CNN is reporting that Trump made a very unusual threat during his daily coronavirus briefing propaganda session. He is claiming the authority to adjourn the U.S. Senate so that he can make recess appointments of nominees that have not been approved. The move to do this is based on a never-invoked section of Article II of the Constitution, specifically the section that allows the President to call Congress into session or to resolve differences between the two houses over the time of adjournment. The relevant text is from Article II, section 3:
he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper;
Notice that this provision only allows the President to exercise the power of adjournment if the houses disagree as to the time of their adjournment, i.e., if one house attempts to prevent the other from doing so. But that is not the current situation, since McConnell is the one maintaining pro-forma session of the Senate while the members are out of town. Both houses in fact agreed to remain in this state until May 4. Yet this is what Trump is saying:
"I have a very strong power. I'd rather not use that power but we have way over a hundred people that we very badly need in this administration that should have been approved a long time ago," he said.
Essentially, he’s attempting to apply this clause of the Constitution to do things that it was never meant to do and in a way that the text itself does not support. He wants to do recess appointments and is using the pretext of the crisis to attempt to get in nominees that even Moscow Mitch hasn’t pushed forward. This was made plain by Trump himself, since the nominee he’s apparently most desirous of putting in is Michael Pack.
Trump cited Pack's stalled nomination to head the board of Voice of America as a particular grievance, and went on to attack the news organization.
"He's been stuck in committee for two years, preventing us from managing the Voice of America, very important. And if you've heard what's coming out of the Voice of America, it's disgusting. The things they say are disgusting toward our country," Trump said of Pack.
Trump did not explain how the nominee to be CEO of the US Agency for Global Media would enhance federal efforts to counter the pandemic.
But he reiterated his threat to adjourn both chambers of Congress several times.
"If they don't approve it, we're gonna go this route," Trump said. "We are going to do something that will be something I prefer not doing."
So basically Trump wants to override the resistance of even his own party to nominees that are unqualified or so unacceptable that no one wants them but him. And, just as with all other things, he’s willing to abuse the Constitution to make that happen. This is the thanks that all those GOP Senators get for their votes against removing him from office: a slap in the face of their most strongly guarded prerogative, the power to advise and consent. But for Trump, the only consent he thinks he needs is his own.