Admitting he quit reading President Donald Trump’s tweets “quite a long time ago,” Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) dismissed the President’s most recent Twitter attack against the attorney general, saying he doesn’t think it’s possible to bully Jeff Sessions because he’s an “adult.”
“I don’t think he’s bullying. For one thing, I don’t think you can bully Jeff Sessions. Adults don’t— I don’t feel bullied. I have people object to me and chant at me and do all sorts of things to me. I don’t feel bullied by it,” he said Tuesday on CNN. “If you were to ask Jeff Sessions, I’m pretty sure he’d say I don’t feel bullied by this either.”
Stewart’s defense of Sessions comes after a wave of public attacks from the President in the past week. Trump has said he wouldn’t have hired Sessions if he’d known the attorney general would recuse himself from investigations into Russia meddling in the election. He also bashed him on Twitter two mornings in a row, calling Sessions “beleaguered” and “weak” for not investigating Hillary Clinton, his former presidential opponent.
Stewart said people shouldn’t put so much weight in the President’s Twitter presence.
“I don’t pay that much attention to (the tweets) and I recommend other people not pay a whole lot of attention to them because it’s not policy. … Look, there’s a lot of different ways we communicate with our constituents, some more serious and official than others,” he said. “I’m just saying you’ve got to realize this President communicates differently than other presidents and that every tweet isn’t national policy and that every tweet doesn’t necessarily mean something as dramatic as it may sound.”
He said he doesn’t know what will come from the President’s attacks against Sessions, but said he hopes he doesn’t push the attorney general out.
“I think Jeff Sessions has shown he’s loyal. I think he’s shown he’s very capable. … I think he is a good man,” Stewart said. “So, I hope that he continues to serve. Now, we could go back and forth on how important or meritorious these tweets are and maybe we’ll just agree to disagree. We just don’t know what the President may be intending to do.”