President Trump on Friday was noncommittal about endorsing his former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, in his bid to retake his old Senate seat in Alabama.
“Well I haven’t gotten involved. I saw he said very nice things about me last night. But we’ll have to see,” Trump told reporters before departing the White House for events in Georgia.
“I haven’t made a determination,” he added, noting that Sessions has “tough competition” in the Alabama Senate race.
{mosads}Sessions on Thursday night officially entered the GOP primary field in a bid to take on Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.). The Alabama Republican held that seat from 1997 until 2017, when Trump tapped him to serve as his first attorney general.
But Sessions endured a rocky tenure in Trump’s Cabinet starting weeks after he formally joined the administration when he recused himself from overseeing the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump in subsequent months repeatedly excoriated Sessions on Twitter and in interviews over the decision, and reportedly mocked his attorney general in private.
But in Thursday’s campaign launch, Sessions appealed directly to Trump by praising his accomplishments and noting that he has not spoken out against the president since his ouster.
Sessions resigned at Trump’s request the day after the 2018 midterm elections.
He joins an already crowded primary field of Senate GOP candidates in Alabama that includes Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) and former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville.
Sessions told Fox News on Thursday that he had not yet spoken directly to Trump about the Senate bid.
The White House has remained publicly neutral about Sessions’s comeback bid, despite Trump’s known animus toward him.
Vice President Pence and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway were both asked Thursday about Sessions and gave similar answers that steered clear of any endorsement.
“We’ll let the people of Alabama make that decision,” Pence said.