VESTAVIA HILLS – Former United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions brought his campaign for the Senate to the Mid-Alabama Republican Club (MARC) meeting at the Vestavia Hills Library on Saturday morning.

The room, designed to seat around 100 people, was filled to capacity with a few dozen people forced to stand in the back.

The energy for Sessions in the room generally appeared positive, and he took the mic to a standing ovation. The crowd appeared unswayed by various printouts of articles about President Donald Trump criticizing Sessions that were dropped throughout the room before the meeting.

Near the beginning of his remarks Sessions knocked the Obama administration for its handling of law enforcement issues. “You don’t know just how bad it was for police officers, particularly in liberal states and big cities… The previous administration was saying things about law enforcement that was stupid — that were guaranteed to undermine their effectiveness on the street.”

“I traveled to 40 states.” Sessions said of his many meetings with law enforcement officers while he was attorney general. “I told them, we have your back, you have our thanks.”

Sessions spoke with a fondness for the conservative Republican party, which the 73-year-old has belonged to for the entirety of his adult life. Apparent too, were the many bonds Sessions has formed with Alabama Republicans over his decades in public office. Alabama Supreme Court Justice Mike Bolin, who was in attendance on Saturday morning, is a former Jeff Sessions campaign chairman. Sessions also spoke fondly of State Representative Jim Carns (R-Mountain Brook) and State Senator Jabo Waggoner (R-Vestavia), both of  whom he described as friends and “great patriots.”

“I believe steadfastly, that if this Republican Party will welcome the new voters Donald Trump identified and brought in, and make them a part of our party enthusiastically, we can have a working Republican conservative majority in America for a decade, maybe two decades,” Sessions advised.

“If we don’t do that,” he warned, “If we don’t welcome them, if we have our nose in the air and spend too much time on Wall Street and on Silicon Valley… then we will make a classic mistake.”

“We will have to push some of our Republican leaders,” Sessions added ruefully.

“I have led the battle three different times, we defeated three different amnesty bills,” Sessions said of his famously aggressive stance against illegal immigration and against forgiving illegal immigrants while he was Alabama’s junior senator from 1997-2017.

“We are for immigration in America but it ought to be lawful,” he noted.

“We’re not telling them we’re going to go into Afghanistan and create a democratic state there,” added Sessions when touching on foreign policy.

“These things require judgment. I’ll never again,” he said before pausing, “I’ll be much more cautious when we have that kind of thing in the future,” he said about conflicts in the Middle East. “We don’t have to take over countries and try to run the world.”

His statements could be interpreted as representing an evolution of opinion on foreign policy for the longtime official. Sessions voted for the Iraq War and spoke favorably of spreading American ideals around the world at a rally in 2005.

Sessions heaped praise on President Trump for ordering the death of Iranian General/recognized terrorist Qassem Soleimani, specifically mentioning the precise, targeted nature of the strike.

“Nancy Pelosi, the constitution says the Senate will conduct the trial, not the House,” Sessions proclaimed to applause when he turned to impeachment.

“The American people are going to say ‘Is that all there is? You don’t have a single crime you’re accusing him of?’” Sessions quipped on what he predicts will happen upon the start of the impeachment trial.

“Many of them are so secular, so modern, they don’t even believe in right and wrong,” Sessions said in his appraisal of modern Democrats.

Around two-thirds of the way through his remarks, Sessions got to one of the key aspects of his campaign: being the first senator to endorse Donald Trump. “Wasn’t I right?” he asked the crowd about his early pick for the presidency in 2016.

“This man is our leader,” Sessions declared with pride.

“We just have to be strong. Not let the globalists, not let certain special interests weaken and undercut his legs so he can’t be firm in negotiations,” Sessions said while touching on trade.

Predictably, Sessions leveled heavy criticism against the current occupant of his old Senate seat: Senator Doug Jones (D-AL).

“He needs to be removed, he is part of the left-wing judiciary crowd, he voted against Kavanaugh, he defended Nancy Pelosi’s decision not to send the impeachment over,” Sessions remarked.

Sessions summed up his thoughts on Jones, “He is not one of us, he is one of them.”

“I’m ready to give it my best, Lord willing we’ll do so,” Sessions said in his conclusion.

REACTIONS

“We had a great crowd here today, and I think it shows the enthusiasm that everyone wants to get behind the nominee, whoever that might be, to beat Doug Jones,” commented outgoing MARC president Paul DeMarco, a former state representative in Alabama House District 46.

Incoming MARC president Steve Ammons added, “All the candidates have the people of Alabama’s interests at heart.”

Longtime Alabama conservative activist Greg Fanin, who is running himself to be Trump delegate to the 2020 RNC, said after the meeting that he planned to vote for Sessions. “As an injured combat veteran hurt in Iraq in 2006 it was Senator Sessions’ office who was instrumental in helping me battle the VA. For that reason, me and my family are going to vote for Senator Sessions.”

Sessions’ speech didn’t sway everyone in the room. One MARC member, Randy Mazer, said he was still “sitting on the fence” when it came to which Senate candidate had his vote. Another citizen, who asked Yellowhammer News not mention his name, said he would be voting for U.S. Representative Bradley Byrne (AL-02).

Terry Chapman, an uncommitted voter in the room, said, “I was impressed by how well-spoken,” Sessions had been. “It is interesting how he made such a strong case that we shouldn’t vote for Doug Jones,” Chapman added.

Joe Fuller, one of the longest-tenured members of MARC, praised Sessions, saying with a smile, “He doesn’t give speeches, he just talks about what’s on his mind.”

Sessions, Byrne, former Auburn University head football coach Tommy Tuberville, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore and State Rep. Arnold Mooney (R-Indian Springs) are battling for the GOP Senate nomination on Alabama’s March 3 primary ballot.

Henry Thornton is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him by email: [email protected] or on Twitter @HenryThornton95.