Trump’s anti-Sessions tweets dismay Alabama’s Republicans
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — President Donald Trump finds some of his strongest support in blood-red Alabama, but his public flogging of Attorney General Jeff Sessions is dismaying Republicans who consider the conservative stalwart to be a home state hero.
Mr. Trump’s near-daily Twitter humiliation last week of Mr. Sessions, an apparent effort to force him to quit, is putting party members in awkward positions. With only weeks left before a special primary election for the U.S. Senate seat Mr. Sessions vacated to become the nation’s top law enforcer, the harmony of simultaneous cheers for the president and Alabama’s native son is sounding off-key.
“You just don’t treat people like this,” Joe Akin, a 79year-old engineer and Trump voter in Birmingham, said after turning off his TV in frustration.
“If you want to have a discussion with someone, you do it across the conference table, you don’t get on Facebook or whatever,” Mr. Akin said. “There’s an awful lot of things I like about Trump, but he’s got to learn he’s not running his own business.”
Mr. Sessions was the first leading elected Republican to endorse Mr. Trump’s candidacy and became one of his most loyal supporters. But Mr. Trump’s view of him changed after Mr. Sessions belatedly admitted to meeting with Russia’s ambassador during the campaign and recused himself from the intensifying federal investigation into election meddling.
On Twitter, Mr. Trump called Mr. Sessions “beleaguered,” accused him of having a “VERY WEAK position on Hillary Clinton crimes,” and alleged that he’s ignoring conflicts of interest in the Justice Department. Asked whether he intends to fire Mr. Sessions or push him to resign, the president told a reporter that “time will tell.”
Mr. Sessions was at the White House Wednesday as Mr. Trump sent one of those tweets, but he didn’t meet with the president. Mr. Trump is “obviously disappointed” with his attorney general, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, waving away other questions.
All three GOP candidates in the Aug. 15 Senate primary in Alabama have competed to show voters just how much like Mr. Trump they can be. But U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks on Wednesday said supporting Mr. Sessions now “is the right thing for Alabama and America.”
“I support President Trump’s policies, but this public waterboarding of one of the greatest people Alabama has ever produced is inappropriate and insulting to the people of Alabama who know Jeff Sessions so well and elected him so often by overwhelming margins,” Mr. Brooks said.
Mr. Brooks even offered to step aside and encouraged his rivals — Sen. Luther Strange, who now holds the seat by appointment, and former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore — to step aside as well to enable Mr. Sessions to return to the Senate.
Others were more cautious, praising Mr. Sessions but saying little about Mr. Trump in a state where his presidency has been highly popular.
Mr. Strange blamed the media.
“Jeff and President Trump are trying to make America great again, and it’s a privilege to work alongside both to accomplish the Trump agenda for the American people, and we need to stop letting the media distract us from that agenda,” he said.
Mitch Dozier, a 38-yearold from Montgomery who manages commercial property and describes himself as a staunch Republican, said he hasn’t seen a “smoking gun,” but the Russia investigation merits deeper scrutiny. And while he said the president has the right to lash out, he thinks Mr. Trump is clearly harnessing social media against Mr. Sessions, whose recusal prevents him from shutting down the probe.
“I think everybody is a little fed up with the president’s antics on Twitter,” Mr. Dozier said.
Mr. Sessions, a former state attorney general, built a reputation during 20 years in the Senate as a hardliner on immigration who often butted heads with GOP leaders. He was among the first national elected officials to get behind Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign when other politicians, including within Alabama, were staying away.
Mr. Sessions joined Mr. Trump on stage in a rally that filled a football stadium in Mobile.
Mr. Trump won the state’s GOP primary by 20 points and had one of his largest margins of victory over Ms. Clinton there.
Mr. Trump has denigrated that moment as well, suggesting Mr. Sessions only endorsed him when he saw so many Trump voters in the audience.
Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, who attended high school with Mr. Sessions, said only that “those two gentlemen will work it out in some fashion.”