Everyone Called Thune a Traitor Over Pro Forma Sessions and Then the Confirmation Numbers Came Out

John Thune scheduled 11 pro forma sessions and sent the Senate home for 37 days, ensuring Trump could not make a single recess appointment.

Conservatives have been calling Thune a turncoat since August 10, and the word "betrayal" has been everywhere.

But now some folks are taking a second look at the Thune-led Senate Republicans and wondering if their actual confirmation record for Trump nominees is enough to redeem him.

What Pro Forma Sessions Are and Why the Base Is Furious

A pro forma session is a procedural maneuver where a single senator appears in an empty chamber, gavels it open, and leaves within minutes.

It happens every few days during a congressional recess.

The purpose is to prevent the recess from officially exceeding ten days, which is the constitutional threshold that allows a president to make recess appointments.

Recess appointments are confirmations without Senate votes – the president installs nominees directly, bypassing the confirmation process entirely.

Thune scheduling 11 pro forma sessions during a 37-day recess means Trump cannot use that constitutional tool regardless of how long the Senate is away.

The MAGA base response was immediate and furious.

Conservative media called it "betrayal in the swamp."

Senator Tommy Tuberville told reporters that when it comes to recess appointments, "you'll have to ask leadership" why Trump isn't getting that opportunity.

Senator Josh Hawley said he is "not a huge fan" of the pro forma practice.

The frustration is real and it is legitimate.

Trump has nominees waiting.

The Senate went home for 37 days.

It looks bad.

The 95 Percent Number Changes the Entire Picture

Here is what the outrage is missing.

Senate Republicans have confirmed 591 civilian nominees in Trump's second term as of early August 2026.

That represents a 95 percent confirmation rate for every nominee who actually reached the Senate floor.

Only ten civilian nominees remain on the calendar pending a vote.

Only four Article III judicial nominees are awaiting confirmation.

At the equivalent point in Trump's first term – 2017 – 155 nominees were still stranded with no path forward.

In 2026, ten are waiting.

The Senate implemented rule changes that enabled en bloc confirmations – packaging multiple nominees into a single vote – which Senator Eric Schmitt credited as the key to outpacing the first term's pace.

The mechanism that conservatives are calling betrayal – Thune's leadership style, the procedural management, the Senate calendar – is the same apparatus that produced those numbers and cleared one of the largest nominee backlogs in modern presidential history.

That does not mean blocking recess appointments is the right call.

It means the picture is more complicated than "Thune stabbed Trump in the back."

The Numbers Came Out and They Do Not Lie

Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota offered the case for the Senate's position plainly: allowing recess appointments means the Senate "walks away from its responsibilities" under its constitutional advise-and-consent role.

He is making a real constitutional argument.

You can disagree with it.

You can believe Trump should have had the recess appointment tool available.

But look at the actual math: 591 confirmed nominees, 95 percent of every floor-ready name, and a backlog that dropped from 155 stranded nominees to ten.

Reagan made 240 recess appointments across two terms.

George W. Bush made 171.

Obama made 32.

Trump's first term: zero.

Biden's term: zero.

Recess appointments have largely disappeared from modern practice regardless of who controls the Senate.

What has replaced them is a confirmation process that, under the current Republican Senate, is clearing floor-ready nominees at a pace no recent majority has matched.

The pro forma frustration is legitimate – and Thune's team needs to clear the ten remaining nominees the moment the Senate returns in September.

That is the test.

Pass it, and the numbers become the rebuttal Thune's critics can't answer – well, except by pointing to all the other conservative agenda items he’s failed to deliver.

The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter what the quantity is so much as the quality of things that Thune or any other member of Congress delivers.  

Taking almost two years to get through a bunch of nominations doesn’t say a whole lot about him being a shrewd operator.

And it definitely isn’t going to reverse his RINO reputation.

Sources:

• Staff, "Pro Forma Sessions Look Like Betrayal – But Senate Republicans Have Confirmed 95% of Trump's Floor-Ready Nominees," Gateway Pundit, August 26, 2026.
• Staff, "Senate Confirms Package of 74 Trump Nominees: 'Best Confirmation Track,'" Washington Times, August 7, 2026.
• Staff, "Thune: Recess Appointments on Table as Senate Faces Backlog of Nominees," The Hill, 2026.
• Senator John Thune, "Thune: Senate Overcomes Historic Democrat Blockade to Confirm President Trump's Nominees," Senate Republican Leader press release, 2026.