Unindicted co-conspirator Donald Trump has a hard time giving up on his favorite ideas. Like the border wall. Or his misconception that the attorney general of the United States is supposed to be his personal lawyer and protector. So he's back on his hobby horse of firing Jeff Sessions, at least in private.
Aides and friends of Trump, the round-robin of people he spends time calling on his unsecured cell phone (when he's not busy transcribing Fox News on Twitter) report to the Washington Post that he's still talking about firing Sessions, even though everybody tells him it would be a very bad idea.
Everybody is also telling him that it would be a very bad idea to shut down government October 1, five weeks before the midterm election, over his border wall. And yet he still thinks it would be "good politics" to do it. So when you hear "His attorneys concluded that they have persuaded him—for now—not to make such a move while the special-counsel investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign is ongoing," they're probably kidding themselves.
Republican senators have even stopped putting up any resistance, telling him it's fine to do it, just wait until after the midterms when it'll be less damaging. Like this: "Nothing lasts forever," Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) told The Washington Post, describing the Trump-Sessions dynamic as "a toxic relationship." Sorry, old friend and colleague Sessions, that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Chances are least 50/50 that he'll either shut down government or fire Sessions (or even both!) in the coming weeks. Because Trump doesn't really care whether or not he hurts Republicans facing re-election. He is too phenomenally self-obsessed to care. So why they continue to protect him when he'll happily throw any of them under the bus is the mystery.