smaller, and dave was with caterpillar for 30-odd years. 33 years. and did a great job. they brought him in. he s been there for a short while and he wants to build it back up. dave, maybe you could say a little bit to the room and to the press about u.s. steel and where they were, where they re going and what you think of what we re going to do. thank you, mr. president. thank you very much for your leadership on this issue and also commerce secretary, thank you, sir, very much. this is vital to the interests of the united states. this is our mommy. and it s really important that we get this right. the alternatives that commerce secretary wants. we believe the leadership has shown outstanding judgment on tax reform.
this was essentially the president basically involving the nac direct to recall. and doing this all on their oernl. the announcement is not actually coming, this hastily arranged meeting. no big thewes will happen, i m just getting this. they have been concerned about this for months. frankly, were concerned before the election. they re very, very unhappy. they don t have the power for this or for guns or anything else. they are very, very unhappy. the president is essentially siding with bernie sanders, isn t he? yes, but he also made this promise to his base and that s the way he sees it. he is coming out and doing this
right? every couple days, if not every couple weeks, the president about to make another run at the attorney general. the attorney general s statement yesterday, the strongest he s ever issued, is almost a dare to the president. go for it. go for it. that would provoke a crisis. but this president, the way he talks about jeff sessions is like he can t fire him. he puts these missives out on twitter saying, ag sessions should do x, y and z. get rid of him if he isn t. well, he can t. he s saying follow up the facts. right. i think it kind of underscores the sessions statement beyond the personal implications of it, beyond the fight between the president and the attorney general. the justice department is made up of thousands of career officials. it is full of components whether it s the fbi or atf. they all work under jeff sessions, technically, and i think certainly adam perez all
i think he s feeling pretty comfortable, because as you said, they know they can t confirm someone very easily surrounded by supporters. he s got some backing on the hill that he didn t really have, and i think he feels okay. and just quickly, trump s base loves jeff sessions. they have rallied around him, the tea party base. every time he s under fire, they come to his rescue because they want him in that particular job to implement the trump agenda. and you mentioned he was more outside on capitol hill, more of a loner on capitol hill. lindsey graham has said to back off. this is a trusted colleague in alabama. interesting language defending his friend and former colleague in serving the president. i wouldn t be anybody s whipping boy because the president is saying you don t have any confidence in me. well put. and a signal, i think, to the point you both make about his relative isolation in the past. that this would be a red line,
we ve seen this before with immigrati immigration. this isn t uncommon for senator rubio to get ahead of his skis, see some polling because i believe in florida republicans weren t exactly happy. i know the gun community wasn t happy with what he said, particularly the nra and those to the right of the nra. it does feel like ease backtracking, maybe not realizing how much pushback there would be to this. the key thing here, though, going back to president trump, people on the hill know this. often in the context of these meetings, he might say all kinds of things. but the question is, what does he direct his staff to implement, to push forward? what does he put his shoulder into? i think there s no evidence yet that he s putting his shoulder into any of this, really. frankly, this morning, he tweeted and kind of backtracked a little bit. it raises real questions about