“I think [Ryan] needs to recognize, on some of these issues, Trump is where the Republicans are and if you’re going to be a Republican leader you should be supportive of that,” Sessions told me during a taping of POLITICO’s “Off Message” podcast in his Senate office last week.

“My advice is to listen and accept the will of the American people, the Republican voters – the Republican Party is the Republican voters,” he added – a pointed reference to Ryan’s suggestion that he, and not the presumptive party nominee, represents authentic conservative values. “Give me a break! A lot of our drift within our party has gotten away from [the will of the voters] … I think the leaders in all parties tend to adjust to reality. They just have to or they won’t remain in office … Already many are sensing it.”…

The core argument many mainstream Republicans make against Trump is that the extremity of his language and the impracticality if his proposals will render him unelectable, no matter how well he’s fared in recent polls. Sessions argues against that – but the foundation of his argument is that everything-except-Trump has already failed, so why not give the people what they want?

“Romney didn’t get beyond the numbers,” Sessions explained. “He couldn’t get 50 percent. Romney got killed by the under-$50,000-a-year income voter. He just got killed in that. You cannot win. You cannot be president of the United States if people below $50,000 don’t think you care about them and you have no real communication that motivates them to vote for you. And that’s the trend we’ve been on, and Trump has broken that.”