(July 14, exclusive interview) Jeff Sessions is a class act.
The former U.S. attorney general lost big in his political comeback attempt for the U.S. Senate from Alabama, but he never lost his moorings, his principles, or his dignity.
At the exact moment the polls were closing, before the results were known, Sessions sat down with me for 15 minutes. Before I could ask a single question, he had some things he wanted to say.
Basically, it was a litany of Sessions’s by-now-familiar advocacy of restrictive immigration policies and a policy of targeted tariffs rather than purely free trade. The way he lays it out, it’s as if he is still trying to persuade people, to win the debate — and also to show that his positions are well-thought-out and coherent. It was a disquisition, not a series of tag lines.
Also, though, it was a paean to what he sees as the common sense of the majority of Americans. He says he is sure they believe as he does.
“The American people are right,” he said. “They have concluded that massive immigration does not serve the national interest. They believe a trade policy that rejects any tariffs no matter how great the provocation from competing nations does not protect American manufacturing and jobs. They believe China is a particularly dangerous competitor and even a strategic threat. They also think we’ve been too quick to deploy our military forces around the globe in order to further the ideal vision of a democratic world — and it hasn’t worked.”
And so on. One may not agree with all of this — I certainly have at least partially different views — but the sense Sessions gives is of a man thoroughly earnest, thoroughly convinced his ideas are right for the United States. …
Finally, I asked, since he didn’t know the outcome yet, how did he feel about this wild ride he has so famously been on, going from the most popular official in Alabama to the first, bold endorser of Trump, to a man trying to make a huge comeback after that very same Trump denounced him at every turn despite Sessions’s own continuing loyalty to the administration?
Answered Sessions: “I have not had a problem recognizing that the people are going to make a choice, and they owe me nothing. Nothing! They are making a choice about who they want to do the job in the future.”….
[This is only half the interview. Please read the full column for the rest of the thoughts of this extremely sincere, earnest, honest, and gracious man.]
