Why recess appointments aren't a magic wand for Trump

• After Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, both chambers of Congress — which will be controlled by Trump's Republicans — would need to agree to adjourn the Senate for at least 10 days. That hasn't been done in more than a decade.
• Trump also could go nuclear, testing the limits of his constitutional power by adjourning Congress himself.

But there would be some major obstacles.

• Republicans will hold a small majorities in both the House and the Senate, so it wouldn't take many dissenters to derail a call for a lengthy recess — especially one aimed at bypassing congressional power.
• In the Senate, where Republicans will have a 53-47 majority — GOP lawmakers concerned about some of the president-elect's picks already are signaling they may not agree to let Trump go around them to get his top officials in place.
• A lot of that reluctance had centered around the much-despised Gaetz before he withdrew Thursday, but even GOP senators have expressed concern about the sexual assault allegations surrounding Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth.

Zoom in: Some of Trump's most loyal backers in the Senate are reluctant to give up their power to review his nominees.

• Recess appointments are "logistically complicated," Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told Axios.
• Despite the early signals from Trump, Hawley doesn't expect recess appointments to come into play unless "Democrats try to grind down the process and drag it out."
• "Let us get first our Senate into the majority, hold the hearings, start confirming people... We want to get as many confirmed, as quickly as possible," incoming Senate Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told Axios, suggesting the recess option would be a last resort.

Flashback: Recess appointments — which are good for the two-year congressional term in which they're made — aren't new. They've long been used to enable presidents to get around the minority party when the Senate filibuster still required 60 votes to confirm executive branch nominees.

• Senate Republicans helped establish the framework for recess appointments in 2012, when they challenged then-President Obama's push to make appointments to the National Labor Relations Board while lawmakers were out of town.
• Forty-two GOP senators signed court briefs arguing that Obama's appointments were unconstitutional because he made them during three-day breaks in Congress' calendar — which the senators argued didn't count as a "recess."

The Supreme Court unanimously agreed with Republicans, ruling in 2014 that the Senate must break for at least 10 days — with no "pro forma" sessions — for a president to make recess appointments.

• By then, recess appointments were largely irrelevant because Senate Democrats had killed the filibuster on executive branch picks.
• Under the filibuster a nominee used to need 60 votes in the 100-member Senate. Today, nominees only need a majority.

Fast-forward 12 years and Trump is reviving the idea — and trying to get congressional leaders on board.

• Both incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) have pointed to the Supreme Court's ruling when asked whether their thinking had changed since they signed briefs opposing Obama's tactic.
• Thune noted that what Republicans took issue with back in 2012 was Obama installing people while the Senate was still meeting for pro-forma sessions, which isn't the approach Trump is considering.

Zoom out: Trump allies are exploring whether the president — as a very last resort — could use a clause in the Constitution to adjourn Congress even if the Senate doesn't agree to do so.

• The clause allows the president on "extraordinary occasions" to adjourn the House and the Senate if there is a "Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment."
• That could land the Senate in uncharted legal waters.

The bottom line: Senate GOP leaders' strong preference is to go through the regular Senate confirmation process.

• Thune told South Dakota news station KELOLAND News that he wanted to "grind it out the way we normally do it."
• But if Trump's patience on his nominees wears thin, he could try to force Congress' hand.