Jeff Sessions Quotes

The American people should be the one to decide which direction the Supreme Court will go.

Frank Johnson was recognized as one of the great federal judges of American history, I suppose. He was a law-and-order judge. He was a classical, I think, conservative. But he believed that civil rights provided in the Constitution applied to everybody.

[Donald] Trump is underestimated greatly in terms of his understanding and comprehension of the great issues facing America. He understands trade. He's got businesses all over the world. He understands currency and how manipulating currency can be damaging to America.

How many thousands of lives would be saved if we enforced our immigration laws, our guns laws, and our drug laws? Public safety is not being held hostage by the 'gun lobby,' but by the open borders lobby and the anti-law enforcement lobby.

We've seen what happened in Libya, what a disaster that's been driven by Hillary Clinton, and the disaster in Syria and almost disaster in Egypt. What a close call that's been. We're not out of the woods yet with Egypt.

I told Donald Trump, 'This isn't a campaign, this is a movement.' Look at what's happening. The American people are not happy with their government.

Republican voters believe we should have a lawful system of immigration that serves the national interest. They don't believe we should enter into - commit the United States to further globalist policies that diminish the sovereignty and freedom of American to act in its own interest.

How can we vote for a bill [S.744] that our own CBO says will reduce average wages in America for 12 years, increase unemployment for 7 years, and reduce per capita GNP growth over 25 years? A bill that will admit 30 million people to permanent legal status in the next 10 years? That will dramatically increase the annual immigration flow, and will double the guest worker flow?

[Donald] Trump has made this a big issue. He's leading in Ohio. He's leading, right up there in Pennsylvania, 1-point difference, and people are responding because the people's instincts are correct. This is what I believe.

[My father ] came home from World War II and he voted for [Dwight] Eisenhower. He was pretty thoughtful about those things, but never, as I said, ever campaigned for anybody. He let me put a [Barry] Goldwater sticker on his pickup truck, but he never put a bumper sticker on his car. We never had a yard sign or anything in our yards, never contributed to anybody's campaign.

Ending the lawlessness at the border? I don't believe a fourth-generation Hispanic thinks that's evil. I don't think an African American thinks there's anything wrong with protecting their jobs for a change.

I concluded that the trade agreements weren't working as promised, and was depreciating the wages and the manufacturing base, and the jobs of Americans, and that both needed to change, and Donald Trump was out there. So I went to his rally.

I believe that President [George W.] Bush was correct. I thought that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and I supported him steadfastly, and once we committed we should see it through.

My parents, both of them had teachers in their family and were pretty well read. So my father voted for [Dwight] Eisenhower.

The massive debt we have racked up to finance our wasteful government is pulling down growth today. Gross debt over 90 percent of GDP weakens growth now. Not tomorrow - now.

If we want an international trade deal that advances the interests of our own people, then perhaps we don't need a 'fast-track' but a regular track: where the president sends us any proposal he deems worthy, and we review it on its own merits.

We represent our constituents. And so they don't get to dictate policy.

Congress has the responsibility to ensure that any international trade agreement entered into by the United States must serve the national interest, not merely the interests of those crafting the proposal in secret.

Hillary Clinton says nobody should be deported that entered illegally unless they commit a violent felony, which is an argument for open borders and American people reject that.

All soldiers who serve their country and put their lives at risk need to know that if something happens to them, their families will be well taken care of. That's the bond we have with our military men and women and their families.

We're going to create factory jobs for recent immigrants, and Donald Trump is going to take care of them. That's why his numbers, even right now, in this negative period, are holding pretty strong, because people want a leader that's going to make this country great again and have a strong economy.

The elites have become international, and they've ceased to have a primary loyalty to the nation-state.

Bin Laden, who was in his country, attacked and damaged our Pentagon, and killed our soldiers right out here at the Pentagon. But his pentagon no longer exists. It is rubble.

[Donald Trump] was a magnificent witness. The reporter, when asking me about his testimony, said, "Sessions gushed about his testimony." But it was remarkable.

Every senator needs to stand up and represent their constituents - not big business, not the ACLU, not activist groups, not political interests, but the American interests, the workers' interests.

You're not supposed to be admitted to America if you're likely to be a charge on the public - if you're going to need government aid to take care of yourself ... It [2006 immigration bill] failed because it did not do what it said it would do ... End the illegality first. Then we can wrestle with how to treat compassionately people who have been in America for a long time.

Thirty years people have been asking for a lawful system of immigration to end this lawlessness, and government on both parties have refused to give it to them.

[Donald Trump] said we're going to have a big door. He means lawful immigration will continue, but we're not going to allow the nation to be at risk in this fashion.

In retrospect there were failures enough to go around. There were failures before the storm and failures after the storm.

We've got people in the Republican Party that just believe that if you just cut taxes for corporations, and that you have more trade, and we just bring in more people from abroad, that this is going to help the average guy. Well, it's not. I mean, this is an honest dispute. We're going to have a dispute about it. The American people agree with [Donald] Trump and I agree with Trump on those things.

