I had dinner last night with my next door neighbor, a lifetime Democratic voter in Southern California who voted last Tuesday for Donald Trump, the first Republican for whom she ever cast a vote. It was a birthday dinner, and a member of her family who gets her news entirely from MSNBC was visibly panicked. She believes the country is lost, and she’s terrified of what she perceives will happen to the lifestyle she’s chosen.
I hugged her and told her that it’s going to be just fine, that Trump’s sole concerns are getting the economy turned around, expelling people that legally shouldn’t be here, especially if they’re violent criminals, and trying to reestablish deterrence around the world. He simply does not have the time nor the desire to upend the personal lives of millions of Americans.
I then told her to make me a promise. I asked her to give it a year, and that by the time we reconvene for next year’s birthday dinner, if all of the doom and gloom preached by Rachel Maddow et al. have not born out to be true, consider the prospect that you’ve been gaslit by a bunch of people playing with your emotions for years. Maybe then, you’ll have that awakening moment so many millions of other Americans had before the election, causing them to cast a vote for Donald Trump. She at least promised me that she would.
The 45th, and soon to be 47th President has not wasted any time since his election Tuesday last, announcing New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik as his pick to be U.N. Ambassador. It is a fine pick. She has no problems speaking her mind, and just won re-election in a R+25 district in New York. Once they hold a special election, the GOP House conference will not lose any ground. Trump has leaked a short list of potential choices for Secretary of State, Ric Grenell being the perceived frontrunner. He has signaled to the Senate GOP conference, due this week to elect new leadership, that he’s requesting that after they open the new session, adopt their rules package, and announce committee chairs, go immediately into recess to allow the President to make recess appointments. Naturally, the left and Never Trump, Inc. is hitting the panic button. Here’s why I think that’s exactly the right call.
In 2007, after George W. Bush’s disastrous mid-term elections of 2006, losing control of both the House and Senate, Nevada Senator Harry Reid and his number three at the time, New York’s Chuck Schumer, began to implement a series of pro-forma sessions every few days when the chamber was legitimately in recess specifically to prevent President Bush from filling cabinet and judicial vacancies. It was an unprecedented move. Reid essentially decided that the last two years of Bush’s administration would be a dry hole of Senate cooperation.
Once that Pandora’s box was opened, both sides have employed the tactic. Manu Raju, CNN’s Capitol Hill reporter, saved that little tidbit in his reporting until the last sentence of this Tweet over the weekend.
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Recess appointments used to be very rare and cause an uproar. Trump here suggesting using them as a way to short-circuit the confirmation process and get his Cabinet in place.
Also, going into recess would require approval from both houses, and the resolution to do so could be… pic.twitter.com/IHoKfBgthS
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 10, 2024
The Senate could adjourn after their initial formation and adoption of rules for the new term, and announce a five-day break in the action. It does not have to be passed by both houses as a formal recess. Donald Trump could then use that gap and install a bunch of people he wants to use as cabinet picks. So why all this drama? And why does Trump have to get buy-in from Senate Republicans to do this?
Historically, recess appointments are a last-ditch effort to get controversial people installed for the remainder of the existing Congress (up to two years). And once that recess appointment avenue is used, that usually poisons that person with both parties when it comes to their formal nomination. The Senate takes pride in their Constitutional role of advice and consent, and when that process is short-stopped by a recess appointment, that usually causes the relevant committees to scuttle these recess appointment nominations when they come before their committees for confirmation.
Trump is asking for the Senate Republicans to understand the gamesmanship Democrats are already beginning to pull, slow-walking every single nomination regardless of whether they’re controversial or not in order to hamstring Trump and run out the clock. The three Republican senators vying for leadership – Rick Scott of Florida, John Thune of South Dakota, and John Cornyn of Texas, all know the time constraints under normal circumstances, and they all know what Chuck Schumer is capable of and willing to do in order to prevent normal confirmation hearings from proceeding.
Over the weekend, with every major news organization having called the Pennsylvania Senate race for Republican Dave McCormick, the Senator-Elect began to make plans to attend the Senate freshman orientation this Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Outgoing majority leader Schumer indicated that he has joined the Election Denial club, refusing to admit what everyone else has, and will not allow McCormick to attend the orientation until all the votes are counted. Schumer is committed to dragging his feet on everything, so it’s time to work around him.
