According to President Trump's new Comms director, Anthony Scaramucci, Trump "probably" wants Attorney General Jeff Sessions gone. Radio host Hugh Hewitt was interviewing Scaramucci when he asked, “It’s clear the president wants him gone, right?”
Scaramucci replied:
“I have an enormous amount of respect for the attorney general, but I do know the president pretty well, and if there’s this level of tension in the relationship that’s public, you’re probably right”
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Unfortunately, this is obvious to anyone who has a pair of eyes and a Twitter account. Just take a gander at this morning's anti-Sessions tweetstorm.
Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign - "quietly working to boost Clinton." So where is the investigation A.G. @seanhannity
...And this isn't really anything new. The President has been hammering Sessions for days. Sorry folks, but this is a rotten bit of political theater.
If Trump wants Sessions gone, he has every right to fire him. There's a very solid case to be made for doing so. However, Trump isn't making it.
The Twitter tantrums are distracting and damaging. They make it look like as though Trump is a man obsessed with the Russia investigation, show none of his now-infamous love of loyalty, and indicate that he's still consumed by his desire to destroy Hillary Clinton despite beating her in the 2016 election.
In short, it's terrible strategy.
Sessions should be fired over his grotesque stance on asset forfeiture. It's as anti-constitutional, neigh anti-American, as anything we saw under President Obama, yet President Trump hasn't uttered a peep about it.
If he'd come out last week and said "I'm firing Jeff Sessions to protect the 4th Amendment," he would have been praised as a constructionist hero by Republicans. Even Democrats and Libertarians - though they'd probably never admit it publicly - would have seen it as a positive move. It would have solved the "Sessions problem," given Trump a big win, and we all could have moved on.
Instead, President Trump has decided to berate one of his first - and only - 2016 GOP allies. Remember, Sessions was the first Republican Senator to endorse the President. He's been on board since the beginning. As such, he's long been viewed as team Trump's most important non-internal ally. If you're one of Trump's later converts, and you see what Trump is doing to Sessions, what are you thinking?
Here's a hint: You're not thinking, "How can I aid and abet this great leader." In fact, your thought process is probably something more along the lines of "If he'll do this to Jeff, when's it going to be my turn to be tossed into the meat grinder?"
Trump supporters like to say "who cares" to all of this. "Trump's a tough, take no prisoners guy, and we like it." That attitude's a mistake.
First of all, if he's a "take no prisoners" guy, fire Sessions. Don't bat him around like a cat with a stunned mouse, or let him twist in the wind in some weird display of power. Power comes from decisive moves, not ...whatever this is. Remember though, it's widely believed that Sessions was the impetus behind Trump's immigration policy. If you voted for Trump because of that stance (and polls show that's the case for many of Trump's most loyal supporters) you should know that Trump is now attacking the guy who made it what it is.
More importantly, Trump can't lead solely through fear. No President can. If he wants his agenda passed, he needs allies. You may not like that, but it's reality. The more bridges he burns, the harder his job becomes.
Finally, this whole fiasco cements the idea of an administration in chaos. There's a healthcare vote today. We could finally be headed for a win over the ACA. However, thanks to the President's impulsive Tweets, we're not talking about that. No one is. Literally everyone is focused on the Sessions kerfuffle - a situation that carries absolutely no upside for the President.
It's long past time for Trump to stop the self-inflicted wounds, get this mess under control, and move forward.
