„I heard that a long time on the last campaign…“
Attorney General Jeff Sessions briefly laughed at calls for jailing Hillary Clinton on Tuesday during a speech to a group of conservative high school students.
Sessions was addressing the Turning Point USA High School Leadership Summit when students began to chant “Lock her up!” Sessions laughed and repeated the remark.
“I heard that a long time on the last campaign,” he added.
“Lock her up,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions says with a laugh as chant breaks out during high school leadership summit. https://t.co/NkJuIoh4fP pic.twitter.com/KGIErp2efz
— ABC News (@ABC) July 24,2018
Sessions was slammed by many on the left for the remark. Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said Sessions “should resign from office immediately.”
Sessions should resign from office immediately https://t.co/R8y1yOWVI6
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) July 24,2018
The Daily Beast’s Sam Stein noted the juxtaposition between the viral moment in Sessions‘ speech with the speech United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley gave to the same group the night before:
Nikki Haley took her turn at Turning Point USA to encourage attendees to do more than just “own the libs”
Sessions took his turn to laugh along with a “lock her up” chant
— Sam Stein (@samstein) July 24,2018
Haley’s speech was notable for her extensive remarks discouraging the young conservative audience from engaging in confrontational behavior on the internet to “own the libs.”
“Raise your hand if you’ve ever posted anything online to quote-unquote ‚own the libs,’” Haley said Monday, according to The Hill . “I know that it’s fun and that it can feel good, but step back and think about what you’re accomplishing when you do this — are you persuading anyone? Who are you persuading?”
“We’ve all been guilty of it at some point or another, but this kind of speech isn’t leadership — it’s the exact opposite. Real leadership is about persuasion, it’s about movement, it’s bringing people around to your point of view. Not by shouting them down, but by showing them how it is in their best interest to see things the way you do.”
Whether Sessions intended to or not, his off-the-cuff remark and laughter on Tuesday appeared to set him apart from Haley.
As noted by CNN, Sessions was asked at his 2017 confirmation hearing if he ever participated in any “Lock her up!” chants during his time with the Trump campaign in 2016.
“No, I did not. I don’t think,” he said at the time. “I heard it in rallies and so forth, sometimes I think humorously done.”
