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The president-elect’s choice of combative loyalists who could have trouble being confirmed has raised constitutional questions about executive power and the Senate’s prerogatives.
- Nov. 14, 2024, 4:36 p.m. ET
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s bid to stock his cabinet with combative loyalists is creating the first major test for the new Senate Republican majority, whose leaders must now decide how far they are willing to go to challenge nominees some of them regard as egregiously unfit.
The issue reared its head only hours after Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, won the post of majority leader. Mr. Trump then announced he was choosing Representative Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who was under investigation for sexual misconduct with minors and illicit drug use, to be attorney general. The next day, Mr. Trump announced that he had chosen Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Lawmakers were already reeling at Mr. Trump’s plans to nominate the Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defense secretary and former Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who has been accused of promoting Russian propaganda, as director of national intelligence.
Now Mr. Thune, who will officially assume his post in January, must balance the deep misgivings among his rank-and-file with Mr. Trump’s demands of fealty, and habit of punishing those who dare to cross him. The president-elect’s threat to use recess appointments to unilaterally install nominees who cannot clear the Senate otherwise has deepened the conundrum, holding out the possibility of a constitutional clash at the outset of Mr. Trump’s second term.
So far, Mr. Thune, who was elected over a challenger more closely aligned with Mr. Trump, has studiously avoided opining on any of the candidates. Many Republicans said they were inclined to defer to Mr. Trump on all but the most outrageous nominees — some of them naming Mr. Gaetz as beyond the pale. But some Republicans said a confrontation could be coming if Mr. Trump tried to go around the Senate to appoint a slew of unacceptable candidates through recess appointments.
“I think all but Gaetz are very doable — maybe not lovable, but doable,” Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, said in an interview conducted before Mr. Trump's announcement about Mr. Kennedy.
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