The Daily - Why Trump Is Firing Sessions Now

Episode Date: November 8, 2018

After more than a year of mocking his attorney general, President Trump has forced Jeff Sessions to resign. The timing — only hours after the midterm elections — is not a coincidence. Guest: Michael S. Schmidt, who covers national security and federal investigations for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. After more than a year of mercilessly mocking his attorney general, President Trump fires Jeff Sessions. Why the timing, only hours after the midterm elections, is not a coincidence. It's Thursday, November 8th.

When I talk about immigration and when I talk about illegal immigration and all the problems with crime and everything else, I think of a great man and I want to just introduce you to him for a sec. Do you know who I'm talking about? Who am I talking about? Nobody knows right now, because we've kept it a surprise. Senator Jeff Sessions. I still remember the image of Sessions' endorsement of Trump.

Wow, what a crowd this is. Him and Trump, in February of 2016, are at a rally down in Alabama. I told Donald Trump, this isn't a campaign, this is a movement. He is the first major national politician to endorse Donald Trump. And politicians have promised for 30 years to fix illegal immigration. Have they done it? No. Donald Trump will do it.

And a bond is formed. Mike Schmidt covers national security for The Times. This is a new relationship for Trump. This is not someone that he has known from his time in New York. This is not someone he knows from real estate. This is a national politician latching on to him and saying, We need to make America great again. I identify with your politics. I am going to try and get you elected president.

Thank you all. And for Jeff Sessions, it was that closeness, that relationship that ultimately led to his demise. And like, why did Jeff Sessions endorse Donald Trump so early? What does that tell us about Sessions? It tells us what the issue of immigration means to Jeff Sessions. He had been a true hardliner on this issue. He had pushed things on immigration that were not widely accepted in the Senate as the senator from Alabama. And he sees Trump, who has made this issue a tenant of what he is running on, and he goes directly to him. So they bond over a shared passion for cracking down on immigration. Sessions sees Trump as someone in the Republican Party who is pushing the ideology on this issue that he has wanted to be at the front of the party's policies for a long time.

And he goes straight for it. Listen, this is a historic election. If we don't fix the immigration broken system now, it will not be fixed. This may be our last chance. And what becomes of the relationship between Trump and Sessions as the campaign intensifies? What does Sessions' role become? What you have to understand about Donald Trump's run for president is that so few establishment Republicans, Republicans in Congress, wanted to embrace his campaign. What's his name?

Senator Jeff Sessions. You love Jeff Sessions. He's doing a good job. And what Sessions did is he got in so early with Trump, he benefits and he rises. We have him very busy watching the borders. A lot of things are happening. He's one of the top people out there on the campaign trail for Trump. Does Donald Trump have the determination, the will, to put America back on the right track again?

He gets a big position in May of 2016. He's named Trump's top foreign policy advisor. And this is where the trouble begins for Sessions. As Trump's top foreign policy advisor, he comes into contact with a highly problematic person. The Russian ambassador, Sergei Kislyak. Right. And Kislyak ends up roping Sessions into the vast saga that is the Russia investigation after Trump is elected and after Sessions is nominated as attorney general.

In Sessions' confirmation hearing, he says he had no contacts with Russians during the campaign. Shortly after that, it's reported by the Washington Post that Sessions had indeed met with Kislyak. And it is in the aftermath of that disclosure that Sessions decides to publicly announce... I have now decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matter relating in any way to the campaigns for president of the United States. ...that he will recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

And remind us why he suddenly has to do that. There's two reasons. One, there are questions about whether he has provided misleading testimony to Congress about his contacts with the Russians. And two, he had been a Trump campaign surrogate and the campaign was under investigations for its links to Russia.

And here's a guy who was actually talking to Russians during the campaign. On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold confirmation hearing for Rod Rosenstein for deputy attorney general, who, if confirmed, would take over the investigation into Russian interference in the U.S. election. And not long after Rosenstein takes over the investigation, the president fires the FBI director, James Comey. And Jeff Sessions was sitting in the Oval Office with Donald Trump in May of 2017, when they were both told that Rosenstein, who was supposed to be at the meeting they were at, but was back at the Justice Department, had appointed Mueller as the special counsel.

And that's where it gets even worse. What do you mean? What happens is that Trump unloads on Sessions and berates him like Sessions has never been berated before. And what is the president berating Sessions over of everything that haunts Donald Trump at night? This is the original sin, the fact that Sessions recused himself. Trump sees it today and for the past year and a half as the most disloyal thing anyone around him has done. And if he hadn't have done that,

Rosenstein never would have appointed Mueller. And Sessions becomes emotional and he offers his resignation, leaves the White House, writes a resignation letter. It's brought over to the White House the next day and Sessions waits for it to be accepted by the president. And what happens?

