Donald Trump has demanded that Republican senators step aside and allow his controversial Cabinet nominees to waltz into their positions unimpeded — but they're privately bristling at the challenge to their authority, according to a new report.
The president-elect wants both houses of Congress to call themselves into recess so he can appoint his Cabinet without confirmation hearings, but Axios correspondent Hans Nichols reported that GOP senators are not exactly eager to give up their advise-and-consent role — especially in the case of attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz.
"That's the open question, and I think, you know, all of us reporters, it's incumbent upon us to kind of get a sense of how intense this battle is," Nichols told MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"It's an institutional battle between the Senate and the presidency, and the battle is joined. When the president of the United States starts personally calling senators, really leaning on them, there's no way out of that sort of showdown, and there is a lot that's interesting about this."
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Senators are especially concerned about Gaetz, who resigned immediately upon his nomination last week and prevented the House Ethics Committee from releasing a report on its investigation into sex trafficking allegations against the Florida Republican.
"It's interesting Trump didn't apparently really call any senators before he made these nominations," Nichols said. "He's making these calls after he's already sent them, so not a whole lot of advising in the advise-and-consent part. Two, we have to see what the senators actually say when they get pressed and pushed by Donald Trump. We talked to Sen. [Kevin] Cramer (R-ND). He said Trump is very persuasive, but you know, everyone at the table knows senators don't like being told what to do."
"They like their prerogatives and they want to see the report, to see the contents of that ethics report," Nichols added, "and they say they want to give Gaetz a fair hearing, but they want to know what's actually in there, and it's pretty clear whether or not it's the entire report or just the contents of the report, that a lot of the details will come out and then it's just up to the senators. Are they willing to defy the president that just handed them the majority?"
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