The White House says President Donald Trump has regained “confidence” in Attorney General Jeff Sessions, following reports this week of a rift between the two men.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House deputy press secretary, told reporters during an off-camera press briefing Thursday that she had a “conversation” with Trump about the matter on Wednesday.
“The president has confidence in all of his Cabinet,” Sanders said.
Rumors of tension between Trump and Sessions mounted after The New York Times reported Monday that the attorney general offered to resign amid the president’s growing frustration with his performance.
Trump reportedly blames Sessions for the escalation of an FBI probe into ties between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russian officials, claiming the attorney general’s decision to recuse himself from the investigation was “needless.”
Sanders’ statement comes just two days after press secretary Sean Spicer refused to comment on whether Trump had confidence in Sessions.
“I don’t have a comment on that,” Spicer told reporters during a press briefing Tuesday. “I have not had that discussion with [Trump], and if I haven’t had a discussion about a subject, I tend not to speak about it.”
One theory as to why Trump’s spokespeople were mum on the topic was the recollection of what happened in February when senior counselor Kellyanne Conway expressed the president’s confidence in national security adviser Michael Flynn. He was fired hours later.
Conway’s response about Flynn and his subsequent firing followed a pattern of inconsistent messaging that has become common from the Trump White House.
On Monday, both Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to the president, and Conway attempted to downplay the significance of Trump’s tweets.
“It’s not policy,” Gorka told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “It’s not an executive order. It’s social media.”
Conway echoed Gorka’s position on NBC’s “Today” show, claiming the media has “an obsession” with covering Trump’s tweets.
But Spicer contradicted his colleagues Tuesday when he told reporters that Trump’s tweets are “official statements by the president of the United States.”
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