The president doesn't accept it. Why not? The president's advisors had talked him out of the firing. They said, if you fire Sessions right after Mueller was appointed and right after you fired Comey, it will make your problems 10 times worse. So instead of firing Sessions, what does the president do with him? He tries to hold on to the resignation letter as a way of having leverage over Sessions, as if I can use this letter at any point to get rid of you.

Eventually, the president's advisors get the letter from him, and it's sent back to the Justice Department. In the meantime, even though he hasn't gotten rid of Sessions, he embarks on a campaign to undermine and attack him publicly. Trump tweeting. It comes in tweets. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a very weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes. And it comes in an interview in the Oval Office with us. Right after he gets the job, he recuses himself. Is that a mistake? Well, Sessions should have never recused himself. Or he says on the record,

He should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else. I never would have made Jeff Sessions my attorney general if I knew he was going to recuse himself. Even my enemies say that Jeff Sessions should have told you that he was going to recuse himself and then you wouldn't have put him in. He goes after him. And Jeff Sessions should have never let it happen. He should have never recused himself. In interviews. He took the job and then he said, I'm going to recuse myself. On Twitter.

So he made what I consider to be a very terrible mistake for the country. But you'll figure that out. Anywhere that he can. I told you before I'm very disappointed with the attorney general. Why wouldn't he say I'm going to recuse myself? I wouldn't have put him in that position. But he's in the position now. Is he going to stay in the position?

I'm not going to tell you that. We'll see what happens. We will see what happens. Time will tell. Time will tell. It's really interesting because even while Sessions knows that he's probably operating on borrowed time, and even while Trump is attacking him so relentlessly, Sessions is continuing to implement Trump's agenda.

If you cross the border unlawfully, even a first offense, then we're going to prosecute you. And some of the most high-profile and controversial policies from the Trump administration are written out or articulated by Jeff Sessions, like family separation, for example. If you smuggle an illegal alien across the border, then we'll prosecute you for smuggling. If you're smuggling a child, then we're we'll prosecute you for smuggling if you're smuggling a child then we're going to prosecute you and that's how will be separated from you probably as required by law sessions of allies would say that out of all the cabinet members sessions was the most successful implementing president's agenda if you don't

want your child to be separated, then don't bring them across the border illegally. It's not our fault that somebody does that. But none of this ends up changing Trump's mind that Sessions has to go. Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions, I'm pretty sure, only spoke to each other in cabinet meetings in the aftermath of the Mueller appointment.

The relationship which had been born on the campaign trail, Trump's great political ally, who the president considered a close friend, the president will no longer speak to him. We'll be right back. I rise today to speak to the issue of the leadership of the Department of Justice. Despite the fact that Trump really wanted to get rid of him. It would be a very, very, very bad idea to fire the attorney general because he's not executing his job as a political hack.

Republican senators came to Sessions' defense. That is not the job of the Attorney General. The Attorney General's job is to be faithful to the Constitution and to the rule of law. He's been very loyal. He was the first, really for a long time, the only senator who supported the president. If you look at so much of what the president of the United States wants to accomplish on his agenda, Sessions is central to that. And they say if you do this, it will only make the questions about whether you are trying to obstruct the Russia investigation worse. This effort to

basically marginalize and humiliate the attorney general is not going over well in the Senate. I don't think it's going over well in the conservative world. If Jeff Sessions is fired, there will be holy hell to pay. Any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency, unless Mueller did something wrong. And Trump listens to that. He has terrible scar tissue from the firing of Comey. Trump himself doesn't love firing people. And Sessions survives. And on the calendar, eventually a date emerges where Trump realizes that he can get rid of Sessions. And what is that date?

The November 2018 midterm elections. And why does that date loom as a deadline after which Trump feels he can finally do what it feels he's been winding up and raring to do for months? Trump thinks he can go out and say, administrations change cabinet members after midterm elections. That's a normal thing. I'm two years into my time in office. I'm allowed to change my folks up. That will be my reason for getting rid of Sessions. And on Wednesday, just a few hours after the midterms are over, Sessions gets a call from the White House chief of staff, John Kelly. And what does Kelly say to him? Kelly says the president wants you to resign. So clearly, President Trump did not waste any time firing Sessions. And I guess I understand why the midterms offers a rationale

for doing it now. But I guess I'm still confused about why Trump feels the need to fire Sessions at all. Because in spite of this original sin, this betrayal of accusing himself, by all accounts, including yours, Sessions operates as an extremely loyal soldier, as a cabinet member who does exactly what the president wants. But what is the president's biggest preoccupation? The Russia investigation. If he can get a new attorney general in and confirmed, that attorney general will have oversight of the Russia investigation because they won't have to recuse themselves like Sessions. It will be taken out of Rosenstein's hands and given to the new appointee. Rosenstein's hands and given to the new appointee. So firing Sessions immediately restores essentially a presidential line of authority straight to Robert Mueller and the Russia investigation

by putting in someone who is not recused. And look at who Trump has put in as the acting attorney general. Instead of making Rosenstein the head of the Justice Department, he has taken Sessions' chief of staff, a guy named Matt Whitaker. You can see a scenario where Jeff Sessions is replaced with a recess appointment, and that attorney general doesn't fire Bob Mueller, but he just reduces his budget so low that his investigation grinds to almost a halt. Matt Whitaker has been a huge critic of the Mueller investigation,

going as far as in 2017, writing an op-ed for CNN entitled, Mueller's investigation of Trump is going too far. So is it possible, Mike, I think this is the question everyone is asking right now, that Jeff Sessions' successor could end the Mueller investigation? It certainly feels like that's within his power. That is the biggest question coming out of today.

