Or should I say Trump crushed Sessions? He lost by 21pts:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/u...sults.amp.html
- bambino
- 07-15-2020, 07:55 AM
- Ripmany
- 07-15-2020, 09:12 AM
Should keep his day job
- dilbert firestorm
- 07-15-2020, 10:30 AM
Or should I say Trump crushed Sessions? He lost by 21pts:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/u...sults.amp.html Originally Posted by bambino
Sessions Pays the Price for Incurring Trump’s Wrath, Losing Alabama Senate Race
By Elaina Plott and Jonathan Martin
Published July 14, 2020Updated July 15, 2020, 9:01 a.m. ETMOBILE,
Ala. — As a longtime senator from Alabama, Jeff Sessions did nothing less than legitimize Donald. J. Trump as a credible Republican candidate for president, endorsing him when no other big names did and championing him to conservative voters. As Mr. Trump’s star rose, Mr. Sessions’s rose, too.
But on Tuesday night, as he sought once again to become a senator from Alabama, a job he loved, Mr. Sessions came crashing to the ground — and all at the hands of Mr. Trump, his ally-turned-patron-turned-antagonist-turned-sworn enemy.
Mr. Sessions was soundly defeated in Alabama’s Republican primary, losing to a political neophyte, the former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, whom Mr. Trump had enthusiastically supported while denigrating Mr. Sessions.
With nearly 100 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Tuberville had 60.7 percent of the vote, to 39.3 percent for Mr. Sessions.
“We’ve fought a good fight in this race,” Mr. Sessions said, addressing supporters at a small conference room at a Hampton Inn in Mobile.
“I want to congratulate Tommy Tuberville,” Mr. Sessions said, fighting back tears. “We must stand behind him in November. Doug Jones does not need to be our voice in Washington. He wishes to see the policies of Nancy Pelosi prevail over conservative Alabama principles.”
Mr. Sessions said he had no regrets about his decision as attorney general to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election — an act that infuriated Mr. Trump and turned the president against him. “I followed the law,” he said, adding, “and I saved the president’s bacon in the process.”
Mr. Tuberville will now face Mr. Jones, the most vulnerable Senate Democrat up for election in November. Mr. Jones narrowly defeated Roy S. Moore, a former State Supreme Court justice, in the 2017 special election to fill the seat vacated by Mr. Sessions.
Mr. Tuberville’s victory was the most prominent result in voting across three states Tuesday. In Maine, Sara Gideon easily won the Democratic nomination for Senate and will challenge Senator Susan Collins in November, in what would be one of most closely contested, and expensive, races in the country this year. And in Texas voters in both parties went to the polls to decide runoffs in several House races and Democrats selected M.J. Hegar, an Air Force veteran, to challenge Senator John Cornyn in November.
Tommy Tuberville spoke after defeating Mr. Sessions on Tuesday.Credit...Butch Dill/Associated Press
Few Republicans had tied their political fortunes to Mr. Trump as Mr. Sessions did. As one of the loudest Senate voices for taking a hard line on immigration, Mr. Sessions had few allies among past G.O.P. presidential candidates. Then came Mr. Trump, who not only ran on Mr. Sessions’s agenda but won on it — then brought Mr. Sessions forth from the backbench and installed him in what was supposed to be his dream job: attorney general.
What came next was a one-man cautionary tale about the risks of linking one’s career to a mercurial president to whom loyalty meant everything. Enraged that Mr. Sessions did not block the Russia investigation, but instead recused himself, Mr. Trump made it his mission to humiliate his attorney general. He mocked Mr. Sessions’s Southern accent, hectored him on Twitter and belittled him in interviews — and only after all that did he fire him, days after the 2018 midterms.
When Mr. Sessions decided to try to reclaim his Senate seat, Mr. Trump, after initially resisting, did it all over again, unleashing his brand of personal vengeance to derail Mr. Sessions’s attempted comeback.
