President Donald Trump revealed in a recent interview that he believes naming Jeff Sessions as attorney general was the “biggest mistake” of his presidency thus far.
“If you could have one do-over as president, what would it be?” Meet the Press’s Chuck Todd asked Trump in an interview that aired Sunday.
“It would be personnel,” Trump replied before mentioning Sessions. The president went on to praise current Attorney General William Barr.
“The job he’s done is incredible,” said Trump of Barr. “He’s brought sanity back. I think he feels that what’s happened in this country was a very bad thing and very bad for our country.”
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Since Barr took over as the Justice Department’s leader in February, he has been a staunch loyalist for Trump, especially with regards to the fallout of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and Mueller’s corresponding report. However, Barr was held in contempt for refusing to testify before Congress earlier this year.
Sessions famously recused himself from overseeing Mueller’s inquiry in March 2017, a move that drew severe ire from Trump. Sessions left the White House after the 2018 midterm elections, after months of allegedly strong tensions between him and the president.
Republican Sessions — who proved to have very hard-line views on issues like immigration during his time as attorney general — has recently been speculated to run for U.S. Senate in Alabama, a position he previously held from 1997 to 2017.
Sessions, 72, also held extremely conservative views regarding LGBT rights, criminal justice and marijuana possession.
