Jeff Sessions kicks off Senate run by relentlessly sucking up to president who fired him

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who served as a senator for Alabama before being appointed, is now running to reclaim that seat in 2020 — and he is out with an ad buttering up President Donald Trump.

Which, noted MSNBC's Chris Hayes, is distinctly odd to watch, given that Trump despises him.

"Sessions has one big problem, the president hates his guts, just hates him. And he hates him because just about the only thing that Jeff Sessions did right as attorney general was to recuse himself from the Russia investigation over his contacts with the Russian ambassador. And ever since then, Trump has blamed Sessions for his plight. Announcing his candidacy just minutes ago, Sessions released an ad seemingly targeted to a man who is not an Alabama voter, but could have a huge impact on his campaign."

"Did I write a tell-all book? No. Did I go on CNN and attack the president? Nope. Have I said a cross word about our president? Not one time," said Sessions in the ad. "The president's doing a great job for America and Alabama, and he has my strong support."

"That's the ad," said Hayes. "Now, that is probably, I'm just guessing, not going to appease the president. NBC news reports it has been made clear to Sessions that Trump intends to campaign against him. According to the Washington Post, Trump has even joked to senators and White House aides that he would move to Alabama and compete against Sessions himself in the primary, which would be weird and, I guess, interesting. So now the question is, will the president go to war against perhaps the person most likely to carry the state for Republicans?"

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