President Trump endorses Jeff Session's primary opponent as feud becomes more public.

Jeff Sessions DOJ photo.

President Trump has endorsed Jeff Session's primary opponent Tommy Tuberville as the feud between the two men explodes. NBC News. President Trump said that Sessions was not mentally qualified to be the Attorney General and that was a disaster at the post. Trump blames Sessions for recusing himself, which led to the Mueller Russia investigation and indirectly led to his impeachment. For his part Sessions defended himself saying that his recusal protected President Trump and eventually led to his exoneration. Sessions and Tuberville were the top two candidates of the 1st primary vote and will face each other on July 14 in a runoff election to win the right to face Doug Jones, the senator that won Session's seat in 2017.

.@realdonaldtrump Look, I know your anger, but recusal was required by law. I did my duty & you're damn fortunate I did. It protected the rule of law & resulted in your exoneration. Your personal feelings don't dictate who Alabama picks as their senator, the people of Alabama do. https://t.co/QQKHNAgmiE

— Jeff Sessions (@jeffsessions) May 23, 2020

My Comment:
This spat was not unexpected. President Trump has made it very clear that he considers Jeff Sessions to be the worst mistake of his presidency and with good reason. If Sessions had not recused himself the Russia investigation likely would never have happened and even if it did Sessions could have run a tighter ship so much of the nonsense that happened, like the prosecution of Michael Flynn and even the impeachment itself, probably would not have happened.

It's hard to overstate how big of a mistake this was. Session's decision to recuse himself made it so much harder for President Trump to get anything done in the first two years of his presidency and likely cost the GOP the house in 2018.  It leashed President Trump until this year, when the impeachment drama failed and the Coronavirus made everyone focus on it instead of President Trump.

And even if he hadn't recused himself, I don't think Sessions was a good attorney general. He did not have the right focus at all. Instead of focusing on corruption in the FBI he was going after legal pot dealers. And even on immigration he didn't do much. Indeed, I struggle to think of any accomplishments for Jeff Sessions when he was attorney general, well no positive ones anyways.

 I don't buy Sessions argument that doing things "by the book" was the right thing to do. Sure President Trump was exonerated eventually but it took more than three years of his presidency. Had Sessions just stood up for himself and said "i'm not recusing myself, see you in court" and then declassified everything we wouldn't be in this situation regardless. Sure the media would have pitched a fit but in the end it wouldn't matter.

I do kind of wish that President Trump had held his tongue a bit longer though. As bad as Sessions was as Attorney General, he was a decent senator back in the day. Whether that is still true is up for debate but I can't imagine that he'd be much worse than Doug Jones. There supposedly still a chance that Sessions could beat Tuberville in July and if that happens it could mean that Alabama voters won't vote against Jones, leaving what is supposed to be a very safe seat for Republicans in the hands of the Democrats.

However, I think the fact that Trump is speaking out now is evidence that Tuberville is going to win in July. He already beat Sessions once in the primary as he was #2 after Tuberville. And I doubt that many people will still vote for Sessions after President Trump publicly endorsed Tuberville.

But then again the Alabama GOP is a strange beast. Back in the 2017 special election, President Trump endorsed Luther Strange, a moderate who nevertheless voted with President Trump. Instead, the Alabama voters went with Roy Moore who was, rather unfairly, destroyed by a sex scandal and was controversial even beforehand. It's possible that the Alabama GOP voters (helped by a few Democrats crossing over to screw the President) could pick Sessions instead.

Either way, it's clear that the Alabama Senate race is going to be one to watch. If Doug Jones hangs onto the seat than GOP's control of the Senate could be at risk, either now or in 2022. It should be a safe seat but this Jeff Sessions nonsense, much like the Roy Moore nonsense before it, jeopardizes everything.