Republican Senator Shoots Down Recess Appointment for Matt Gaetz: ‘Unwise’

Republican Senator Kevin Cramer has publicly rejected the possibility of a recess appointment for controversial Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, calling the move “unwise.”

Cramer made the remarks during a CNN interview on Monday, a week after Gaetz was nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to be attorney general.

Gaetz is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for alleged sexual abuse and illicit drug use, allegations he denies. Immediately after his nomination, Gaetz resigned from Congress, temporarily blocking the release of the committee’s report on him, days before it was set to go public.

Amid the controversial pick, Trump has faced scrutiny from some Republican lawmakers, like Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who have expressed dismay at Gaetz’s nomination. Half of Senate Republicans, including some in senior leadership positions, privately saying they don’t see a path for Gaetz to be confirmed by the Senate, NBC News reported.

To get around this predicament, Trump has suggested he could use recess appointments and bypass the Senate to get Gaetz confirmed. “Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” Trump posted to X, formerly Twitter, last Sunday.

But Cramer became the first Republican lawmaker to publicly reject that move on Monday.

“I just think it’d be unwise to do that if he can’t get the votes of the majority party, which is his party. If — it’s one thing if the minority party objects or obstructs in some manner using the tools that they have, then I think, you know, with our cooperation, you could, you could do that. I think it’d be a little unwise to have us, without our cooperation, to cooperate in a recess appointment,” he said.

“I just think it sets, it would set the attorney general up to not have all of the confidence and the strength that that person needs.”

Cramer also expressed concern that nominating Gaetz could drain political capital from the Trump administration and Senate Republicans during the confirmation process.

“So that’s been my main point, is that you have to, you know, determine whether or not the cost of getting them across the finish line is worth it, much less the possibility that you won’t get them across the finish line,” he said.

He added that the House Ethics Committee should release its report into Gaetz.

“I do [believe the House Ethics committee should release the report], but more importantly I want the Judiciary Committee to be able to see it prior to the hearings,” Cramer said. “And then after that, depending on what happens, then, of course, it can be released to the other members that are going to at some point have a vote.”

Newsweek has contacted Trump’s transition team for comment via email.

Cramer told reporters last week that Gaetz might not get “across the finish line” in the Senate. “I have concerns that he can’t get across the finish line, and we’re going to spend a lot of political capital. … A lot of people will spend a lot of political capital on something that, even if they got done, you’d have to wonder if it was worth it,” he said.

But Cramer is currently the only Republican who has come out against Trump using recess appointments. Other Republicans have supported the strategy.

On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell faced huge backlash after he was alleged to have warned Trump’s team: “There will be no recess appointments,” during a meeting in Washington, D.C. The claim was reportedly made by New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer in a since-deleted post on X.

In response, Florida Senator Rick Scott posted on X: “Yes, there will be.” Utah Senator Mike Lee added: “Remember that time when McConnell decided he wouldn’t be speaking for Senate Republicans anymore?”

All Options on the Table

Meanwhile, South Dakota Senator John Thune, who was selected as the new GOP Senate leader to replace McConnell in January, said last week that recess appointments are “on the table.”

“I think that all options are on the table, including recess appointments. Hopefully, it doesn’t get to that but we’ll find out fairly quickly whether the Democrats want to play ball or not,” he said on Thursday during an interview with Fox News.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has also not ruled out the use of recess appointments to allow Trump to push through his Cabinet picks and to ensure the president-elect’s “overwhelming” America First election win is followed through.

“The persons that the president is choosing will help with that agenda; they will take their leadership in these agencies, and they’ll reform them as the people expect and demand,” Johnson told Fox News Sunday.

“So we’ll evaluate all that at the appropriate time, and we’ll make the appropriate decision. There may be a function for that, and we’ll have to see how it plays out.”

The Constitution allows presidents to fill out their administrations while the Senate is in recess to prevent important roles from going unfulfilled. This rule was put in place because Congress would sometimes go on long breaks in the early days of the country’s formation.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2014, during Barack Obama’s presidency, that the Senate must recess or adjourn for 10 days before a president can make any appointments.

If the Senate refuses to recess, but the House does, the Constitution would allow Trump to adjourn the entire Congress, Axios reported.

Past presidents have used recess appointments, although President Joe Biden has not, and neither did Trump in his first term in office.

President Barack Obama made 32 recess appointments, President Bill Clinton made 139, and President George W. Bush made 171, according to the Congressional Research Service.