Vice President Joe Biden, who led the fight against Jeff Sessions in the 1980s when he was nominated to be a federal judge, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday’s edition of State of the Union that he would accept Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) as Attorney General under President Donald Trump.
“[M[y general rule is, the president gets to choose who he wants or she wants for their cabinet members unless either they are taking over the job with the express purpose of not enforcing the law in that area … So within bounds, the president should get the person that they want for that job, as long as they commit, under oath, that they are going to uphold the law,” Biden said.
He said that he might not support President-elect Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency — Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt — because he seemed opposed to enforcing some of the existing environmental regulations.
“[T]he new guy, I don’t know him at all, the EPA,” Biden said. “Well, if he’s going not to enforce the Clean Air and Clean Water act, in the name of jobs, then that’s not a guy you vote for.”
However, he said, Sessions seemed to want to enforce the law. Biden said he would wait to see what Sessions said in his confirmation hearings in the Senate before making his final decision about the Attorney General nominee, but that his mind remained open, despite having opposed him for the federal bench.
At the time, Sessions faced opposition over allegations of racially insensitive comments — allegations Sessions denies. Biden told Tapper that he was not concerned about the old allegations: “I wouldn’t have appointed Jeff, but, you know people learn, people change.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, is available from Regnery through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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