“Senators should expect to remain in session in August to pass legislation, including appropriations bills, and to make additional progress on the president’s nominees," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images McConnell cancels most of August recess The move will keep vulnerable Democrats off the campaign trail ahead of the hotly contested midterm elections.

Mitch McConnell is canceling all but a week of the Senate's traditional August recess, hoping to keep vulnerable Democrats off the campaign trail and confirm as many of President Donald Trump's judicial and executive branch nominees as possible.

The Senate majority leader said Tuesday that the Senate will take a break for only the first week of August because of "historic obstruction" by Senate Democrats and will stay in session the rest of the month. McConnell was under enormous pressure from his own caucus as well as the president to cancel as much of the recess as possible, but the majority leader also saw an opportunity to unite Republicans and annoy incumbent Democrats.


"The August recess has been canceled. Senators should expect to remain in session in August to pass legislation, including appropriations bills, and to make additional progress on the president’s nominees," McConnell said.

More than a dozen Senate Republicans had been clamoring for McConnell to kill the traditional summer break, particularly after the GOP leader shaved off a week of August recess last year. And while those senators celebrated, they also asked for more, since the Senate is typically in session only from late Monday afternoon until early afternoon Thursday each week.

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"It is important to remember that simply canceling the August state work period is not the goal. We should be working nights and weekends now to get the results the American people sent us here to deliver," said Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.).

Privately, some Republicans are worried that canceling the August recess will become a regular occurrence. But if there was any year to do it, it's 2018: There are 10 Democrats up for reelection in states that Trump won, and just one Senate Republican, Dean Heller of Nevada, who is trying to get re-elected in a state won by Hillary Clinton.

By keeping the Senate in session, McConnell will significantly cut down on the time that Democratic senators have to campaign back home, particularly for senators like Jon Tester of Montana, who have lengthy commutes back to their states. In 2016, when McConnell's caucus was facing a number of difficult reelection campaigns, the Senate was not in session in August.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, however, declared that his caucus would "welcome this additional time, because it gives us the opportunity to" prod the GOP to work more on health care. Democrats plan to use the extra days of the August session "to require our Republican colleagues to do something about it," he told reporters.

The status of this year's August recess was among the hottest debates on Capitol Hill this spring. Three GOP senators said prior to McConnell's announcement that they expected the entire recess to be canceled, and a person familiar with internal negotiations said that McConnell told Schumer that they should plan to be in D.C. for only the first half of August. But ultimately, McConnell decided to cancel everything but the first week.

There's still hope for the chamber to get some of its time back: If the two leaders and their caucuses can cooperate on spending bills, nominees and other legislation like the annual defense authorization bill and a water infrastructure bill, McConnell may be able to restore some of the recess. In 2017, he announced that two weeks of recess would be lost, but ultimately the Senate worked only one extra week.

Yet McConnell gave little ground on Tuesday when asked about the possibility of adding back some of the recess if Democrats agree to speed consideration of some measures.

"If you look at the amount of work that we have to do, it's inconceivable to me that we can't use these weeks," the Kentucky Republican told reporters. "Even with cooperation, we've got a lot of appropriations bills to pass." Congress has until Sept. 30 to pass spending bills to fund the government.

Schumer also expressed little interest in yielding to the GOP in order to win back more recess time. The five health care proposals Democrats plan to tout in August, he said, are expanding tax credits, broadening access to Medicare, creating a reinsurance program aimed at lowering premiums, tightening coverage for preexisting conditions and lowering prescription drug costs.

The New York Democrat also urged Trump to match the Senate's gesture by remaining in Washington to work through August rather than "jetting off to Bedminster or Mar-a-Lago, or spending countless hours on the golf course."

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