not quite right. he's allowed to summon the congress to deal with an emergency, and then once the emergency is dealt with allowed to dismiss them in a recess; not dissolve but send home. the house and senate get first dibs on deciding how long the recess is. only if they can't agree on when they come back, then the president decides how long the recess is. that makes the senate go away which means the president gets recess appointments who go in immediately; they still have to get confirmed but that decision then doesn't go into effect until the end of their next session. so it basically changes the situation from "mother may i run a bureau" to "i'm running the bureau already and all you get to decide is whether i stay." due to pro forma sessions the senate hasn't been on an official recess in many decades. it might be a good move in this case because even with a republican majority, the confirmations take a long time. what this would do instead is allow all those people to get in right away and start working, and then when the senate comes back there's less reason for the minority to drag their feet because they aren't keeping the appointment away from power and they're going to get confirmed anyway due to the r majority. might as well just make some symbolic gesture, then roll over.
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