He persuaded Cliff Sims, a friend and
adviser, to sell his Alabama media outlet and take a job
directing message strategy at the White House. Sessions also influenced the selection of Peter Navarro, an
economist and friend with whom he coauthored an op-ed last
fall warning against the ``rabbit hole of globalism,'' as
director of the National Trade Council. John Weaver, a veteran GOP strategist who was a consultant
on Sessions' first Senate campaign and is now a Trump critic,
said that Sessions is at the pinnacle of power because he
shares Trump's ``1940s view of fortress America.''
``That's something you would find in an Allen Drury
novel,'' Weaver said. ``Unfortunately, there are real
consequences to this, which are draconian views on
immigration and a view of America that is insular and not an
active member of the global community.''
Inside the White House and within Sessions's alumni
network, people have taken to calling the Senator ``Joseph,''
referring to the Old Testament patriarch who was shunned by
his family and sold into slavery as a boy, only to rise
through unusual circumstances to become right hand to the
pharaoh and oversee the lands of Egypt. In a 20-year Senate career, Sessions has been isolated in
his own party, a dynamic crystallized a decade ago when he
split with President George W. Bush and the business
community over comprehensive immigration changes. In lonely speeches on the Senate floor, Sessions would
chastise ``the masters of the universe.'' He hung on his
office wall a picture of He-Man from the popular 1980s comic
book series. As he weighed a presidential run, Trump liked what he saw
in Sessions, who was tight with the constituencies Trump was
eager to rouse on the right.
``Sessions was always somebody that we had targeted,'' said
Sam Nunberg, Trump's political adviser at the time.
Keywords matched
immigration