WASHINGTON—In naming a set of unconventional nominees to run federal departments, Donald Trump this week also took steps to push for a broader goal: realigning the balance of power among Washington’s major institutions so that more authority flows from the White House.
Trump has threatened to take steps that would undermine the Senate’s confirmation powers and Congress’s role in budgeting—the most essential powers of the two chambers. He has insisted that senators allow him to place some nominees directly in their jobs, bypassing the Senate’s public hearings and confirmation process. He has said he would move to impound—or decline to spend—money appropriated by Congress for programs he dislikes, a step likely requiring him to overturn current law in court.
Trump’s transition team is considering a plan to bypass the Pentagon’s regular promotion system, with a draft executive order that would create a panel to evaluate three- and four-star officers for potential removal. If signed by the new president, the order would allow Trump to fire what he has called “woke generals,” those seen as promoting diversity in the ranks at the expense of military readiness.
Federal Reserve leaders have braced for a potential effort to fire Chairman Jerome Powell, while officials elsewhere are waiting to see whether Trump follows through on a campaign promise to rein in other independent agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission, and subject them to greater presidential authority. “These agencies do not get to become a fourth branch of government,” he said as a candidate.
Trump also has suggested he would take steps to disempower legacy media companies, calling for the government to revoke some broadcasters’ licenses. He has filed suits against the Washington Post for alleged libel, against ABC for alleged defamation and against CBS over its editing of an interview with his presidential rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
For an American public that just voted for change in Washington, Trump and his team have shown they are pushing not just for adjustments but for a substantial reshaping of the government and its power structures.
“Clearly, he wants power for the purpose of overthrowing the established practices of government,” said former Sen. John Danforth, a Republican who represented Missouri in the Senate for nearly two decades. Circumventing the Senate on appointments, he said, likely “would be a violation of the Constitution—the glue that keeps us together as a country.”
Adam Jentleson, a Democrat and former senior Senate aide, said, “It’s impossible to look at the big picture here and not see a president who is intent on seizing an unprecedented level of control.”
Some Republicans were delighted by Trump’s assertive posture toward trimming the federal government. “Our government’s way too big, and our government needs to be a lot smaller,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.).
A Trump transition spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment.
There were mixed signs last week on whether Trump’s sweeping victory in the presidential election and dominating control of his party would push lawmakers to agree to his demands and acquiesce to promises he made as a candidate to try to shift more authority to the Oval Office.
Senate Republicans signaled that Matt Gaetz, the president-elect’s pick to lead the Justice Department—one of the most sensitive jobs in Washington—would likely fail to win confirmation because of sexual-misconduct allegations and his antagonistic tactics that alienated colleagues. But there were few signals on whether GOP senators would block other controversial nominees who alarmed many in Washington but were cheered by some for their potential to disrupt federal bureaucracies and policies. Those include Trump’s choices of vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.for health and human services secretary, Fox News personality Pete Hegseth for defense secretary and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who has questioned important U.S. intelligence assessments, as director of the nation’s spy agencies.
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the incoming Senate Republican leader, provided little clarity on whether GOP senators would object to an end-run by Trump around the confirmation process, should his choices fail to muster enough support in the chamber. Trump could do this by appointing people to vacant jobs while the Senate stands in recess, though they could serve only for a maximum of two years. Thune said Thursday that he wanted to use the “regular process” for confirmations, but also told Fox News that “all options are on the table.”
On Capitol Hill, concern grew among those defending House and Senate authority that Trump might try a novel maneuver to force the Senate into adjournment, the precondition for the president to make a recess appointment. The Constitution says that if the House and Senate disagree on when to go into recess, the president has the power to force them to adjourn. Under one scenario, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) could speed to the floor a measure to adjourn both the House and the Senate. If the Senate disagreed out of fear of the president making appointments in its absence, Trump could adjourn both chambers anyway and proceed with placing his choices in office.
It is unclear whether such a maneuver would be legally sound. But in a federal government with total Republican control, the only barrier could be resistance from enough Republicans like Rep. Mike Simpson (R., Idaho), who said he wouldn’t go along. “The Senate has a job to do,” Simpson said in an interview Thursday. “The recess-appointment procedure was not meant to avoid that process in the Senate, at least to intentionally avoid it.”
Concern also stirred on Capitol Hill that Trump might follow through on a promise to try to undermine the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which Congress passed after President Richard Nixon failed to spend money as lawmakers had appropriated.
Trump as a candidate called the law unconstitutional and promised to overturn it. “For 200 years under our system of government, it was undisputed that the president had the constitutional power to stop unnecessary spending through what is known as impoundment,” he said.
Such a move “would be a major turnaround,” said Bill Hoagland, a former staff director for the Republican chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. “It would clearly shift the power of the purse back to the executive.”
Some fear Trump will act, even without court approval, to put in place the recommendations to come from billionaire Elon Musk and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump’s choices to lead a search for ways to cut federal bureaucracy and regulations. Trump has said that on day one of his presidency he would ask federal agencies to identify spending that merited impoundment.
Jentleson said Trump could gain the upper hand by moving ahead of any court action, especially if the Republican-led House backed him up. “Any time you’re relying on the courts to stop them, that’s probably a losing proposition,” he said. “There’s a powerful first-mover benefit, where you simply start doing things that you say you’re going to do. And if you have the House to back you, there’s not much stopping you.”
Adding to the concerns were memories of Trump’s first term, when he tried to push some of these same ideas. He withheld money appropriated by Congress for Ukraine while pressuring that country to investigate Joe Biden, his likely challenger in 2020. Those actions led to his impeachment by the House in 2019. The Senate declined to convict.
Citing emergency powers, Trump diverted money from the military budget without congressional approval to pay for the construction of a wall along the border with Mexico. The Supreme Court ultimately allowed construction to proceed while the legal challenges played out in a lower court.
Judd Gregg, a Republican who represented New Hampshire in both the House and Senate, said Trump is right to try to trim the federal bureaucracy. But he thought Trump had misstepped with some of his nominees, who he said don’t have the proper experience to avoid getting “chopped up” by the agencies they would be trying to change.
Gregg said that defense secretary nominee Hegseth, for example, “will spend a couple of years trying to figure out where his desk is. The Pentagon is an institution unto itself. If you don’t know the games that are played over there and are peppered throughout the military, you’re going to have a very difficult time changing them.”
But Sen. Dan Sullivan (R., Alaska), who recently retired from the U.S. Marine Corps, said that defense secretaries have a long history of getting stymied by the Pentagon’s internal processes.
“Having guys who are on the outside kick that building into gear is not a bad combo,” Sullivan said.
Write to Aaron Zitner at aaron.zitner@wsj.com and Siobhan Hughes at Siobhan.hughes@wsj.com