In perhaps the most trying stretch of his presidency, with his own poll numbers plummeting, the president made the most of the Republican runoff.
On Monday night, by which point it was clear Mr. Tuberville would triumph, Mr. Trump held a conference call with the candidate and his supporters, during which he again savaged his former attorney general — “He had his chance and he blew it” — and offered Mr. Tuberville a ringing endorsement.
The former coach “is going to do a job like you haven’t seen,” said the president, adding: “He’s going to have a cold, direct line into my office. That I can tell you.”
Mr. Tuberville, addressing his own supporters Tuesday night, accused Mr. Jones of upholding “New York values, Chicago values, liberal Democrat values” while calling Mr. Trump “the best president of my lifetime.”
In Maine, Ms. Gideon, the state House Speaker, fended off nominal opposition from the left, which she largely ignored as she built a record-setting war chest. The race has already become the priciest Senate campaign in Maine history, thanks to a fund-raising surge from liberals angered by Ms. Collins’s support for the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court two years ago.
Ms. Collins’s prospects will weigh heavily on the balance of power in the Senate, where Democrats are seeking to pick up the three seats that would give them a majority under a President Biden. Ms. Collins, who is considered one of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans, is facing perhaps her most difficult campaign as she seeks a fifth term.
Ms. Collins is trying to build a coalition that includes both Mr. Trump’s enthusiasts and detractors at a time when centrists like her are growing scarce.
Mr. Sessions had spent much of his campaign urging Alabama voters to remember that he was running against Mr. Tuberville — not Mr. Trump.
“The president has a right to speak up, but the president is not on the ballot,” Mr. Sessions told reporters after voting on Tuesday in Mobile, Ala., while his granddaughters, wearing red Sessions campaign T-shirts, stood off to the side. “He’ll be on the ballot in November, and Alabama is going to vote for him, and I will be voting for him. But Tommy Tuberville is on the ballot now.”
Yet even as he sought to isolate his race from the top of the ticket in one breath, the former attorney general all but acknowledged in another that Republican nominating contests have become loyalty tests to Mr. Trump.
“My opponent, at age 65, never lifted a finger for Donald Trump, never said he was a Republican in the first 65 years of his life,” Mr. Sessions said. “Never said he was a conservative. Half the time he didn’t even vote — we don’t know if he actually voted for Donald Trump or not in the last election.”
As he did for much of the final stretch of the runoff, Mr. Tuberville avoided reporters on Tuesday and let Mr. Trump’s endorsement speak for his candidacy.
Many who cast their votes in Mr. Sessions’s precinct on Tuesday morning spoke fondly of the former attorney general. Kay Rehm, 69, said she voted for Mr. Sessions “mainly because he is so moral and ethical.”
“We know what we’re getting in Senator Sessions,” Ms. Rehm said. “He’s been vetted, he’s been in government for over 30-something years. I personally have nothing against Tuberville, but we don’t know anything about him.”
Ms. Rehm said she found the president’s disdain for Mr. Sessions “a little disappointing, but Trump can be like that, God bless him.”
But Mr. Trump’s strong support had always been expected to provide a huge lift for Mr. Tuberville. “The president has endorsed Coach Tuberville because he knows Tommy will stand up for America and not be controlled by the deep state and the big money lobbyists,” said Perry Hooper, a former state representative in Montgomery.
In Texas, Ms. Hegar, a former Air Force helicopter pilot who had the support of Senate Democrats, defeated State Senator Royce West in a Democratic runoff to determine who will take on Senator John Cornyn.
Mr. Trump scored a victory in an open West Texas House seat, where his preferred candidate, the former White House doctor Ronny Jackson, won a runoff.
In the race for the seat currently held by Representative Will Hurd, who is not seeking re-election, Mr. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz were on opposite sides of the runoff. The president offered a late endorsement of Tony Gonzales, the establishment favorite, while Mr. Cruz backed Raul Reyes, a more conservative candidate. With 95 percent of precincts reporting by late Tuesday night, Mr. Reyes had a 132-vote lead.
