Will Sen. Lee get his way in the Senate leadership race?

Utah Sen. Mike Lee is playing a major role in the debate over who will lead the U.S. Senate in 2025 as former President Donald Trump demands that the future majority leader helps fast track cabinet appointments.
Republicans won back control of the Senate after flipping seats in West Virginia, Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania, so the next leader of the Republican Senate caucus will assume the role of Senate majority leader in January.
Lee will moderate a candidate forum between the three senators running to replace outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Tuesday. The secret ballot vote for McConnell’s successor will take place on Wednesday morning.
Candidates vying for the body’s top position include McConnell’s No. 2 man, Senate Republican Whip John Thune of South Dakota; Thune’s predecessor, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas; and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Florida, the former chair of the Senate’s campaign arm.
“The next Senate Majority Leader has the rare opportunity to end shady backroom deals and massive last-minute spending bills, while reforming the legislative process so that all senators can advocate for their states,” Lee told the Deseret News Monday in a statement. “It is vital that we elect someone who will fight to send a winning conservative policy agenda to President Trump’s desk.”
Lee was the chief advocate for Scott’s unsuccessful bid to topple McConnell in 2022, a move that reportedly cost him committee positions and hurt his standing with Senate leaders.
While Lee has not endorsed a specific candidate this time around, he has outlined a series of reforms he wants candidates to adopt to gain the support of the Senate steering committee, a group of 15-20 conservative senators that Lee chairs.
The demands, intended to increase the influence of individual senators over Senate leaders, include creating a binding budget schedule, crafting concrete policy goals for the GOP caucus and carving out four weeks to debate and amend spending packages.
In a letter sent to Senate colleagues less than a week before Trump reclaimed the White House and Republicans retook Senate control, Lee said he would take a very visible role in the closed-door leadership battle by officiating a question and answer session between majority leader hopefuls and Senate members, including senators-elect like Utah Rep. John Curtis.
As Lee spearheads efforts to reform the Senate process under the next majority leader, Trump, and one of his chief allies, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, are trying to shift the debate in their direction.
On Sunday, Trump posted on Musk’s social media platform, X, formerly known as Twitter, describing his test for those running to lead the Senate Republican majority. The next majority leader must agree to enable “recess appointments,” Trump said.
Presidential nominations typically require confirmation by a simple majority of senators in the 100-seat chamber. But the Constitution makes provision for times when Congress is out of session, allowing the president to make appointments without Senate approval.
To give Trump unilateral authority over who serves in Cabinet and policymaking roles, the Senate would first have to vote itself into recess — a motion that could be halted by a Democratic filibuster. Trump unsuccessfully appealed for such authority during his first term when Senate lawmakers refused to adjourn in order to block his recess appointments.
“The next Majority Leader should also commit to confirming cabinet secretaries and other nominees to begin serving the American people as quickly as possible,” Lee told the Deseret News. “The Constitution gives the President the ability to make recess appointments, and our Majority Leader should work with him to ensure that essential positions are filled in and out of session.”
Senate leadership candidates quickly issued statements Sunday afternoon signaling their support for Trump’s proposal.
“100% agree. I will do whatever it takes to get your nominations through as quickly as possible,” Scott said within minutes of Trump’s post.
“We must act quickly and decisively to get the president’s nominees in place as soon as possible, & all options are on the table to make that happen, including recess appointments,” Thune said Sunday afternoon.
While Cornyn lambasted past Democratic efforts to prevent recess appointments, and committed to prioritize Trump’s cabinet appointments, he refrained from promising to call Congress into recess at Trump’s bidding.
Musk, the world’s richest man and a vocal supporter of Trump, chimed in, saying that Senate Republicans must move to allow recess appointments because the regular process of Senate confirmation is too slow, sometimes taking years.
“This would make it impossible to enact the change demanded by the American people, which is utterly unacceptable,” Musk said in a post on X.
Musk has come out in support of Scott, as have other close allies of Lee and Trump, including Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., and conservative commentator Tucker Carlson.
Trump has not yet indicated whether he will endorse a candidate in the leadership race.
Musk and Lee boosted each others’ thoughts on elections, immigration and the Senate leadership race multiple times over the weekend, including the role Vice President-elect JD Vance could play as president of the Senate.
On Friday, Lee said Sen. Vance, R-Ohio, could act as the “highest-ranking & most-influential Republican in the Senate” by exercising his authority as Senate president. The post was Lee’s effort to clarify comments made by Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on the Glenn Beck Program.
Kirk told Beck, the founder of Blaze Media, that Lee had proposed Vance’s control of the Senate in a “1 a.m. phone call,” saying that as president of the Senate Vance may be able to influence committee positions, campaign spending and the legislative agenda as long as he’s willing to preside over Senate meetings.
On Monday, Utah Sen.-elect John Curtis explained how he will approach the Senate leadership vote in a video post on X.
Curtis said he had spent “a lot of time” with Thune and Cornyn, who are seen as favorites in the race. Curtis countered allegations made by Tucker Carlson, and others, that the two senators “hate Trump” and will not implement a conservative agenda.
“That’s just not accurate,” Curtis said.
The biggest influence on his vote for Senate leader is an ability to keep the conference united, Curtis said. Curtis, who has represented Utah’s 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House since 2017, said he has seen over the last few years that “nothing is accomplished if we can’t move together as a group.” Curtis said he has asked each of the three candidates about what they will do to get the conference on the same page.
“How are we going to get the diversity within the Republican Party to function as one and as a unit?” Curtis asked. “That will determine my vote more than anything as we move forward.”