>> Donald Trump during his coronavirus press conference today, threatened Congress if they
refuse to basically confirm the people he's nominated for his administration.
So Trump threatened to use his executive power to force both chambers of Congress to adjourn
if the Senate did not confirm his nominees for vacancies across his administration.
This is being reported by various sources, but I'm reading from The Hill right now.
In fact, here's a direct quote, he said, the Senate should either fulfill its duty and
vote on my nominees, or it should formally adjourn so I can make recess appointments.
We have a tremendous number of people that have come into government, and now more so
than ever before because of the virus and the problem.
So lawmakers in both chambers are not expected to return to the Capitol until May 4th but
both the House and the Senate have been conducting pro forma sessions in the meantime.
That means the Senate is technically in session and Trump may not make recess appointments.
So, this is just another example of Donald Trump wielding his power to force Congress
to give him exactly what he wants.
It's incredible.
He's doing this with governors when it comes to opening up the economy.
He claimed that he had total authority to force governors to open up their local economies
and roll back social distancing guidelines.
And he's doing this now when it comes to his own nominations.
>> Yeah, I mean, this particular thing I don't care too much about.
I do think though that the fact that we are weeks into this thing, and we still don't
really have a formal process that would allow our government to continue to function inside
of DC remotely is insane.
Other states have been able to do it.
Brazil has a functioning system, other countries do, why can't we do that?
And that's important, not specifically so that he can put through, I think I read the
new head of Voice of America or something like that.
But so that they can get back to work, crafting legislation that's going to assist regular
people.
Regular people who are gonna burn through that stimulus check instantly, assuming they
actually get it.
It might take a while because of the whole signature thing.
But assuming they get it or the small business loan program that apparently is about to run
out of money today.
I have a feeling some of those small businesses will probably still be in trouble tomorrow.
So, they do need to get back to work, whether they get to these appointments, it's not something
that the Senate has really prioritized in past years under a different president, but
they do have a lot of work to do.
And a system needs to be set up that allows them to do it.
>> Yeah, one thing I also just wanna make sure is on everyone's radar, remember one
of the big stories recently was that the Trump administration decided to fire the Inspector
General who was going to be in charge of overseeing the bailout money that's gonna be given to
these corporations.
We're talking about trillions of dollars.
And this was one of the safeguards that Congress put in place to ensure that the Trump administration
itself didn't end up looting those funds for its own purposes.
And so, Trump wants to get one his loyalists confirmed in that position now that he's fired
the Inspector General for the Department of Defense that was the person who's going to
oversee that funding.
This is disastrous.
This is the kind of stuff that you would expect from Donald Trump.
And I want everyone to always be aware that when we're in a moment of crisis, usually,
in administration, especially Republican administration will do whatever it takes to roll back whatever
civil liberties we have left.
And we're certainly seeing that with Donald Trump.
We certainly saw that when he came to the EPA letting industries know that they can
go ahead and do whatever they want, they can pollute during this pandemic, that they're
not gonna be the watch dogs while this pandemic goes on.
I did a story on that.
These are actions that we need to be hyper aware of and it really does roll back not
only our civil liberties but various regulatory protections that we have.