Sometimes, Breitbart is the only medium of any kind that comes up with a way to support Donald Trump. Part of that is probably due to Steve Bannon, although Bannon has been noticeably demoted of late. However, in the matter of Donald J. Trump vs. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, even Breitbart is condemning Trump, while supporting Sessions.
This is the headline: Jeff Sessions: A Man Who Embodies the Movement That Elected Donald Trump President.
Sessions is a critical part of the Trump administration—and before there was a Trump administration, Sessions was a critical part of the “movement” that elected Trump to the presidency. Losing Sessions could endanger the administration and the split the critical coalition that helped Trump to the presidency. Doing that is something Trump supporters nationwide do not want to see—and in fact, with all the reports of Trump being upset after he fired Gen. Mike Flynn earlier this year, it might be wise for the president to slow down and think about this one before he fires away too harshly and quickly.
Getting someone through Senate confirmation who agrees with Trump on anything to be the next Attorney General will be next to impossible at this juncture, at least before the midterms. There are only 52 Republicans and there is basically no way that any Democrat is going to vote for a cloture for a new Justice chief at this stage of the game. But even if they would, why turn on Sessions? It doesn’t make much sense politically to turn on the guy who burned his own bridges to help win the presidency.
Sessions, of course, was the first major politician to get upon the Trump train—when it looked a lot like a clown train. But Trump even ridicules Sessions for that.
Trump’s questioning of Sessions hit a new level on Tuesday when, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the president said of the then-senator’s endorsement of him that it was not that big of a deal.
“When they say he endorsed me, I went to Alabama,” Trump told the Journal. “I had 40,000 people. He was a senator from Alabama. I won the state by a lot, massive numbers. A lot of the states I won by massive numbers. But he was a senator, he looks at 40,000 people and he probably says, ’What do I have to lose?’ And he endorsed me. So it’s not like a great loyal thing about the endorsement.”
Breitbart says Trump is not being honest or truthful about that.
That’s not entirely true. It was actually a major decision for Sessions to step up and endorse Trump at a time when Trump’s own chief of staff Reince Priebus—then the chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC)—was trying to prevent him from winning the nomination. About two weeks before the Sessions endorsement, Trump told me at a press conference in Hanahan, South Carolina—when he was joined by now Gov. Henry McMaster, then the Lieutenant Governor—that Priebus’s RNC “was in default.”
And even Steve Bannon disputes Trump on this, saying Sessions gambled his whole career on that endorsement.
The new book Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and the Storming of the Presidency also includes critical details about how Sessions knew that endorsing Trump was a critical moment in his career. If he failed to succeed in getting Trump not only the nomination but into the Oval Office past Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the November 2016 general election, he would not have a future at all in GOP politics. Sessions bet it all on Trump, and they won.
Furthermore, Breitbart says NO endorsement would have meant as much as Sessions’.
As we reported live from Madison at the rally where Sessions endorsed Trump, it was “the most significant endorsement any presidential candidate in the GOP can get.” I wrote from Madison after the rally:
“Sessions, the intellectual leader of the future of the conservative movement, has provided the brainpower behind the populist nationalist revolt against political elites that’s been emerging since at least 2013.”
And Sessions’ endorsement wasn’t painless.
The hate Sessions endured from even one-time allies for breaking ranks with national Republicans to back Trump for president was immense, surpassed only by the hate Trump himself and his family have been subjected to. For instance, Sessions was called a “prostitute” by National Review—a conservative magazine—for endorsing Trump. That was hardly the worst, but it stung. Sessions stood by Trump through it all.
Of course, this may all be part of a new “communications” approach by Anthony Scaramucci: attack by innuendo—whip people into line through public criticism. Breitbart provided quotes from Trump’s new communications “Godfather.”
The president’s decision to undermine Sessions suggests that he wants the attorney general to resign. His attacks against his attorney general, one of Trump’s earliest and most influential supporters, has worried prominent conservatives.
“[I]t’s also kind of, you know, a little bit discomforting, unseemly for Trump to go after such a loyal supporter this way,” talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said on Monday. “Especially when Sessions made it obvious he’s not gonna resign.”
Speaking to reporters, White House director of communications admitted that it was likely that Trump wanted Sessions to resign.
“They need to either get together or separate,” he said.
Meanwhile, there is already speculation about Sessions’ replacement according to The Hill.
Trump is reportedly considering replacing Sessions with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) or Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), but both have denied that they are being considered for the position.
