GOP senator: Trump doesn’t expect Obama to resign

by Jordain Carney - 06/14/16 2:04 PM ET

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) says Donald Trump’s call for President Obama to resign was just the way he expresses himself.

“He doesn’t expect President Obama to resign, but he’s saying you can’t do this job effectively if you don’t understand the nature of the threat we’re facing,” Sessions, Trump’s biggest supporter in the Senate, said Tuesday.

{mosads}The presumptive GOP presidential nominee on Sunday said Obama “should step down” from the presidency for not using the term “radical Islam” in the aftermath of the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando.

Sessions said Trump was criticizing Obama’s policies and that voters understood that “that’s just his way of expressing [himself].”

Trump’s response to the Orlando shooting has drawn criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, who are distancing themselves from his proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) broke with Trump on Tuesday, saying he doesn’t believe the ban is “in our country’s best interest.”

Sessions, however, brushed aside the latest split, saying Ryan has been “one of the most ardent proponents of expanding immigration.”

Tags Donald Trump Jeff Sessions Paul Ryan