Zero Recess Appointments Since Reagan: Jim Pfaff on Senate Obstruction | Jul 30, 2026
Published: July 30, 2026
Network: Worldview Tube
Analysis: Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff
President Trump has made zero recess appointments this term. No president since the Reagan administration can say the same. On the July 30 edition of Worldview Tube’s Washington Report, Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff laid out how Congress engineered that record — both houses purposely parked in pro forma session — and why two senators from the same Republican majority stalling the Save America Act are blocking Todd Blanchard’s nomination for attorney general. The hour closed with resumed strikes on Iran and a border emergency in Ceuta, Spain.
Topics Covered
- Recess Appointments: Zero Since Reagan
- Trump Calls Thune’s Bluff in the Oval Office
- Cornyn and Tillis Block the Attorney General Nominee
- Iran: Dominance Without Obedience
- Ceuta: Spain Declares an Emergency
- Key Takeaways
Recess Appointments: Zero Since Reagan
Pfaff put a hard number on the Senate’s obstruction, and the number is zero:
“since the Reagan administration, there has been no president with zero recess appointments except for Donald Trump this time”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus
He called the institution behind that record “useless, feckless” — an organization that “doesn’t serve the American people.” The mechanism is deliberate. Both chambers gavel in and out of pro forma sessions, the brief no-business meetings that keep Congress technically in session, so no recess ever legally occurs and the president never gets the window the Constitution gives him.
“They are purposefully staying in pro forma session.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus
Pfaff acknowledged there are legitimate uses for pro forma sessions — preserving a legislative day to keep debate on a bill moving, for one. That is not what is happening here. Here it is a shield, and both houses are holding it up. That’s why every stalled nominee stays stalled, and why the Department of Justice — where, as Pfaff put it, “You’ve got to have a person in there ready to go” — is run by an acting attorney general.
The Constitutional Move Mike Johnson Won’t Make
Pfaff pointed to a specific constitutional provision: if Speaker Mike Johnson takes the House out of pro forma session while the Senate stays in, the president can shut down both sessions and then make recess appointments. “Mike Johnson could do it. The president has authority to shut down the Senate if he wants to.” But even Johnson isn’t moving.
Trump Calls Thune’s Bluff in the Oval Office
The president was asked in the Oval Office about Senate Majority Leader John Thune saying there is no evident path to success on killing the filibuster or passing the Save America Act. His answer:
“Well, that’s too bad for him. I mean, that’s too bad for him and too bad for the Republican Party.”
— President Donald Trump, in the Oval Office
Trump added: “He’s got the votes, he should get it done.” Asked whether Thune is still the man for the job: “we’re going to find out and I’ll let you know.” Pfaff, drawing on his years working on Capitol Hill, explained what counting votes actually means: “Oh, sure. Yeah, I support that” is not a yes. A majority leader’s job is to convert soft yeses into hard ones and attach consequences to a no. Democrat majority leaders do it. Republican ones, Pfaff said, do not — a pattern that runs straight through Mitch McConnell’s leadership.
“There is no desire on the part of Republicans to do anything that Donald Trump was elected to do, period.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus
The counter-example is already visible. Senator Mike Lee’s call to keep the Senate in session through August until the bill passes is gaining members — Senator McCormick of Pennsylvania just came on board, and Pfaff counts John Fetterman as a possible Democrat vote. Put the legislation on the floor, debate it to the end, and support grows. That is exactly the approach we detailed in our analysis of the Senate strategy for bypassing the filibuster. Pfaff argued the deeper failure dates to January 2025: Trump should have worked the phones for Rick Scott’s leadership bid the way he did for Mike Johnson’s speakership, because Thune was always the most likely man to continue the McConnell legacy.
Cornyn and Tillis Block the Attorney General Nominee
The nominee fight makes the recess appointments freeze concrete. Todd Blanchard remains acting attorney general because Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Tom Tillis of North Carolina refuse to vote for him. Trump posted on Truth Social that Blanchard “has the potential to go down as one of the greatest attorney generals of all time” — that he refused to endorse either senator, and that both men voted for Merrick Garland. Pfaff’s assessment of the two was blunt:
“The problem with Cornyn and Tillis is they have no principles that they stand for. Their principle is to take on Donald Trump and to cause him harm because they don’t like him.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus
He backed it with their records. Tillis was a PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant who “never ran anything successfully.” Cornyn called for Trump to be impeached, then came seeking his endorsement. And it is hard for an acting attorney general to take decisive action at DOJ while his own party holds his nomination hostage — “it’s your own party that’s in control of the Senate, you ought to be able to get things done.”
Pfaff’s structural fix goes deeper than any one nominee. Directly elected senators, he argued, sit on their laurels for four years and then run as heroes two years out from reelection:
“That’s why we should not be electing senators. We should go back to state legislative appointment”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus
Under the previous system, a state legislature could recall a senator and replace him — meaning senators had to be, in Pfaff’s words, “on their game for 6 years” — not just in an election cycle.
