Senate Leadership Race: Here’s What To Know As Trump Allies Back Rick Scott

12 Nov 2024 by Sara Dorn · Forbes

Topline

The Senate is set to select a new majority leader Wednesday, and President-elect Donald Trump’s allies are pushing for Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., to replace outgoing Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.—a move that would put the upper chamber in the hands of a MAGA-aligned lawmaker and sideline Scott’s two veteran competitors who have been waiting in the wings to replace McConnell for years.

US Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) speaks on stage during "Turning Point's The Peoples Convention" at ... [+] Huntington Place in Detroit, Michigan on June 14, 2024. (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images

Key Facts

Scott is running for the position along with Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and John Thune, R-S.D.—close allies of McConnell who have long been seen as his most likely successors.

Weighing into the leadership race for the first time, but stopping short of endorsing a candidate, Trump wrote Sunday on Truth Social the next Senate majority leader “must agree to allow recess appointments,” which are temporary appointments made by the president without Senate approval when the upper chamber is in recess—which would make Trump’s cabinet picks less dependent on passing the Senate.

Scott, a staunch Trump ally who won reelection Tuesday, tweeted, “100% agree. I will do whatever it takes to get your nominations through as quickly as possible” in response to Trump.

Thune and Cornyn—who publicly criticized Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, but endorsed Trump in the most recent election—also vowed to move quickly on confirming Trump’s appointees, but stopped short of giving full-throated endorsements of recess appointments.

A coalition of Trump allies have since endorsed Scott, including Lara Trump, Sean Hannity, Elon Musk, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Tucker Carlson, podcaster Charlie Kirk, Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and former presidential candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

It’s unclear whether the effort will succeed, however, as Thune and Cornyn have also racked up endorsements—Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., supports Cornyn and Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., backs Thune—and the winner needs a majority of votes from the 53 Republican senators to win; the contest will move to a second ballot between the top two vote-getters if no one wins the first round.

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What To Watch For

Senate Republicans will vote Wednesday by secret ballot to select a new leader to replace outgoing Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., when Republicans take control of the upper chamber in January after wresting control from Democrats in Tuesday’s election.

Surprising Fact

Trump in 2020 threatened to force the Senate into recess so that he could make appointments while Congress was away from Washington during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Democrat-controlled Senate, at the time, used “pro-forma” sessions in part to prevent Trump from making appointments without the Senate’s approval. Trump threatened to use his presidential powers to adjourn Congress so that he could force through the appointments in 2020, a mechanism no president has ever deployed and one the Constitution limits to “extraordinary Occasions.”

Tangent

Trump on Sunday also called on the Senate to pause confirmations of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees until he takes office and the Senate changes hands, a request Democrats—who will control the Senate until January—are unlikely to agree to.

Key Background

Republicans won control of the upper chamber in Tuesday’s election, winning 53 seats to Democrats’ 46, after Democrats held a 51-49 majority during the last two years. Republicans flipped seats in West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Montana and held off challengers in Texas, Nebraska and Florida—where Scott won reelection. The GOP is inching toward a unified government as they are four seats away from maintaining control of the House, though several close races have yet to be called. McConnell announced in February he would step down as Senate majority leader after a 17-year run as the chamber’s top Republican, which made him the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history. McConnell, who has a thorny history with Trump and famously denounced his role in the 2021 Capitol riots, but eventually endorsed his latest presidential run, will serve out the remainder of his term until 2027. He has not said whether he will run for reelection.