Trump tells a group of reporters live that he's very disappointed in Sessions. Refuses to answer if he's going to fire him or not. "We'll see." "Time will tell."
So the White House and now Trump don't know if he's going to fire Sessions? I find that hard to believe.
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Trump has made liberals pity Jeff Sessions
President Trump seems to have done the impossible: He's made liberals feel bad for Jeff Sessions.
In a series of statements on Twitter, Trump attacked his own attorney general as "VERY weak" on investigating Hillary Clinton. And in claiming Ukraine tried to sabotage the election, Trump wondered, "where is the investigation A.G."
Clearly, the president is feeling the heat of the investigation into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and he resents the fact that Sessions, who recused himself from that investigation, can't intervene on his behalf. He likely wants Sessions gone so he can appoint an even bigger sycophant who will help him evade questions he doesn't want to answer and safeguard information he doesn't want to come out.
But Trump can't fire Sessions, at least not without creating a national scandal. Instead, he's apparently decided to publicly berate and humiliate the attorney general until he resigns and Trump can appoint a replacement.
It is a depressing spectacle. But liberals shouldn't be shedding any tears for Sessions. Sessions knew who Donald Trump was when he was running for president, and he liked it. He papered over Trump's racism because it enabled his own; he shrugged off Trump's authoritarian tendencies because he has a few himself.
Sessions was one of Trump's earliest and most enthusiastic supporters. He gladly threw his hand in with an incompetent, unstable candidate who more or less promised to set fire to bedrock American institutions and fundamental norms of politics and democracy. Then Sessions got burned. Boo hoo.
Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump, at a moment in Trump's campaign when he was pushing a border wall and refusing to disavow an endorsement from Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. Sessions has a history from the 1980s of making racist comments, and in his role as attorney general has doubled down on law enforcement policies that harm African-Americans and that have been criticized by the left and right alike.
These include mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders, a directive for prosecutors to pursue the most aggressive charges possible, and a turn back toward disastrous and exploitative private for-profit prisons. He's also threatened the sanctuary cities that protect immigrants and defended President Trump's travel ban.
We are at a moment of democratic crisis, with a president whose relationship to a hostile foreign power is under investigation, who is actively trying to stymie that investigation and who remains obsessed with both cable news and his long-since-vanquished opponent, Hillary Clinton.
This same president is now clearly trying push out his attorney general so that he can end an investigation that could end up indicting him or members of his team or his family, a nearly unprecedented abuse of power and breach of public trust. That he does it by insulting the guy on Twitter is a move so vulgar and juvenile it's hard to believe it's coming from a sitting American president.
Observers of this White House are rightly worried about what happens next. In a saner political environment, the Republican Party would refuse to confirm any appointee they weren't confident would carry out a thorough and rigorous investigation into election interference. Unfortunately, we can't trust them to do even that very basic duty -- they confirmed Jeff Sessions, after all, who may have been a part of the potential collusion.
There is a very real fear that, when Sessions inevitably bows to his president's commands and jumps down from his administrative perch like a good lapdog, he will be replaced by someone even less trustworthy and even more obsequious.
Trump trying to force Sessions to resign with leaks and public bashing and Sessions refusing to resign is making Sessions look like the good guy.
#NotAllLiberals.
I don't feel bad for Sessions, much like I wouldn't feel bad for someone with a healthy mind jumping in front of a train.
Guy asked for it.
Is Mattis quitting too? You linked a wapo article claiming that months ago
Which is a problem. Mattis is busy, Tillerson just left, that new guy in the suit is clearly a yesman, Sessions is motivated but Trump is clearly not listening to him, Conway and Sanders have no idea what he's doing, and until the 50/50 split nobody had heard hide nor hair of Pence for weeks. That pretty much leaves Bannon, Preibus and Kushner to hold his choke chain, but they don't like each other.
Basically, everyone who is not Trump must have said that firing Mueller is a catastrophic idea. They just need to get that across. I guess we'll see what happens.
Oh let's add to that. He's also attacking McCabe, or more precisely attacking Sessions for not firing McCabe.
He claims Clinton gave McCabe $700 thousand.
This claim is Mostly False. Basically, same as the Uranium Deal. You can cherry-pick and twist and then yell to your followers who refuse to look into the issue themselves.
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Preface: I do not feel bad for Sessions.
But man, he has got to be spending his days wondering where it all went wrong. Were there warning signs? I mean, apart from all the times Trump stole from charities, didn't pay people he was contractually obligated to do, declared bankruptcy, swapped positions, or cheated on his wives? Was there some clue that someone who ran on the idea of shaking things up to the point of destructive behavior, wanted to treat the AG as his own personal lawyer, and blatantly declare he was going to prosecute people himself would somehow not value Sessions' work? Was there some clue that someone who loves to fire people to a standing ovation so much, that he made a TV show about it, would actually want to fire someone?
Trump firing, or pressuring to resign, Sessions is inexcusable and arguably impeachment-worthy. But Sessions gets no sympathy. He ignored the warning signs around the gaping black hole in the ground and jumped in, thinking there was water that would cushion his landing. It was a septic tank, and Trump just pulled up the ladder.
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FOX News calls Sessions "a dead man walking".
Fox's Charles Krauthammer characterized Attorney General Jeff Sessions as "a dead man walking" after being repeatedly attacked by President Trump in interviews and on social media over the past week.
“I think the bottom line is he wants him to resign. On Friday, I said that Sessions was a wounded man walking. Last night on ‘Special Report’ I said he was a dangerous, wounded man walking. Tonight, he is a dead man walking," said Krauthammer to host Martha MacCallum on "The Story."
"There is no way that a president can humiliate a Cabinet member, a strong supporter from the beginning, in the way that Trump has done, just piling it on and expect that this relationship is going to last," the syndicated columnist continued.
"He’ll either be fired, or it could be that he has decided that he is going to dig in his heels and some kind of resistance — he’ll stay in office no matter what. But this cannot last."
Krauthammer also warned that Trump's treatment of Sessions "has alienated many conservatives" and could endanger the loyalty of his base.
"The danger to Trump is that Sessions represents sort of the policy side, the philosophical side, the conservative side of what Trump represented, and he held a lot of that coalition brought back to Trump," Krauthammer said. "And by getting rid Sessions, he has alienated many conservatives. There are some who are already complaining. And that could be dangerous for Trump because what sustains them is the power and the loyalty of his base.”
MacCallum observed that "it appears that [Trump] really wants to get rid of [special counsel] Robert Mueller. And he blames Sessions for stepping aside and provoking that in the first place, certainly Comey as well."
"If that is the grand strategy, this is about as clumsy and self-destructive way of executing that as there is," Krauthammer replied. "And I think we will see that play out."
@Breccia Don't worry. I have no sympathy for Sessions, or anyone that associates with Trump.
They're throwing themselves into a volcano willingly, so the screams of burning agony only make my eyes roll as to what they were expecting.
...man that was dark...