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Former President Donald Trump is now urging the Senate to go into recess so he can make executive branch appointments without requiring congressional approval — potentially including controversial picks like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) for attorney general. This move has left some GOP allies uneasy, and one of Trump's own White House press secretary candidates has noted it would be "pushing the limits" of his authority.

CNN's Phil Mattingly told Jake Tapper that while presidents have often used recess appointments, no president has tried to strong-arm the Senate into recess solely to make these appointments.

Long-held gripes held by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) about the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, borne out of his widely discredited claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, could soon come to a head, according to a report.

The agency, which came into the crosshairs of conservatives after it disputed accounts that fraud skewed the results of President Joe Biden’s victory four years ago, will soon be overseen by Paul as he is set to take control of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as its chair, POLITICO reported.

President-elect Donald Trump can't afford to lose the support of more than three Republican senators for his most contentious nominees — but insiders say far more than three could do just that, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday evening.

Trump has faced criticism this week over his selection of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) for attorney general, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii for director of national intelligence and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of Health and Human Services.

After the satirical publication The Onion acquired all the assets and intellectual property of far-right webcaster Alex Jones' Infowars platform, CNN's Jake Tapper sat down on Wednesday with Ben Collins, who runs the Onion's parent company Global Tetrahedron, and John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, to get their thoughts on the matter.

Jones was forced to liquidate his assets to help pay off a $1.5 billion judgment against him won by the families who lost their children in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, which Jones repeatedly claimed was a false flag staged by the government with child actors. The conspiracy theorist incited his supporters to harass the victims' families for years, and those families ultimately gave The Onion backing to purchase Infowars' assets at auction.

A conservative writer for a well-known conservative publication on Thursday honed in on two key issues that he views as disqualifying for Donald Trump’s pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the country’s next Health and Human Services secretary – a selection he urged Republican senators to reject.

Writing that Senate confirmation of RFK Jr. would be “a monumental disaster,” National Review editor Philip Klein took issue with the wide grip the prominent anti-vaxxer would wield over the massive department, which oversees the FDA, CDC and National Institutes of Health.

Donald Trump's pick of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to lead the Justice Department, even as he faces a House Ethics Committee report on allegations he engaged in sex trafficking, illicit drugs, campaign finance offenses, and a number of other misdeeds, could prove too much for Senate Republicans, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman told CNN's Jake Tapper.

But all the same, she cautioned, one shouldn't underestimate the GOP's capacity to swallow their pride for Trump.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow joined her colleague Nicolle Wallace on Thursday afternoon to discuss the president-elect making good on his promise to appoint unqualified loyalists.

Maddow said it's time Americans "get real and realize this is really what we're up against."

Dr. Sanjay Gupta tries to stay above the political fray, said CNN anchor Jake Tapper, but he couldn't remain silent on his opposition to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

"You know, it's not often that the entire medical and public health community will be in lock-step on something, but they're pretty close on this in terms of their significant concerns, horror even," about RFK Jr., said Gupta.

A CNN analyst said Thursday that Donald Trump’s controversial cabinet picks that continue to stun Capitol Hill are just another example that the president-elect better be taken “at his word.”

CNN’s Jamie Gangel revealed Republicans' private views about Trump’s still-evolving administration Thursday as news broke he'd offered Robert Kennedy Jr. the role of Health and Human Services secretary.

President-elect Donald Trump just put the "fox in charge of the henhouse," a livid CNN analyst said Thursday.

Trump's Truth Social announcement that he wanted vaccine-denier (and bear crime scene-stager) Robert F. Kennedy to serve as secretary of Health and Human Services outraged CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner.

Donald Trump has already queued up an uncomfortable loyalty test for Senate Republicans with a long string of controversial nominees even they would struggle to support, like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) for attorney general — and it remains to be seen whether there will be any serious resistance. However, reportxed Paul Kane for The Washington Post, there are already signs that many Senate Republicans — particularly those from small states — are looking to "rally around their own" instead of Trump.

"Sen. John Thune (South Dakota) overcame doubts about his past criticism of President-elect Donald Trump and won his secret-ballot election in an old-fashioned manner. Thune assembled a coalition that began with other GOP allies from similarly small states, defeating big-state, big-money rivals from Texas and Florida," wrote Kane. He did so partly by assuring colleagues he would back Trump where important — but gave some hints that he might not align in some ways.

The House Ethics Committee reportedly heard testimony from a woman who said she was sexually assaulted by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) when she was 17 years old.

Sources familiar with the Ethics Committee investigation told ABC News that the woman testified for multiple days over the summer. The woman said Gaetz assaulted her while she was in high school, the sources said.