What does this mean for Mueller? Does it mean business as usual? Mueller is left to take the investigation where it goes? Does it mean that Mueller's funding is cut or does it mean that Mueller is fired? We don't know. Mike, what happens to Jeff Sessions now and what kind of threat does he pose to the president given the role he has played in the entire Russia situation? Sessions was and is a chief witness against the president in the obstruction investigation. Hmm. and is a chief witness against the president in the obstruction investigation. Sessions was interviewed at length by Mueller's team earlier this year about all of the things, the efforts to get him to not recuse himself, to unrecuse himself, to fire him,

everything related to what the president did to him on the Russia investigation. Hmm. That seems especially important given what just happened on Wednesday right before Sessions was fired, which was the outcome of the midterms and the Democrats taking control of the House. Because the timing now looks quite problematic for the president. Wouldn't firing Sessions or replacing him with someone who could fire Rosenstein or even Mueller be exactly the sort of fuel that Democrats could use now that they have the majority in the House to begin an investigation or something even more extreme, like impeachment, when it comes to the president and the Russia investigation? impeachment when it comes to the president and the Russia investigation.

The Democrats already have enough to do a wide ranging obstruction investigation into the president. The question is, if Trump were to have Mueller fired and this truly was part of a larger scheme, does that push public opinion so far that the Democrats, who are sort of divided about whether they should try and impeach Trump, move more aggressively in that direction? But if Mueller is fired, isn't it the case that no one ends up seeing the result of his investigation? Or am I missing something? That is a potential outcome where Mueller's findings could be kept under wraps and from the Congress and depriving Democrats of important evidence that they would need, at least politically, to make an argument that unbiased investigators have found that the president obstructed justice. unbiased investigators have found that the president obstructed justice. That is the fear of the Democrats. But as of today, it's not the reality. And Trump could have, if he wanted to, have fired Mueller months ago and clearly doesn't think he has the political capital to do that. So is today that different? We're certainly potentially headed in a different direction.

Whatever the case is, we're in a far different place on Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump than we were in 2016 when they came together to put on red Make America Great Again hats at a rally in Alabama. Mike, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. On Wednesday night, the Department of Justice said that the acting Attorney General, Matt Whitaker, would immediately begin to oversee the special counsel investigation in place of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. But the Times reports that because Whitaker has expressed opinions about the investigation,

he could be asked by Justice Department ethics advisors to recuse himself, just as Sessions did. If that were to happen, Rosenstein would continue to be in charge of the Mueller investigation. Here's what else you need to know today. Thanks to you, tomorrow will be a new day in America. you need to know today.

Thanks to you, tomorrow will be a new day in America. On Wednesday, with almost all the votes counted from the midterm elections, Democrats gained control of 27 new seats in the House of Representatives, giving them at least a four-member majority over Republicans that may grow by 10 seats in races that have yet to be called. Today is more than about Democrats and Republicans.

It's about restoring the Constitution's checks and balances to the Trump administration. In the Senate, Republicans were on track to increase their majority by two seats, and possibly three. Perhaps, looks like, I would think, Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And I give her a lot of credit. She works very hard and she's worked long and hard. I give her a great deal of credit for what she's done and what she's accomplished. Hopefully we can all work together next year to continue delivering for the American people. That outcome prompted President Trump on Wednesday to simultaneously reach out to House Democrats with an offer of cooperation

and issue a threat of retaliation if they use their new majority to begin investigating his administration. If they start investigating you, can you compartmentalize that and still continue to work with them for the benefit of the rest of the country or are all bets off?

No. If they do that, then it's just, all it is is a warlike posture. But I'm here tonight to tell you, votes remain to be counted. There are voices that are waiting to be heard. And we believe our chance for a stronger Georgia is

just within reach. In one of the most closely watched races in the country, the Georgia governor's race, between Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp, no winner has been declared. But we cannot seize it until all voices are heard. And I promise you tonight we're going to make sure that every vote is counted. Every single vote. Kemp leads Abrams by more than 60,000 votes. But Abrams believes that there are enough uncounted ballots to force Kemp below 50% of the vote, which under Georgia law would force a runoff election. That's it for The Daily.

I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.