West Wing confidants are saying that Donald Trump is so dismayed with Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions that he is contemplating replacing him with former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani. Details from Axios:
- In internal conversations, Trump has recently pondered the idea of nominating Giuliani, a stalwart of his campaign.
- Even before last week's blast at Sessions in a New York Times interview, Trump had expressed fury at Sessions — also one of the first prominent Republicans to back the Trump campaign — for recusing himself from the Russia investigation.
- And in a Monday morning tweet, Trump referred to "our beleaguered A.G." not investigating Hillary Clinton.
Our thought bubble: Trump often muses about possible personnel moves that he never makes, sometimes just to gauge the listener's reaction. So the Giuliani balloon may go nowhere.
This is the second time in as many days that Trump has contemplated reinforcing himself with troops that are his allies from times past. On Saturday Axios reported that Newt Gingrich may be called to take a more visible and frequent role as Trump defender in the battle with special counsel Robert Mueller.
Nevertheless, the leaks about Giuliani and Gingrich are revealing in four ways:
- Trump wants to surround himself with enablers and junkyard dogs, as we saw with the selection of the pugilistic Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director.
- Presidents like the personnel equivalent of comfort food — people with whom they have a long, happy history. Presidents often find they can only really trust people they knew before they took office, since it's hard to trust new people at the pinnacle of power.
- Rudy and Newt were both overlooked in the first round of administration picks. By reviving some of his original band members, he's able to blame other people for his problems.
- And the West Wing conversations show that Trump originals can always come back. Paging Chris Christie!
It appears that more than just the staffers in the West Wing are going to be shaken up in the near future. Trump appears to be having buyer’s remorse with some of his earlier picks for more substantial posts and who knows what that may bring. Things don’t look so good for Jeff Sessions right now, that much is certain.