John Thune Uses Sneaky Tactic to Prevent President Trump From Making Appointments During Senate Break

The Senate is now officially on August recess.

While they were able to pass a few key nominations through before closing session — like Jeanine Pirro and Emil Bove — there is still a massive backlog.

Now, it will all have to wait until the Senate returns in September.

Not only has Congress failed to get President Trump’s nominees confirmed swiftly and efficiently, but John Thune is now using a sneaky procedure to prevent President Trump from making any appointments while the Senate is on break.

Take a look:

🚨 UPDATE: The US Senate will now hold PRO FORMA sessions every 3 days after beginning recess to prevent President Trump from making any recess appointments, through the beginning of September, per Leader John Thune. pic.twitter.com/Bw7mC5ZALJ

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 3, 2025

Our Constitution allows a president make temporary “recess appointments” while Congress is on break. These type of appointments do not require any confirmation from the Senate and are meant to last until Congress gets back in session.

However, Senate Leader John Thune plans to use “pro forma sessions” to block President Trump from doing so.

Essentially, he’s going to call the Senate into session for a short time every few days without holding any votes or getting anything done, simply for the purpose of preventing President Trump from making recess appointments.

Infuriating.

Speaker Johnson and Senator Thune are holding fake “pro forma” sessions every 4–5 days during August.
Why? To block President Trump from making recess appointments.

They won’t confirm his 135 nominees.
They won’t let him recess-appoint replacements.

This is sabotage. pic.twitter.com/HbRbssEytE

— Desiree (@DesireeAmerica4) July 27, 2025

This all follows Senate Republicans’ failure to negotiate a deal with Democrats to confirm President Trump’s nominees.

Sen. Chuck Schumer was demanding that the White House release more foreign aid and federal funding to the National Institutes of Health in exchange for getting a handful of non-controversial nominees confirmed before the recess.

President Trump urged Republicans not to take the deal in a post on Truth Social:

Senator Cryin’ Chuck Schumer is demanding over One Billion Dollars in order to approve a small number of our highly qualified nominees, who should right now be helping to run our Country. This demand is egregious and unprecedented, and would be embarrassing to the Republican Party if it were accepted. It is political extortion, by any other name. Tell Schumer, who is under tremendous political pressure from within his own party, the Radical Left Lunatics, to GO TO HELL! Do not accept the offer, go home and explain to your constituents what bad people the Democrats are, and what a great job the Republicans are doing, and have done, for our Country. Have a great RECESS and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!

But, up until John Thune shut it down, allowing recess appointments was on the table.

Politico reported:

The decision to abandon confirmations for a larger portion of the 150-plus pending nominees represents a U-turn from just hours before when Republicans said they wanted a resolution by the end of the day. They were considering whether to cut a deal with Democrats, change the rules to confirm groups of nominees more quickly or adjourning to allow Trump to make temporary “recess appointments.”

Inside a closed-door lunch, Republican senators discussed deploying the “nuclear option” — that is, changing the rules by a simple majority vote — or formally adjourning, which would let Trump make recess appointments.

“We’re stuck on stupid,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), when asked about the mood.

Recess appointments were long considered a nonstarter with much of the Senate Republican conference because it would allow Trump to leapfrog the chamber’s advise-and-consent role. But it came back into the conversation as frustrations mounted with the slow pace of confirmations this Congress — and Democrats’ demands for allowing more Trump picks through.

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Thune abandoned the idea Saturday, locking in brief “pro forma” sessions for the next month, which will prevent Trump from making recess appointments.

Republicans now expect to pursue rules changes that would cut down on the amount of time needed to confirm Trump’s picks, but only after the summer break ends after Labor Day.

John Thune is turning into Mitch McConnell 2.0…

During President Trump’s first term, McConnell pulled the same shady stunt.

Mitch McConnell never allowed POTUS Trump a single recess appointment.

Not ONE.

The traitor McConnell always had pro forma sessions while the senate was on vacation to stop POTUS Trump from filling positions.

Thune is doing it now.

Uniparty traitors.pic.twitter.com/apyOutPRMx

— C3 (@C_3C_3) August 3, 2025

I’m getting really tired of all these backstabbers.

Primary Thune and all the rest who are not serving in President Trump’s — or the American people’s — best interests!