Swansenreport

Senate Republicans Are Blocking Trump’s Recess Appointments — And the Base Is Taking Names

As the Memorial Day recess gets underway, a quiet but increasingly bitter fight is playing out between President Trump and members of his own party in the Senate — over a procedural maneuver that has been used to block presidential power since the Obama era, and that Senate Republicans are now deploying against their own president.

The mechanism is the pro forma session — a brief, largely ceremonial convening of the Senate, often presided over by a single senator for a few minutes, with no business conducted. Pro forma sessions were pioneered as a blocking tool by Democrats during the Obama years, then embraced by Republicans. The courts have upheld them as sufficient to keep the Senate “in session” for constitutional purposes, preventing the president from making recess appointments to fill vacant federal offices without Senate confirmation. Daily Voice

This week’s pro forma session was presided over by Sens. Deb Fischer of Nebraska and Chuck Grassley of Iowa — both Republicans. Sen. Rick Scott, who would have been next in the rotation, reportedly stepped aside, a small but noted gesture that drew praise from MAGA activists online. Fischer and Grassley, by contrast, were publicly called out for carrying the gavel. “You betrayed the conservative movement today,” one prominent conservative voice posted, noting Fischer’s next election is in 2030 and Grassley’s in 2028.

The frustration connects directly to the broader standoff between Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune over the past two weeks. Senate Republicans have blocked Trump’s push to eliminate the filibuster, refused to fund the White House ballroom, opposed the SAVE America Act, and now are maintaining pro forma sessions that prevent the president from filling vacancies without their approval — a running list of institutional resistance from within the president’s own party that has prompted Trump to endorse Ken Paxton over incumbent John Cornyn in Texas. AOL

The constitutional background: the Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling in NLRB v. Noel Canning held that genuine pro forma sessions — even brief ones — do count as the Senate being “in session,” meaning a president cannot make recess appointments over them. Trump’s only options are to negotiate with Thune to end them or to take the legal position that the sessions are a sham — a position the Supreme Court already rejected under Obama. Neither path is easy.

For Swansenreport readers: this is the institutional machinery that explains why you keep hearing that Trump is having trouble filling positions. It isn’t Democrats obstructing nominees. It’s Republicans using the same playbook Democrats used against Obama — and their own president’s base is now watching closely.

Sources: Senate Democratic Leadership — Pro Forma Schedule | Senate Daily Press — Grassley Pro Forma January 2026 | NLRB v. Noel Canning — SCOTUS 2014 | Missouri Independent — Trump recess appointment history