The most surprising news Tuesday came in a contest that won’t even be decided until next month. Shortly before he was to debate his primary opponents, Steve Watkins of Kansas, a first-term Republican congressman, was indicted on felony charges related to whether he voted illegally in 2019.
In terms of determining the balance of power in Washington, though, no race on Tuesday may have been more consequential than the Maine primary. The Senate race there is one of a handful that could determine control of the chamber, where Republicans have a majority, 53 to 47.
Ms. Gideon has already raised nearly $23 million,much of it from Democrats who are angry at Ms. Collins for confirming Justice Kavanaugh and not taking a harder line against Mr. Trump.
And now that Ms. Gideon is officially her party’s nominee, she will receive $3.7 million, which has effectively been sitting in escrow for the Democratic nominee since Ms. Collins’s Kavanaugh vote.
While she has been outraised in the first half of the year, Ms. Collins, who has raised over $16 million so far, has demonstrated an ability to keep closer pace with her opponent than some of her Republican colleagues. Both candidates will also be helped by multimillion dollar ad campaigns from party super PACs in a race that has already turned negative.
Early polls point to a competitive race in a state that has become politically bifurcated between a more conservative and rural north and a liberal-leaning and more densely populated south.
Ms. Collins has deep roots in northern Maine, where Mr. Trump enjoys a strong following. She did not support his candidacy in 2016, and has not said how she will vote in November. She did, though, recently tell The New York Times that she will not campaign against former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., her onetime Senate colleague who is Mr. Trump’s rival for the presidency.
Elaina Plott is a national political reporter based in Washington. She previously covered the White House for The Atlantic, where she also wrote extensively about the transformation of the Republican Party in the Trump era. @elainaplott
Jonathan Martin is a national political correspondent. He has reported on a range of topics, including the 2016 presidential election and several state and congressional races, while also writing for Sports, Food and the Book Review. He is also a CNN political analyst. @jmartnyt
A version of this article appears in print on July 15, 2020, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Sessions Loses Race for Senate, Paying Price for Trump’s Wrath.
- dilbert firestorm
- 07-15-2020, 10:43 AM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...r-republicans/
The Fix
Analysis
The rise and humiliating fall of Jeff Sessions, a cautionary tale for other Republicans
By Amber Phillips
July 15, 2020 at 7:18 a.m. CDT
If there was one establishment figure in Washington who understood Trumpism, it was Jeff Sessions. But Sessions is also the Washington figure who most clearly paid a political price for not seeming loyal enough to President Trump.
The longtime senator from Alabama, like Trump, leaned hard on anti-immigrant policies. It made him something of an outsider in traditional Washington politics, but Trump and Sessions worked together to change that.
Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump, choosing him over other candidates like his Senate colleague Ted Cruz (R-Tex.).
Trump was just a few months into his campaign when Sessions stood with him onstage, giving the candidate a boost of legitimacy from Washington. When Trump won the White House, Sessions was rewarded by being chosen as Trump’s attorney general. And Sessions in return tried to relentlessly hammer home the two men’s tough-on-immigration rhetoric and policies.
But the relationship went wrong over the question of loyalty, or rather the president’s perception of loyalty. Sessions lost a runoff in Alabama on Tuesday in an attempt to return to his old Senate seat, and Trump was cheering his loss on from Washington, after insulting Sessions or urging voters to ditch him nearly every step of the way. Former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville won the nomination and will try to unseat Democrats’ most vulnerable senator in November, Doug Jones.
Trump has been humiliating Sessions for years, actually, even while Sessions was still his attorney general. The president seemed to view the prominent Cabinet position as one designed to protect him rather than to be the nation’s top law enforcement officer. Perhaps Trump was helped along by the fact that his attorney general was such a close political ally. Or perhaps Trump views key aspects of government as a means to the end of supporting him — a pattern we’ve seen since.
