\n\n“Trump has spent years pillorying Sessions, the first U.S. senator to endorse his presidential run, for Sessions\u2019 2017 decision as attorney general to recuse himself from overseeing the FBI probe into potential connections between Russia and Trump\u2019s 2016 campaign. In angry barrages before and after Sessions resigned in November 2018, the president has called him \u201cscared stiff,\u201d \u201cslime,\u201d \u201ca disaster\u201d and \u201cnot mentally qualified\u201d to be the country\u2019s top prosecutor. (Sessions\u2019 campaign did not respond to requests for comment for this article, nor did Tuberville\u2019s.) Choosing Sessions as attorney general, Trump said in a 2019 interview, was the \u201cbiggest mistake\u201d of his presidency\u2014a decision many Republicans, including in Alabama, believe built up momentum not only for the Mueller investigation but also for Trump\u2019s impeachment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRecusing himself from his duties and helping the Democrats\u2014that was enough,\u201d says Jasper resident Johnny Burnette, who supported Sessions in prior campaigns but says he now plans to vote for Tuberville. \u201cI like Jeff, but he messed up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Flowers, who switched from a Democrat to Republican in the early 1990s, told me he attended a Rotary Club meeting soon after Trump first started attacking Sessions. \u201cPeople were vitriolic,\u201d he recalls. \u201cIt was ugly, mean-spirited.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis constant drubbing from the president \u2026 painted a picture of [Sessions] being untrustworthy and weak,\u201d adds Robert Blanton, chair of the department of political science and public administration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. \u201cHe has been unable to emerge from the shadow of Trump\u2019s criticisms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sessions\u2019 old school politics of gentility and his staunch conservative track record\u2014which worked for him here for decades\u2014may not be able to withstand that onslaught.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n