Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday left the door open to adjourning Congress so President-elect Donald Trump can appoint his Cabinet nominees outside of the usual Senate confirmation process if necessary.
“We’re in a time of very divided government and a very partisan atmosphere in Washington. I wish it were not. I wish the Senate would simply do its job of advise and consent and allow the president to put the persons in his Cabinet of his choosing. But if this thing bogs down, it would be a great detriment to the country, to the American people,” Johnson told “Fox News Sunday” in response to a question about whether he’d be willing to let Trump use the recess appointment process, rather than the traditional Senate confirmation process for certain nominees.
A recess appointment occurs when a president unilaterally bypasses the Senate’s responsibility to confirm Cabinet nominees and appoints them to the job during a period when both the House and Senate are not in session for at least 10 days.
Johnson on Sunday said, “We’ll evaluate all that at the appropriate time, and we’ll make the appropriate decision. There may be a function for that. We’ll have to see how it plays out.”
He added, “I’m sympathetic to all these arguments. As I said, we’ll have to see how this develops. I am very hopeful, very hopeful, that the Senate will do its job, and that is, provide its advice and consent and move these nominees along.”
To allow the recess appointment process to take place, the House and Senate would have to both vote to adjourn for a period of at least 10 days, which would either require them to agree unanimously to do so, or would require both chambers to vote on a concurrent resolution to adjourn for a specific amount of time.
Both chambers usually gavel in for pro forma sessions even during times of recess specifically to prevent the president from making recess appointments and bypassing congressional approval.
President Barack Obama once tried to use recess appointments and was rebuked by the Supreme Court, which said in 2014 that recesses needed to be 10 days or longer for recess appointments to be legal.
Johnson isn’t the only Trump ally who has left the door open to using a recess appointment to confirm Trump’s Cabinet picks.
Also on Sunday, Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that confirming some of Trump’s picks would be a “very difficult” process, and thus recess appointments would be a “last resort.”
“It’d be the absolute last resort,” Mullin said. “But if that’s what we have to do to get the confirmation through, then absolutely, let’s do it. But I would say that would be last option.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., on Sunday said that Democrats would try to push against GOP efforts to make recess appointments, telling NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” if Republicans try to bypass the usual Senate confirmation process, “we will work very closely with our Senate Democratic colleagues. I have great trust and respect in [Senate Majority] Leader Chuck Schumer and [Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman] Dick Durbin to make sure that no end runs can be done.”
On Sunday, Johnson also spoke about Trump’s pick for attorney general, former GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz.
Gaetz is under scrutiny after he resigned from the House last week in the wake of his nomination to Trump’s Cabinet.
While serving in Congress, he was the subject of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee into allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl. Gaetz has repeatedly denied the allegations, but senators on both sides of the aisle have called for the committee’s report to be released publicly or shared with them privately ahead of his confirmation vote.
Johnson had previously advocated against the release of the report and on Sunday told CNN, “What I have said with regard to the report is that it should not come out, and why, because Matt Gaetz resigned from Congress. He is no longer a member. There’s a very important protocol and tradition and rule that we maintain that the House Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction does not extend to nonmembers of Congress.”
He added that senators will “have a rigorous review and vetting process in the Senate, but they don’t need to rely upon a report or a draft report, a rough draft report that was prepared by the Ethics Committee for its very limited purposes.”
Johnson also said that he has not spoken to the president-elect about the ethics report.
“I have literally not discussed one word about the ethics report, not once, and I’ve been with him quite a bit this week,” Johnson said.