Donald Trump suddenly has a huge Jeff Sessions problem
At a time when Donald Trump’s old pal Roger Stone is finally going on trial, and Trump’s long-hidden tax returns are on the verge of being handed over to a grand jury, another ghost from Trump’s past is suddenly coming back to haunt him. Trump’s former Attorney General Jeff Sessions is thrusting himself back into the national spotlight.
Jeff Sessions is set to announce on Thursday that he’s entering the 2020 Alabama Senate race, according to multiple major news outlets. This is the same seat that Sessions vacated when he became Attorney General. Democrat Doug Jones won the seat in a 2018 special election, but now he has to run again in 2020, which is when the seat was originally set to come up for reelection.
Here’s the thing. Because Doug Jones is a Democrat in Alabama, he’s going to have a difficult, yet feasible, shot at winning reelection in 2020 no matter who his Republican opponent ends up being. Jones’ prospects could end up coming down more to the size of the Blue Wave in 2020, and the backlash against Donald Trump at the ballot, than whether or not Jeff Sessions ends up being his opponent.
In fact we’re not even sure Jeff Sessions will survive the 2020 Republican primary process. He’s so tainted by his disastrous failed stint as Attorney General, his role in the Trump-Russia scandal, and his infamous perjury during his confirmation hearing, we won’t be shocked if the RNC tries to steer some other Republican candidate toward the nomination.
But as long as Jeff Sessions survives in the Alabama Senate race, it’ll ensure that the race receives national media attention – and it’ll ensure that Donald Trump’s ugly scandals involving Sessions keep getting dredged up by the media. That’s the last thing Trump needs right now, at a time when everything else is already falling apart for him.
