Trump mistreats native son Jeff Sessions, Alabama GOP says
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — President Donald Trump finds some of his strongest support in Alabama, but his public flogging of Attorney General Jeff Sessions is dismaying Republicans who consider the conservative stalwart a home state hero.
Trump’s near-daily Twitter humiliation of Sessions, an apparent effort to force him to quit, is putting party members in awkward positions. Only weeks remain before a special primary election for the U.S. Senate seat Sessions vacated to become the nation’s top law enforcer. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem so harmonious to simultaneously cheer for the president and Alabama’s native son.
“You just don’t treat people like this,” Joe Akin, a 79-year-old engineer and Trump voter in Birmingham, said after turning off his TV in frustration.
“If you want to have a discussion with someone, you do it across the conference table, you don’t get on Facebook or whatever,” Akin said. “There’s an awful lot of things I like about Trump, but he’s got to learn he’s not running his own business.”