Like no other president—ever—Trump holds a grudge. First, he went after Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, even though recent reports suggest Sessions had a lot of reason for recusing. That morphed into an attack that Sessions hasn’t investigated Hillary Clinton. Wasn’t one of the first things Trump said after the election, that he wouldn’t further bother Hillary about that—water under the bridge—bygones be bygones—move on. . .
Breitbart says Trump’s hypocrisy is to blame. Here’s the headline: “Trump’s Attack on Sessions over Clinton Prosecution Highlights His Own ‘Weak’ Stance.”
President Trump’s decision Tuesday to attack Attorney General Jeff Sessions over Sessions’ “position” on Hillary Clinton’s various scandals only serves to highlight Trump’s own hypocrisy on the issue. . .
“Lock her up” was a common chant on the Trump campaign trail, but in less than a month of Trump’s longshot victory, that promise was shredded by the president-elect. In an interview with the New York Times two weeks after Election Day, Trump expressed concern about how much Hillary Clinton had suffered.
“I don’t want to hurt the Clintons, I really don’t,” Trump said. “She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways, and I am not looking to hurt them at all. The campaign was vicious.”
When asked what he would say to his disappointed supporters, he said: “I think I will explain it that we in many ways will save our country.”
Breitbart News criticized Trump’s U-turn at the time, calling it a “Broken Promise” on the site’s front-page.
Most of all, conservatives fear losing Sessions’ tough stance on immigration.
Trump’s base reasoned that they would rather have a border wall than Hillary Clinton prosecuted. But now they may end up with neither.
For Sessions represents one of the vital pillars of Trump’s immigration agenda. Sessions has fought in the trenches for a tough line on immigration for years, back when Trump was pouring money into the .
campaign coffers of Democrats who wanted to open up America’s borders. . .Sessions has also spooked liberal mayors with his promise to push hard against sanctuary cities, forcing cities such as New York City to outline how they are (or are not) in compliance with federal immigration law or else lose their much-needed federal funding.
Meanwhile, CNN-MONEY says Breitbart is not alone, with this headline: “Pro-Trump media furious over Trump’s treatment of Sessions.”
Breitbart is incensed. Rush Limbaugh hates to see it. And Fox News host Tucker Carlson thinks President Donald Trump is engaged in a “self-destructive act.”
Trump’s recent attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions has touched off a firestorm of outrage inside the pro-Trump media universe where the Alabama Republican is revered as a conservative icon.
And perfectly in character, Trump is more worried about his own image than in substance:
The reaction from conservative media could factor into whether Trump chooses to fire Sessions, according to a report in The Washington Post. The newspaper reported on Tuesday morning that Trump had asked a person close to him how axing the attorney general “would play in the conservative media.”
Meanwhile, Vox—the left’s answer to Fox—explains the situation, with this headline: “Why President Trump suddenly hates his attorney general.”
The Trump-Sessions feud isn’t about personalities. It’s about whether the AG should protect him and go after his opponents.
President Donald Trump has been furious at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for months because Sessions recused himself from overseeing the Russia probe. And in recent days, that criticism has spilled into public view as the president has publicly mocked and criticized Sessions in an apparent effort to force him to quit.
But this isn’t just a dust-up about personalities — it’s reportedly part of a larger effort by Trump’s team to exert more political control over the Justice Department, with an eye toward potentially shutting down special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump associates’ Russia ties. . .
If Trump can actually manage to make this happen — by installing cronies at the Justice Department who will shut down investigations he doesn’t like and start up ones he wants — it would mean a remarkable slide into illiberalism, and it violate decades’ worth of norms in American government and the rule of law.
But Vox suggests that Sessions has supporters who would make his firing difficult for Trump.
Though Republicans control the majority, several Republican senators, like Lindsey Graham and Richard Shelby, have already made clear that they would not take Sessions’s ouster kindly. Others, like John McCain, have made clear that they want a full investigation of the Russia scandal. Any three GOP defections could kill any Trump nominee (if Democrats unite in opposition to him or her).
So finding someone who’s enough of a Trump crony to win Senate confirmation for this post could be very difficult. It’s such a challenge that rumors swirled this week that Trump would try and circumvent that process completely. There was chatter that Sessions could be fired while the Senate was on recess in August — and that Trump could use the president’s recess appointment power to appoint a replacement who could serve until early 2019.
If Sessions refuses to resign, things will be very complicated, indeed.
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