President Trump says his biggest mistake was hiring former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

President Donald Trump. USA Today.

President Trump said in an interview with "Meet the Press" that his biggest mistake of his presidency was hiring former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. USA Today. Chuck Todd asked him what his one "do over" would be for the presidency and Trump answered "personnel" adding that it was his biggest mistake. Trump fired Jeff Sessions from his post before the 2018 midterms. Sessions had recused himself from the Russia investigation and allowed the appointment of Robert Mueller. 

My Comment:

I think that at least in terms of personnel decisions the hiring of Jeff Sessions was probably the biggest mistake President Trump has made. I'm in full agreement with him here and even Democrats would likely agree with him. 

Without Jeff Sessions, there would have been no Mueller probe, at least not as we know it. And if he hadn't recused himself on the Russia investigation he could have kept a tighter reign on the investigation to make sure that it actually focused on Russia and not President Trump. Even outside of that debacle Sessions was a bad Attorney General as his focus was not on prosecuting people like antifa or various other criminals but was instead focused on fighting legal marijuana. He did work well against human trafficking but that work has continued without him. 

Even worse, had Sessions just stayed in the Senate, his formerly very safe seat in the chamber would have almost certainly remained under GOP control. Alabama is a deep red state and Sessions was very popular there. Him resigning to serve in the Trump administration allowed Roy Moore to run in what was a disaster even before the media decided to assassinate his character. With Doug Jones still in the chamber and running again in 2020, possibly against Roy Moore again, it's no guarantee that the GOP will win back that seat anytime soon. 

I do remember that during the tenure of Jeff Sessions that many on the right were fighting each other about him. One faction, the one that turned out to be right, said he was incompetent and that Trump was going to fire him. Another loved Sessions and thought he was working hard behind the scenes to round up people like Hillary Clinton and other criminal Democrats. Finally, there was a third group who thought the whole discussion was a huge distraction from the actual problems of the day (I was in this group).

In the end though, Sessions was fired and the 2nd group ended up with egg on their face. It also was one of the final blows to the Qanon theory as Sessions was always a huge part of that theory. Some die-hards still follow Q, but in the end it was discredited by the fact that Sessions was fired. 

I do wonder who could have been chosen instead of Sessions. I know former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had lobbied for the job, but I would have hated him even more than Jeff Sessions. Sessions was fairly bad at his job but at least he was pro-gun...

In the end though, I think this was a case of Trump picking someone who was supposedly loyal to him instead of the best man for the job. Sessions was a big early Trump supporter and was a big reason why Trump won in the first place. Rewarding him for that help was probably a well intentioned move but not one that worked out for President Trump or the country...