All the kids that I grew up with, in an almost idyllic environment - I've got to tell you, it was so wonderful - they've gone on and they're doctors and Ph.D.'s and everybody has a four-year college degree. None of our parents, I think, had a four-year degree.

As the witness testified before my Subcommittee on Immigration, that barriers magnify the ability of every Border Patrol agent to be more effective. And so if you make up your mind, you can build substantial mileage barriers. It will increase the ability of our officers to perform, and the most important thing is, it sends a message to the world, the border is closed.

Basically [I become a Republican], pretty early. I had an English teacher that got me to subscribe to the National Review.

[Ronald Reagan] appealed to that group of [working American] people and we can do it again, because they've had, now, eight years of [Barak] Obama. Things have not gone well.

We need to give them [the Justice Department] as much power as we can without eroding fundamental liberties.

The Republican Party, in many ways, grew up as a reaction to that [ segregation], and a lot of people have misunderstood that.

My advice is to listen and accept the will of the American people, the Republican voters. The Republican Party is the Republican voters, and Republican voters oppose these trade agreements more than Democrat voters do.

Marriage has been defined by every legislature that has ever sat in the United States from every State, now 50 States, the same way, but now we have unelected judges altering and changing that fundamental institution.

They [Democratic Party ] did not do what they promised to do. And we're not going to end trade - that's very important to state - but we're going to have to be more careful about it, and we have to recognize, as politicians, we don't represent some international company.

More taxes, more regulation, more Washington domination, more debt. Those things are not the future for America. They will never work.

If we can get this economy moving and quit doing the things that prohibit growth, Alabama ... can sustain that growth.

The United States has the burden to lead for peace. And not just peace - we need peace with justice, a much harder goal.

[My father] was interested. He read the newspapers and read Time and U.S. News and World Report and people in stores would come along, you know, and they would talk politics.

I certainly believe that improving our intelligence is of important national interest.

We need to be protecting American citizens who are here, out of work, and hurting today-minorities, Blacks and Whites and all colors and races that are hurting today with high unemployment, but we seem to be more focused on how we can ram through this Senate a bill that would legalize millions and create an even more robust guest worker program. There are not enough jobs now. Give me a break.

The goal of this Nation, I so strongly believe, is to be a preeminent world power. We have to understand what comes with that: The responsibility to be strong.

Honest people can disagree on policy. But where there can be no honest disagreement is the need to change our nation's debt course.

I supported the Korean Trade Agreement in 2011. They promised - when it was signed, President [Barak] Obama said it would increase our exports to Korea by $10 billion a year.That creates jobs in America.Since - last year, 2015, there was no increase, like instead of billions of dollars there was like a $100 million increase in our exports to Korea, whereas as their imports to us went up $12 billion, and our trade deficit increased 240 percent.

There's been this attempt to block Donald Trump, in primary candidates and Democrats, that - to try to make everything he says some sort of extreme overstatement.

Occasionally [Donald Trump] says things that are too strong and upsets people, and I think he'll work to do better on that.

[Donald] Trump is where the Republicans are, and if you're going to be a Republican leader you should be supportive of that.

I went to law school at Alabama and I grew up a loyal Auburn fan. I'm one of the few that wrestles with those issues sometimes, but we're really proud of them. Like the University of Alabama has almost doubled its enrollment.

I would acknowledge that [Paul] Ryan has some really good ideas about things, and I think they'll get together, like taxes. Larry Kudlow, Stephen Moore, they've been supportive of Ryan's tax view and now they're very supportive of [Donald] Trump's. So I think that's got potential.

The elite denizens of Washington and Wall Street scorn and mock the good and decent people of this country for wanting their laws enforced and their communities protected.

My father never ran for office or supported anybody for office, and was not engaged in that at all. But I think people throughout the area were just in a constant state of tension - I mean, adults.

This is a critical time in American history. [Donald's Trump] strength is willingness to stand up to political conventions, take on Republican and Democrat leaders, and, in effect, do so in defense of the legitimate interest of people who make less than median income in America, is the key to victory.

Because a person chooses to leave their home country and come to the United States does not necessarily mean they have the right to demand that their father or their other extended family members be allowed to come if they don't otherwise meet the standard.

I grew up, really, in the country.When I was a kid there were three country stores, a railroad depot, and a post office.

I would like to think that we are on a move that could be like [Ronald] Reagan. Reagan appealed to the average working American: their patriotism, their love of country, the belief in their schools and their communities and their loyalty to the military and police, and the things that create stability and a good life.

We can't do everything with a budget, but we can put the country on much sounder financial footing.

We believe that people should wait their time, and people should be able to be accepted here - over a million a year - in an orderly process, not a disorderly process, and that we should not be rewarding those who violate the law, and making even harder for those who try to comply with the law.

We were just country people. All my grandfathers had farms. They had chickens, cattle and tried to get by farming, for the most part.

I think that may have been the biggest rally Donald Trump had, and he had the cap that said "Make American Great Again." So I thought that was - I liked that. We do need to make American great again, and I put his hat on for a little bit.

