Trump: No Senate Vacation Until Nominees Are Confirmed

President Donald Trump doesn’t want any senators going on summer vacation until more of his nominees are confirmed.

“Hopefully the very talented [Senate Majority Leader] John Thune, fresh off our many victories over the past two weeks and, indeed, 6 months, will cancel August recess (and long weekends!), in order to get my incredible nominees confirmed. We need them badly!!!” wrote Trump on Truth Social Saturday.

On the congressional calendar, senators are set to take a month off, departing after Aug. 1 and returning to Capitol Hill on Sept. 2.

Currently, 136 civilian nominees are pending on the Senate’s executive calendar. These include undersecretaries of major federal agencies such as labor, education, and agriculture; as well as judges and ambassadors to foreign nations.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has slow-walked Trump’s nominees, forcing the requirement of a cloture vote for almost every one of the president’s picks.

In all fairness, Thune, R-S.D., is keeping a good pace, with more nominees confirmed as of July 21 than either former President Joe Biden or the first Trump administration had at the same time in their first year in office, per The Washington Post.

But confirming Trump’s nominees is just the start of the Senate’s workload.

The stopgap funding bill passed with Democrat support in March is set to expire at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, and the Senate is just getting started on advancing the annual appropriations bills needed to avert a government shutdown. 

These bills generally require 60 votes to end debate in the Senate, so Democrats will have to be cut into the process somehow.

On Tuesday, Thune will test Democrats’ willingness to work on a bipartisan basis by bringing the first of a dozen appropriations bills to the floor—in this case, the bill which funds military construction projects and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“We are going to need to get appropriations done,” Thune said Sunday on Fox. “That will require some cooperation from Democrats, and hopefully they will be willing to make sure that the government is funded.”

If the Senate goes on vacation for its whole August recess, that will leave just 16 days in session for Thune to try to avert a federal government shutdown. A continuing resolution to further extend the Biden administration’s funding levels is, in that case, likely.

Democrats are sending mixed signals on whether they’ll help advance the appropriations process.

“I think the most important thing for us to do is to continue to move the appropriations process as expeditiously as we can, to try and find bipartisan agreement,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said in a recent interview.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., however, is saying he doesn’t see the point of coming to a budget deal if Republicans could just cut the funding with a rescissions package, as they did with public broadcasting and foreign aid funding.

“They stabbed us in the back, and if they commit to us that they won’t do that again, then we might be able to write bills,” said Murphy after the rescissions bill passed.

“The vibe today is, ‘We’re going to trade baseball cards with you, and then we’re going to sneak into your house later today and take our cards back.’”

There will be pressure on Schumer to push back on Republicans’ funding efforts.

Back in March, he came under intense criticism for voting for the continuing resolution, with his House counterpart, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., refusing to comment on whether Schumer should resign as leader.

Now comes the hard part, as Republicans attempt to secure conservative wins in the appropriations process, all while relying on the support of an embittered Democratic Party.

Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought indicated in a recent interview that he’d be happy with Congress advancing thoroughly conservative appropriations bills.

“There is no voter in the country that went to the polls and said, ‘I’m voting for a bipartisan appropriations process,” said Vought.

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