Jeff Sessions laughs at “lock her up” chants, briefly repeats the line

Attorney General Jeff Sessions seemed to get quite the kick out of high school students chanting, “Lock her up!” at a leadership conference in Washington, DC, on Tuesday. So much so that he decided to repeat the chant himself for a second.

The former US senator from Alabama was speaking at Turning Point USA’s High School Leadership Summit on Tuesday about defending the Constitution and the rights it protects when a chant of “lock her up” broke out. The refrain became a familiar one during the 2016 presidential campaign as a call for then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton to be jailed, and it’s continued to pop up at conservative events and rallies since the election.

Sessions laughed as the students began chanting, and at one point repeated the line himself. “Lock her up,” he said. “I heard that a long time on the last campaign.”

That Sessions, the United States’ top law enforcement officer, would so lightheartedly approach calls for the jailing of one of the president’s political opponents is disturbing, or at the very least, in bad taste.

His reaction garnered swift criticism on Twitter.

As the Washington Post points out, Sessions as the head of the Justice Department has resisted calls to investigate Clinton, including over her use of a private email server as secretary of state. He has rejected calls for a special counsel to probe Clinton.

Sessions also took a swipe at college student “snowflakes”

During the same speech on Tuesday, the 71-year-old Sessions criticized universities for “coddling” young people and said schools were silencing conservative voices to create a “generation of sanctimonious, sensitive, supercilious snowflakes,” adopting lines of critique many Republicans use to argue that college campuses are too accommodating, specifically, to liberal-leaning students and ideas.

“Well, I can tell this group isn’t going to have to have Play-Doh when you get attacked in college and you get involved in a debate,” Sessions said, per CNN. “I like this bunch, I gotta tell you. You’re not going to be backing down. Go get ’em. Go get ’em.”

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley in a speech ahead of Sessions at the same event on Tuesday took a different approach.

She encouraged students to avoid online behavior meant to “own the libs,” meaning making comments or taking actions meant specifically to upset or anger liberal-leaning people. “I know that it’s fun and that it can feel good, but step back and think about what you’re accomplishing when you do this — are you persuading anyone? Who are you persuading?” she asked, according to a report from the Hill. “We’ve all been guilty of it at some point or another, but this kind of speech isn’t leadership — it’s the exact opposite.”

She and Sessions may want to have a chat.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via