John Thune says recess appointments are ‘on the table’ as battle for Trump confirmations drags on

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) on Thursday floated allowing for recess appointments to speed up confirming a backlog of 161 administration officials tapped by President Trump.

“I think everything is on the table,” Thune told reporters, adding that alternatives — including limiting debate time or changing other procedural rules — “make more sense.”

The Senate has confirmed just 115 appointees, leading some members of the Republican conference like Mike Lee of Utah to call for a cancellation of the August recess to ram through the rest.

But the recess appointments approach — which lets Trump unilaterally install nominees with both chambers of Congress out of session — is likely to run into obstacles given the need to clear a threshold of 50 Republican votes.

It’s a tough task given public opposition by a handful of senators in the conference and their 53-47 majority in the chamber.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and his conference would also have to OK the adjournment of their chamber, along with the Senate’s, to bypass so-called “pro forma” sessions that can halt the procedure.

Neither Trump nor former President Joe Biden made any appointments during a recess in their previous terms. Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, however, made dozens of them.

In an exclusive interview with The Post Wednesday, Thune said “at some point” the Senate will have to change the nominations process.

The holdup has largely been driven by Democrats’ opposition to the simple voice vote, which was the standard for confirming typical nominations since the 1990s, Thune added.

“Going back multiple administrations, both Democrats and Republicans, as recently as Bill Clinton, 98% of all the noms considered were handled either by voice [vote] or UC [unanimous consent] and it’s just deteriorated over time to where Trump’s, you know, we’re at zero here,” he noted. “It’s got to be fixed.”

Senate Republicans have discussed eliminating the cloture vote, shortening debate time for nominees down to just two hours or voting on a group of noms in a block after they advance out of committee.

“This is not sustainable, and it, it certainly hamstrings, I think, the functioning of our government in a way that’s really detrimental to the country,” Thune claimed, saying he had been negotiating with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for potential handshake agreements.

Some of those have involved Democratic slots on the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission that have yet to be filled.

Others include prosecutorial positions such as the Southern District of New York US attorney, which is currently occupied in an acting capacity by Jay Clayton, who chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission under Trump’s first administration from 2017 to 2020.

“They want him as US attorney for the Southern District — I’d figure out a way to make a deal, and I think there are things you can trade,” Thune said, “That’s the other part of this that, you know, you’ve got to give us trade bait.”

“Schumer, he’s got folks over there who keep approaching members on our side about wanting to make a deal on noms, but he’s not having it,” he added.