republicans. mitch mcconnell views this race as an insurance policy against some of the more difficult battleground races where republicans are going to struggle this time around. >> because doug jones, in the context of roy moore and the egregious allegations against him, was an unlikely democratic win there and now has to run just two years later. matt miller, in the world of the senate, jeff sessions, there's a lot of fondness for jeff sessions among his democratic colleagues. but the improbable thing about this is he was one of the most loyal cabinet members. he went hard on it, the separation of children, the other immigration crackdowns that the president wanted, he went along with enthusiastically, that was his mission. but that one issue, of course, is recusing himself which he could not avoid doing given his conflicts on the russia issue which of course led to robert mueller. >> yeah, he really had no choice, as ruth said, it was a clear regulation, he had to recuse himself, there was no option, it wasn't an area where