WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump escalated his attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions, saying, “I don’t have an attorney general.”
Trump, in a Hill.TV interview released on Wednesday, said that he’s “so sad over Jeff Sessions,” whom he has repeatedly denounced for recusing himself from the Russia investigation.
“He was the first senator that endorsed me. And he wanted to be attorney general, and I didn’t see it,” Trump said in the Oval office interview. “And then he went through the nominating process and he did very poorly. I mean, he was mixed up and confused, and people that worked with him for, you know, a long time in the Senate were not nice to him, but he was giving very confusing answers. Answers that should have been easily answered.”
The president softened his stance slightly when talking to reporters on the White House lawn hours after the interview’s publication, saying, “I’m disappointed in the attorney general for numerous reasons, but we have an attorney general.”
Trump has repeatedly asserted that Sessions, a former U.S. senator from Alabama, did not need to step away from the Russia probe, a move the president believes in part led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russians.