Iran: Dominance Without Obedience
Overnight, U.S. forces resumed strikes on Iran. CENTCOM said forces “successfully completed a heavy wave of strikes against Iran in response to yesterday’s attempted missile attacks” on American forces. Peter Doocy’s Fox report, citing the Wall Street Journal, described a high-end escalation option from CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper — going beyond the smaller retaliatory airstrikes that have not deterred Tehran from threatening ships in the Strait of Hormuz. A Reuters report added that China is preparing to sell Iran 400 shoulder-fired rocket launchers routed through Pakistan — this after Trump said President Xi “told me very strongly he wouldn’t partake, but he knows I’d be quite disappointed.”
Pfaff rejected the Democrat framing that Trump is losing this war:
“We’ve totally dominated Iran. What we’re losing is the anticipated obedience of Iran’s leadership because we so overwhelmingly took down the old leadership.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus
His historical parallel: Iran is fighting a war of attrition the way the Confederate South did — holding on long enough for Lincoln to lose the 1864 election to McClellan, not to win on the battlefield. Ideology, not money, drives the regime, and that’s why negotiation fails: you cannot make suicidal men cry uncle. Pfaff’s framework is Augustinian just war theory — wars must be defensive, and the defensive aspect of this one, in his words, was “supposedly handled” when Operation Midnight Hammer took out Iran’s centrifuge facilities in 2025. Reopening shipping lanes means devastating Iran’s infrastructure, and with Taiwan looming in the background, he sees no endpoint yet defined.
Ceuta: Spain Declares an Emergency
An emergency has been declared in the Spanish city of Ceuta after tens of thousands of illegal migrants broke in from Morocco — while Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez refuses to deploy the military to defend the border. Pfaff’s cause-and-effect was immediate:
“he just gave a million illegal migrants amnesty, made them citizens in the stroke of a pen. What do you expect’s going to happen?”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus
Amnesty for a million produced the surge at the border. Pfaff set the moment against Charles Martel’s defeat of the Islamists at the Battle of Tours — the last stand after Islamists had violently destroyed two-thirds of the Christian world, from Asia Minor through the Levant and across Northern Africa. Spain was reconquered by Christian Europe, and since then Europe has held off what he called “a totalitarian system, socially, economically, and culturally.” Now, in his words, “they’re just letting them all right back in” — and “It’s going to be the destruction of Spain eventually.”
The show closed by turning the lens on America: fighting a war against Islamists overseas while Islamists are elected into Congress and statewide offices across the country. Pfaff said he does not have all the details of stopping that surge in Islamism in the United States — but he named the one fundamental principle to start from:
“Anyone who is of— who claims to be of Islamic faith, who does not in their heart support and defend the Constitution, should not be authorized to take elective office, even if they were elected”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus
Officeholders must swear an oath to the Constitution, and Pfaff argues no Islamist calling for the imposition of Sharia law can honestly take that oath. That, he says, is the place to start.
Key Takeaways
- Zero since Reagan – Trump is the only president since the Reagan administration with zero recess appointments, because both houses of Congress are purposely staying in pro forma session.
- Mike Johnson holds the key – If the House exits pro forma session while the Senate stays in, the president can shut down both sessions and make recess appointments. Johnson hasn’t moved.
- Trump calls the votes – “He’s got the votes, he should get it done.” Mike Lee’s push to keep the Senate in session through August is growing, with Senator McCormick now on board.
- Cornyn and Tillis block Blanchard – Both voted for Merrick Garland; both lost Trump’s endorsement. Pfaff: they have no principles beyond opposing Trump.
- Iran is dominated, not obedient – A heavy wave of strikes resumed, a CENTCOM escalation option is reported, and Iran fights a war of attrition like the Confederate South in 1864.
- Ceuta is the warning – Sanchez’s million-migrant amnesty produced tens of thousands breaking in from Morocco while he refuses to deploy the military.
Share This Analysis
Join The Conservative Caucus
Help us fight for election integrity and expose government corruption. Your support makes investigative journalism like this possible.
DONATE TODAYAbout The Conservative Caucus:
The Conservative Caucus is a grassroots public policy action organization, formed in 1974. Headed by President Jim Pfaff, the Caucus is committed to advancing free enterprise, limited government, and traditional values.
Originally broadcast Jul 30, 2026 on Worldview Tube’s Washington Report.
Peter J. Thomas is a veteran conservative political strategist and seasoned policy expert dedicated to upholding the principles of the Constitution and democracy. As a founder and the chairman of the Conservative Caucus, he has played a pivotal role in promoting and shaping the conservative agenda across the nation for over half a century.