Trump flatly denies calling Jeff Sessions a 'dumb Southerner'
In Bob Woodward's explosive new White House chronicle, Fear, he writes that President Trump called Attorney General Jeff Sessions a "traitor" for recusing himself in the Russia investigation, adding: "This guy is mentally retarded. He's this dumb Southerner. ... He couldn't even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama." Trump issued a broad denial on Tuesday evening, clarifying that "being a Southerner is a GREAT thing."
"I'm a Southerner, people can judge my intellect, my IQ, by my product and what I produce rather than what somebody else says," Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) told The Washington Post. "We're a pretty smart bunch. We lost the Civil War, but I think we're winning the economic war since then." Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) told the Post he thinks "the president's probably got a lot of respect for the South, I hope so. He did well there. Without the South he wouldn't be the president of the United States." Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) called Sessions a "smart Southerner" and said Trump's reported comments are "not at all appropriate. It's totally inappropriate."
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