Trump felt he needed the most protection from the Department of Justice on an FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and any ties to his campaign — and he believed Sessions wasn’t there for him. Sessions had recused himself from overseeing the investigation because he played such a prominent role in the Trump campaign and had visited with the Russian ambassador during it.
Shortly after that, Trump fired the FBI director, and shortly after that, Sessions’s No. 2 appointed a special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to take on the investigation. Trump uttered an expletive when he found out, according to Mueller’s report.
The Mueller report says Trump immediately turned his anger to Sessions. Trump later told the New York Times, “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else.”
And the president spent more than a year insulting Sessions on Twitter, even making Sessions’s former Republican colleagues in the Senate uncomfortable with the public humiliation, before firing him and then doing what he could to make sure Sessions never came back to Washington.
In an administration following the norms of good governance, Sessions’s recusal from the Russia investigation made sense. But in Trump’s administration, where loyalty to him dominates policy goals and even campaign promises, it was an unforgivable betrayal that may have helped end Sessions’s political career.
And that’s something Senate Republicans still in office have watched up close. Even now, with Trump’s poll numbers dipping and threatening to sink some Senate Republicans on the ballot with him, there aren’t any notable defectors from the pack. (Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are the exceptions.)
As I wrote in June, to ditch Trump now would be a futile effort for most Senate Republicans. Which voters are they going to win over? There is no political home for Republicans in office who want to leave the president. Sessions was an extreme example of that, because he tried to launch a political comeback from one of the most pro-Trump states in the nation while being on Trump’s bad side.
But there are other cautionary tales from the Senate. Jeff Flake in Arizona and Bob Corker in Tennessee both prominently criticized Trump while in office, and it played a role in both of them deciding not to run for reelection. One conservative congressman from South Carolina lost his primary after criticizing Trump and said the president’s tweets played a role.
Republicans are trying to hang on to their Senate majority, and the last thing they need is a Sessions-like battle with the president who deems some of them not loyal enough. That’s a lesson many of them have already learned, but Sessions’s humiliating defeat drives it home.
Amber Phillips
Amber Phillips analyzes politics for The Washington Post's nonpartisan politics blog and authors The 5-Minute Fix newsletter, a rundown of the day's biggest political news. She was previously the one-woman D.C. bureau for the Las Vegas Sun and has reported from as far away as Taiwan. Follow
washingtonpost.com © 1996-2020 The Washington Post
The Fix
Analysis
The rise and humiliating fall of Jeff Sessions, a cautionary tale for other Republicans
By Amber Phillips
July 15, 2020 at 7:18 a.m. CDT
If there was one establishment figure in Washington who understood Trumpism, it was Jeff Sessions. But Sessions is also the Washington figure who most clearly paid a political price for not seeming loyal enough to President Trump.
The longtime senator from Alabama, like Trump, leaned hard on anti-immigrant policies. It made him something of an outsider in traditional Washington politics, but Trump and Sessions worked together to change that.
Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump, choosing him over other candidates like his Senate colleague Ted Cruz (R-Tex.).
Trump was just a few months into his campaign when Sessions stood with him onstage, giving the candidate a boost of legitimacy from Washington. When Trump won the White House, Sessions was rewarded by being chosen as Trump’s attorney general. And Sessions in return tried to relentlessly hammer home the two men’s tough-on-immigration rhetoric and policies.
But the relationship went wrong over the question of loyalty, or rather the president’s perception of loyalty. Sessions lost a runoff in Alabama on Tuesday in an attempt to return to his old Senate seat, and Trump was cheering his loss on from Washington, after insulting Sessions or urging voters to ditch him nearly every step of the way. Former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville won the nomination and will try to unseat Democrats’ most vulnerable senator in November, Doug Jones.
Trump has been humiliating Sessions for years, actually, even while Sessions was still his attorney general. The president seemed to view the prominent Cabinet position as one designed to protect him rather than to be the nation’s top law enforcement officer. Perhaps Trump was helped along by the fact that his attorney general was such a close political ally. Or perhaps Trump views key aspects of government as a means to the end of supporting him — a pattern we’ve seen since.
