You know what Donald Trump could do about his issue with Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III? He could fire him. That’s absolutely something Trump could do. Or, he could talk to him. Pull him into the White House, give him a red-orange-faced spittle session while Sessions moans about the grievous affront to his sacred honor. He could do that.
Except Trump isn’t interested in firing Sessions so much as he is in hurting him. So he’s engaged in a program of 1,000 paper cuts with generous lemon juice, a program he continued in this morning’s tweet session.
Why didn’t Sessions replace McCabe? Well, because firing the FBI director is the president’s job. That would be the reason that Donald Trump dispatched his pal Keith to drop a note on James Comey’s desk letting him know he was fired—while Comey was out of town. Sessions’ only contribution to the affair was designating Rod Rosenstein to write Trump an excuse—one that Trump would, of course, throw away the first time he got in front of a camera to brag that he had fired Comey over the Russia investigation.
Andrew McCabe became the acting director of the FBI when Trump fired Comey. So who put Andrew McCabe in charge of the FBI? Donald Trump did.
How ridiculous is it for Trump to be complaining that Sessions didn’t replace one acting director with a new acting director while Trump picked someone to be a new director? So ridiculous it would have been rejected from the plot of the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie that no one watched. But that’s how far Trump is willing to go to apply that lemon juice.
The second half of Trump’s attack on McCabe reveals what Donald Trump regards as the reason he should have been replaced.
That allows Trump to get Hillary into the conversation. Which is always good.
So, Donald Trump is asking why Sessions hasn’t fired someone who it’s Trump’s responsibility to fire, because that guy is too sympathetic to someone who is not being investigated by the FBI. It’s a stretch that would make Elastic Man wince.
Honestly, Donald Trump vs. Jefferson B Sessions 3 is a war that simply cannot go on long enough. Every day Trump reminds people he can't be trusted, as he pummels someone who supported him from the start of his campaign—knowing that the guy on the receiving end of his attacks has almost no means of striking back. It’s a tremendous reminder that Trump is an absolute dick who can’t be trusted to have anyone’s back on any issue.
It’s only sweetened by knowing that every day Sessions has to swallow more of his over-sized pride. I do declare it is delicious. We can only hope that Sessions is distracted enough to forget whatever was on his screw-black-people agenda for today.
There’s little doubt that Trump wants Sessions to take the tear-soaked remains of his tissue-thin honor and leave town before the Senate finally takes its belated August recess. That would give Trump the opportunity to quickly slot in a Designated Hitter who would start the “order Rosenstein to fire Mueller” Rube Goldeberg machine. But at the moment, Sessions is fighting back in the only effective way he has—by not fighting back.
Which is driving Trump crazy crazier.