President Trump on Wednesday threatened to use his executive power to force both chambers of Congress to adjourn if the Senate did not confirm his nominees for vacancies across the administration.
The president, during a coronavirus briefing in the Rose Garden, offered a lengthy diatribe against what he described as congressional obstruction and argued confirming his nominees was more urgent than ever amid the pandemic.
"The Senate should either fulfill its duty and vote on my nominees or it should formally adjourn so I can make recess appointments," Trump said. "We have a tremendous number of people that have to come into government. And now more so than ever before because of the virus and the problem."
Lawmakers in both chambers are not expected to return to the Capitol until May 4 but both the House and Senate have been conducting pro forma sessions in the meantime. That means the Senate is technically in session and Trump may not make recess appointments.
"The current practice of leaving town while conducting phony pro forma sessions is a dereliction of duty that the American people can not afford during this crisis," he said. "It is a scam, what they do. It’s a scam. And everybody knows it and it’s been that way for a long time."
Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution grants Trump the power to "on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper."