Trump felt he needed the most protection from the Department of Justice on an FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and any ties to his campaign — and he believed Sessions wasn’t there for him. Sessions had recused himself from overseeing the investigation because he played such a prominent role in the Trump campaign and had visited with the Russian ambassador during it.
Shortly after that, Trump fired the FBI director, and shortly after that, Sessions’s No. 2 appointed a special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to take on the investigation. Trump uttered an expletive when he found out, according to Mueller’s report.
The Mueller report says Trump immediately turned his anger to Sessions. Trump later told the New York Times, “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else.”
And the president spent more than a year insulting Sessions on Twitter, even making Sessions’s former Republican colleagues in the Senate uncomfortable with the public humiliation, before firing him and then doing what he could to make sure Sessions never came back to Washington.
In an administration following the norms of good governance, Sessions’s recusal from the Russia investigation made sense. But in Trump’s administration, where loyalty to him dominates policy goals and even campaign promises, it was an unforgivable betrayal that may have helped end Sessions’s political career.
And that’s something Senate Republicans still in office have watched up close. Even now, with Trump’s poll numbers dipping and threatening to sink some Senate Republicans on the ballot with him, there aren’t any notable defectors from the pack. (Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are the exceptions.)
As I wrote in June, to ditch Trump now would be a futile effort for most Senate Republicans. Which voters are they going to win over? There is no political home for Republicans in office who want to leave the president. Sessions was an extreme example of that, because he tried to launch a political comeback from one of the most pro-Trump states in the nation while being on Trump’s bad side.
But there are other cautionary tales from the Senate. Jeff Flake in Arizona and Bob Corker in Tennessee both prominently criticized Trump while in office, and it played a role in both of them deciding not to run for reelection. One conservative congressman from South Carolina lost his primary after criticizing Trump and said the president’s tweets played a role.
Republicans are trying to hang on to their Senate majority, and the last thing they need is a Sessions-like battle with the president who deems some of them not loyal enough. That’s a lesson many of them have already learned, but Sessions’s humiliating defeat drives it home.
Amber Phillips
Amber Phillips analyzes politics for The Washington Post's nonpartisan politics blog and authors The 5-Minute Fix newsletter, a rundown of the day's biggest political news. She was previously the one-woman D.C. bureau for the Las Vegas Sun and has reported from as far away as Taiwan. Follow
washingtonpost.com © 1996-2020 The Washington Post
- bambino
- 07-15-2020, 10:52 AM
I don’t think Tuberville is a great candidate. He has some baggage that Jones will pound him on. But he’s better than an alleged pervert. It does show the enthusiasm that Alabama Republicans have for Trump. I don’t think Jones will overcome that. He voted for both counts of impeachment. Bye bye!
- matchingmole
- 07-15-2020, 11:34 AM
Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump....
Good riddance to him!!
Good riddance to him!!
- bambino
- 07-15-2020, 12:18 PM
- 00 gauge
- 07-15-2020, 12:43 PM
Sessions learned a very valuable lesson here, you turn against Trump, the voters don't forget ..... and if you voted FOR his impeachment, double whammy! .....
- matchingmole
- 07-15-2020, 07:52 PM
Sessions learned a valuable lesson...support TRump and your career is ruined. Ask Mike Cohen
- bambino
- 07-15-2020, 08:10 PM
- matchingmole
- 07-15-2020, 08:17 PM
- bambino
- 07-15-2020, 08:52 PM
- matchingmole
- 07-15-2020, 09:39 PM
- Tsmokies
- 07-15-2020, 09:46 PM
Stupid me. I thought twit head picked sessions to protect and kiss his orange mushroom. What state was that lol. I still think cousins and sisters should not have kids with their lead sniffing brothers
- matchingmole
- 07-15-2020, 10:10 PM
