President Trump has definitely made his decision regarding the race between Republicans Tommy Tuberville and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III of Alabama for Sessions’ old seat, currently held by the winner of the special election in 2018, Doug Jones (D-AL). As reported by CNN:
President Donald Trump on Friday once again tore into his fired attorney general, Jeff Sessions, saying he felt obligated to appoint him to the job and calling him “very weak and very sad.”
Sessions first became a source of Trump’s public frustration when in early 2017 the then-attorney general recused himself from the Russia investigation. His recusal came after it was publicly revealed that he didn’t disclose at his Senate confirmation hearing two pre-election meetings with Russia’s then-ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak.
The President was asked during a Friday morning call to “Fox & Friends” if there would have been a Russia probe had Bill Barr, the current attorney general, been attorney general during the start of the Trump administration.
“No, there wouldn’t be. He would have stopped it immediately. … Jeff Sessions was a disaster. I made him — I didn’t want to make him attorney general but he was the first senator to endorse me so I felt a little bit of an obligation,” Trump said.
I particular liked this bit:
Trump added that Sessions “came to see me four times, just begging me to be attorney general. He wasn’t, you know, to me, equipped to be attorney general. But he wanted and wanted and wanted it.”
“He goes in — he was so bad in his nomination proceedings. I should have gotten rid of him there,” Trump said of Sessions, adding that he “knew less about Russia than I did.”
Admission of poor judgment and handing out important positions like candy, rather than only doing that with minor ambassadorships. Being easily swayed. It’s … embarrassing to be in Trump’s corner, frankly.
But this probably means Sessions’ demise in the July 14th runoff. The general consensus is that the winner is certain to beat Jones in the general election, but we shall see. I haven’t found any polls appertaining, and, in any case, events could easily render such polling irrelevant, more so than usual.