I think Donald Trump is moving to - and will continue to move to the economic argument, as to why what he's doing is - represents a commitment to stand up to big business, to international corporations who favor more immigration and lower wages - that's what they favor - and a defense of the interest of the American people who go to work every day.

My father had a country store and then later, when I was 10 or 12, sold it and bought a farm equipment dealership in nearby Camden.

I think that the real future of the American party is to bring in working Americans.

We'll have a national dispute - debate about it, and the goal should be to bring in - to help respectfully appeal to those voters that can make the difference, the ones who are not going to be entrepreneurs, are never going to be - run a - be a CEO in some big business, and they know it, but they would like to have their Social Security, they would like to have Medicare as they paid for all their years, and they'd like rising wages rather than falling wages.

Amnesty will not help balance our budget ... In fact, a large-scale amnesty is likely to add trillions of dollars to the debt over time, accelerate Medicare's and Social Security's slide into insolvency and put enormous strain on our public-assistance programs.

After years of mass immigration, falling wages, and surging joblessness, isn't it time we focused on the needs of the people living here today? Isn't it time we got our own people back to work?

Good people don't smoke marijuana.

Voters are saying "I like this guy [Donald Trump]. He just might shake this place up."

The proven method for saving the lives of innocent Americans is not disarming them. The proven method for saving the lives of innocent Americans is to arrest, prosecute, convict and jail criminal offenders, especially armed career criminals illegally using guns. This is the way to reduce gun violence.

This [Gang of Eight bill (S.744)] is far, far too many low-skilled workers that are going to take jobs and pull down wages of people unemployed and underemployed right now.

I've said many times - I told William Buckley, I said, "You warped my mind and I never recovered from it." That was a principled, lawful understanding of the role of government, the Constitution. It was not based on racism, on demagoguery, but on strong principles that - which, consistent with the American heritage and our strength for the future.

Even moderates, they can see in Trump the potential to have logjams broken and things finally get done. This makes some conservatives and some liberals furious, nervous, and me nervous a little bit, because I'm a pretty pure conservative. So that's a potential of his leadership.

Encouraging self-sufficiency must be a bedrock for our immigration policy, with the goal of reducing poverty, strengthening the family, and promoting our economic values. But Administration officials and their policies are working actively against this goal.

He [Donald Trump] is been bold. He's been bold on building a wall.

Donald Trump foreign policy speech got good reviews, and it says we're going to defeat the people who are direct threats to us, but we're going to be a lot more cautious about getting involved in long-term, Wilsonian adventures.

I think we have a high responsibility to base any criticisms that we have on a fair and honest statement of the facts, and that nominees should not be subjected to distortions of their record, taking things they've done out of context.

I've had very little negative pushback. I think people in the Senate know that I have believed, for a number of years, and have been outspoken that we need to listen to what the American people are telling us, and we need to focus more on the well-being of people who make lower wages, $50,000 and below.

I think it's an honorable thing that Donald Trump is doing.

I liked Donald's Trump speech on foreign policy. What he's showing is that his fundamental views are solid, and that there's an intellectual basis for this, an economic basis for what he's saying, and that can lead him to victory.

In my class was an Annapolis graduate, several engineers, and most recent president of the University of Alabama.These were all small-town people who had good values. The families were tight. The schools reaffirmed the families and reaffirmed the church values that you were taught. I guess it was just one of those swell times to be a part of.

The largest untapped constituency in American politics are the 300 million American citizens who have been completely left out of the immigration debate.

Coming out of the anti - coming out of the Republican heritage of Abraham Lincoln, Frank Johnson could see it more clearly than Alabamians would, which led to the big confrontations between Frank Johnson and George Wallace.

People react not very wisely sometimes.

The job of elected officials is to answer to the people who sent them to Washington - not to scorn them, not to demean them, not to mock them, and not to sell their jobs and dreams to the highest bidder.

[Donald] Trump is going to appeal better to African Americans, Hispanics, and others than previous Republican candidates because he's talking about what they want: a fair chance to have a better life economically.

Instead of engaging on the merits and saying, "Well, we want an open border, you know, we really do," and that's all good for America because they know the people will reject that, they [the elites] attack Donald Trump as an extremist, which I think is unfair.

I just don't think there's that many people who think it's wrong to have control on our borders. That's not racism. It's not racism to question some of the political correctness today that's going on, to recognize that things are going as well as - for American workers, as they'd like, because people, their frustration is arising from a deep sense of unease that Washington is fiddling while their house is burning.

The Senate cannot confirm an individual ... who would support a scheme that violates our Constitution, eviscerates congressional authority.

I will not vote for - and no senator should vote for - anyone who will not render justice impartially.

Donald Trump believed that the whole history of trade agreements, most of which I've supported over the years, have not been effective, and I've come to believe he's right.

We're going to build a wall. Donald Trump never said it's going to go from one end of the country, from the Gulf to the Pacific, and he'll use good judgment about that. And there are ways, through tax and regulation policies, that we can - and immigrant fees - that this could be paid for. I have not studied the details of it but, absolutely, I think that is possible.