to replace Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell this week.

Asked by Fox News host Bret Baier Thursday night about the use of possible “recess appointments” to allow Trump to fill the vacancies while the Senate is out or in recess, Thune said it would be an option, but all Republicans would have to vote to recess.

“So the same Republicans that you mentioned that might have a problem voting for somebody under regular order probably also have a problem voting to put the Senate into recess,” he said. “You have to have concurrence from the House. There’s a process. All this is a process. But I don’t think any of those things are necessarily off the table.”

“I think we have to have all the options on the table,” he added. “And these nominees deserve their day in court. They deserve a hearing, a confirmation hearing, an opportunity to be vetted. And the Senate will perform its constitutional role under advice and consent. But we are not going to allow the Democrats to thwart the will of the American people in giving President Trump the people that he wants in those positions to implement his agenda.” 

Thune noted voters had given Trump a “mandate” for change and said he believes senators should “defer to a president when it comes to the people they want in their cabinet.”

“But obviously, there is a process whereby we get down and scrub all these nominees and figure out whether or not, one, they’re qualified and are they people who are fit to hold these offices,” he said.

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) raised concerns about Trump tapping Gaetz for the attorney general position, saying she didn’t think it was a “serious nomination.”

“We need to have a serious attorney general and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card,” she said.

If he is confirmed, Gaetz will lead the department that was investigating him for sex trafficking as recently as last year.

Gaetz’s lawyers announced in February 2023 that they had been informed the DOJ concluded its yearslong investigation into allegations that he was part of a scheme that led to the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl. Investigators ultimately closed the probe related to sex trafficking and obstruction of justice and declined to bring charges against him.

After the nomination announcement, Gaetz resigned from the House of Representatives effective immediately. The resignation came days before the House Ethics Committee was reportedly set to hold a meeting about its own investigation into allegations that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. Gaetz has denied the allegations.

Kennedy, meanwhile, is known for opposing vaccines and blaming them for the sharp increase in childhood autism diagnoses over the past few decades. He has also said he wants to push the incoming Trump administration to take fluoride out of drinking water.

Gabbard, for her part, has no formal background in intelligence and has been accused of cozying up to foreign dictators, including Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.