An alliance rooted in the hatred and demonization of vulnerable minorities has come unglued and it couldn't be happening to a more deserving pair: Donald Trump and his early booster turned attorney general, Jeff Sessions. Though they had met over a decade ago, the real Trump-Sessions bromance began about two years ago on the campaign trail, writes the Washington Post:
Trump’s adviser at the time, Sam Nunberg, said Trump saw Sessions as a similar type: a hard-liner on immigration who was far from beloved by the elites and wealthy donors within the Republican Party.
“He saw Sessions as someone he could develop a natural rapport with,” Nunberg said in an interview.
The kindred spirit between the two men continued straight through election night.
“The first senator, first major, major politician, and let me tell you, he is highly respected in Washington because he’s as smart as you get: Senator Jeff Sessions. Where is Jeff?”
As the crowd applauded, Trump added, “Great man.”
That was then, before Sessions miffed Trump by recusing himself from the Russia investigation. Sure, anyone with a rational bone in their body saw the move as inescapable—but for Trump, who lacks any semblance of post-adolescent objective reasoning, it was the slight he couldn't get over. Here was Trump on March 2, just hours before Sessions announced his recusal at Justice Department press conference.
Trump was touring the new supercarrier the USS Gerald R. Ford in Newport News, Va., when a reporter shouted a question about an event unfolding 130 miles away that would indelibly change the president’s relationship with his attorney general.
“Should Sessions have recused himself from investigations into your campaign and Russia?” the reporter asked Trump, who was wearing a Navy jacket and baseball cap inscribed with the carrier’s name.
“I don’t think so at all,” Trump answered flatly, a flash of irritation on his face as he brushed past reporters. “I don’t think he should do that at all.”
Oops. We know now that Sessions never warned or consulted the White House on his decision, which irrevocably severed his relationship with the exceedingly thin-skinned Trump. At one point Sessions even offered his resignation, but Trump rejected it, only to turn around and begin humiliating Sessions in every public venue available to him. That has left Sessions a little down in the mouth.
One recent evening, Sessions and his wife, Mary, went to dinner at the Capitol Hill townhouse of his old friend Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.). Over pork brisket and banana pudding, Sessions and his wife chatted with Cornyn and his wife, Sandy, about their families and mutual friends.
But when Cornyn asked the attorney general about his new job as the nation’s top law enforcement official, his friend seemed a little dispirited.
“He came into the office with a clear agenda and ideas about what he wanted to do as attorney general,” Cornyn said in an interview. “There’s a lot of work to do, and there’s not a lot of support there for him yet. He expressed his frustration with being distracted from that mission that he had so clearly in mind.”
May his "mission" go down in flames, right along with the rest of the Trump administration, including the guy at the top.