President Trump’s reelection campaign sent a letter to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions demanding that he stop linking himself to his ex-boss as he tries to win back his old Senate seat in Alabama.
The Trump campaign sent the letter Tuesday after Sessions distributed a campaign mailer that mentioned the president nearly two dozen times. The campaign said Sessions’s claim that he is the president’s top supporter was “delusional.”
“The Trump campaign has learned that your U.S. Senate campaign is circulating mailers like the one I have enclosed, in which you misleadingly promote your connections to and ‘support’ of President Trump,” wrote Michael Glassner, the campaign’s chief operating officer.
Trump endorsed former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, who is competing against Sessions in a runoff election slated for July 14. The winner of the runoff will face Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in the general election. The president refrained from endorsing any candidate in the Republican primary, even as the candidates fought over who was more loyal to the president.
Sessions has continued to invoke Trump after the Tuberville endorsement.
“The enclosed letter and donor form in fact mention President Trump by name 22 times. The letter even makes the delusional assertion that you are President ‘Trump’s #1 supporter,’” Glassner wrote.
“We only assume your campaign is doing this to confuse President Trump’s loyal supporters in Alabama into believing the president supports your candidacy in the upcoming primary runoff election. Nothing could be further from the truth,” he continued. “President Trump and his campaign do not support your efforts to return to the U.S. Senate.”
Gail Gitcho, a spokeswoman for Sessions’s campaign, told the New York Times the mailer was created before Trump endorsed Tuberville.
“Alabamans don’t like to be told what to do,” she said, adding, “They have shown that repeatedly. Washington told them to vote for Luther Strange over Roy Moore, they disobeyed. Washington told them to vote for Roy Moore over Doug Jones, they disobeyed. They are a hardheaded and independent lot.”
Gitcho said Sessions “is indeed one of the strongest supporters of President Trump and his agenda,” and “no one can change that.”
Sessions was ousted in late 2018 after Trump repeatedly disparaged him about his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, which led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.