Virtually every member of the Senate GOP conference tweeted over the weekend that Schumer’s treatment of McCormick is unacceptable, and they would escort the incoming Pennsylvania Senator-Elect personally despite Schumer’s edict. It’s time for Republicans to play hardball. Hold confirmation hearings when you can and do your due diligence, but acknowledge the narrow window the American people have given you to get things done, and work with the new president to expedite the process. Do not hold the fact that they’re recess appointments against them when they come before committees.
As for other coincidences and consequences since the election last week, the European Union signaled they were now actively considering ending oil and gas deals with Russia and turning to the United States for their future energy needs.
The latest mass migration of people headed north through Mexico headed for our Southern Border has now broken up and scattered.
Mexico has signaled it’s in the process of essentially reinstating Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy on their own in order to have something positive to bring to the table when Trump reopens North America trade talks.
New York City has announced they are ending their welfare check payouts to illegals. The gravy train is ending abruptly.
Taiwan has now made their intentions known that they would love to step up orders for more defensive weapons from the United States.
Just hours after Donald Trump’s victory speech in West Palm Beach, which included a demand that the American hostages being held by Hamas be released immediately or else face consequences his first week on the job, including consequences for those who are harboring Hamas, Qatar announced they are expelling Hamas. They’re no longer welcome there. Qatar doesn’t appear they want to be on the wrong side of Trump in January.
Several U.S. companies have announced that they are very quickly making plans to end manufacturing in China in order to avoid Trump’s pending tariffs. Those manufacturing jobs will be brought back to the U.S. homeland, boosting jobs and the economy across the country.
Both Ukraine and Russia have talked to the incoming president, and are coming rapidly to the conclusion that some kind of negotiation and settlement is going to have to take place. The war is going to come to an end.
And going back to the border, after Kamala Harris’ four-year failure as the de facto Border Czar, Donald Trump announced we are going to actually have one – Tom Homan. 60 Minutes talked to him Sunday night, and offered up the same Democratic talking point shared by Kristen Welker on NBC’s Meet the Press. All of a sudden, the cost of deporting millions of people is what the left thinks is going to resonate.
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60 Minutes: Is spending billions on deportation worth it?
Former ICE director and Trump ally Tom Homan: What price do you put on our national security?
60 Minutes: Is there a way to carry out mass deportations without separating families?
Homan: Of course there is. Families… pic.twitter.com/olZz2x7emV
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 7, 2024
Here was how Kristen Welker framed the issue.
NEW: NBC’s Kristen Welker says she spoke with Donald Trump after he won the election, says he told her there is no price tag on his mass deportation operation.
Welker: I pressed him on the price tag of his mass deportation plan, which experts say could be in the billions
Trump:… pic.twitter.com/6ojb2gO7PZ
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 10, 2024
The cost of the Biden Inflation Explosion Act, the legislation that Vice-President Kamala Harris broke the tie in the Senate to pass, has cost American taxpayer trillions in new debt as well as a reduced standard of living due to the effects of rising food, housing, and energy costs. Inflation has ravaged the country. And yet all of a sudden, the left is trying to portray themselves as budget hawks. They’re now concerned that deporting people that do not legally belong here will cost billions. It begs several questions. How much is it costing American taxpayers to fly illegals coming into the country to locations all over the country? How much is it costing to house illegal aliens? How much more to educate their children? What’s the price paid to incarcerate illegals who commit violent crimes, sometimes repeatedly upon release? What’s the value of every American life lost by the hand of a person here illegally? Why is no one on the left, especially in regime media, concerned about what the Biden-Harris immigration nightmare has cost thus far?
The official hourglass doesn’t begin dropping sand until Noon on January 20th, 2025. But the clock is already ticking. Democrats are already maneuvering to cause that sand to run out with as little damage, from their point of view, being done. Donald Trump’s actions this week demonstrate he recognizes the window of time in which he’s got to make a difference, and he is determined to make use of every minute of every day he’s got. I hope the Republican majorities in the House and Senate, and yes, there will be a House majority somewhere in the 221-224 range, recognize as well that it’s Go time, and that there’s no stomach for petty leadership squabbles and internecine power plays between factions of the House GOP caucus. Whomever emerges as Leader in the Senate, which right now seems most likely to be John Thune, they need to work with Speaker Mike Johnson and Donald Trump’s transition team hand and glove.
It’s time to show the American people that the Republican Party can be a governing party for a long, long time to come.
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