US Presidency
2010

In our meeting, I asked the congressional leadership to put a stop to these holds in which nominees for critical jobs are denied a vote for months. Surely we can set aside partisanship and do what's traditionally been done to confirm these nominations. If the Senate does not act and I made this very clear if the Senate does not act to confirm these nominees, I will consider making several recess appointments during the upcoming recess, because we can't afford to allow politics to stand in the way of a well functioning government. My hope is that this will be the first of a series of meetings that I have with leadership of both parties in Congress. We've got to get past the tired debates that have plagued our politics and left behind nothing but soaring debt and mounting challenges, greater hardships among the American people, and extraordinary frustrations among the American people.