President Donald Trump left his attorney general to 'twist in the wind' on Tuesday afternoon as he refused to say whether he would fire Jeff Sessions.

'We will see what happens,' Trump said in a Rose Garden news conference. 'Time will tell. Time will tell.'

Trump ducked the question twice during the presser before he finally addressed the friction between himself and the cabinet secretary he'd called 'weak' at the start of the day.

The president criticized Sessions for his recusal in the Russia probe and said once more that he would not have appointed him had he known about the conflict.

'I told you before, I'm very disappointed with the attorney general,' Trump said from the podium.

President Donald Trump left his attorney general to 'twist in the wind' on Tuesday afternoon when he refused to say whether he would fire Jeff Sessions

'We will see what happens,' Trump said in a Rose Garden news conference. 'Time will tell. Time will tell'

The president criticized Sessions for his recusal in the Russia probe and said once more that he would not have appointed him had he known about the conflict

Trump had just spoken to The Wall Street Journal about the conflict with Sessions. He told that news publication's reporters that he was still assessing the situation.

'I’m just looking at it,' he said. 'I’ll just see. It’s a very important thing.'

After a Bloomberg reporter asked at the presser why he's allowing Sessions to 'sort of twist in the wind,' Trump replied, 'Well, I don't think I am doing that, but I am disappointed in the attorney general.

'He should not have recused himself almost immediately after he took office. And if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me prior to taking office, and I would have quite simply picked somebody else.

'So I think that's a bad thing – not for the president, but for the presidency. I think it's unfair for the presidency, and that's the way I feel.'

Sessions was one of Trump's earliest supporters on Capitol Hill and the first sitting senator to get behind him. The Alabama lawmaker was rewarded in the transition with a plum cabinet appointment.

Trump, who regularly complains about the fidelity of the people around him and is said to have demanded a pledge of loyalty from former FBI director James Comey before he fired him, said Tuesday that Sessions' backing last year was no longer of significance to him.

'It’s not like a great loyal thing about the endorsement,' Trump told The Wall Street Journal. 'I’m very disappointed in Jeff Sessions.'

Trump's attack on Sessions for not investigating his presidential rival in the race followed a pattern that intensified earlier this month with a harsh criticism of the attorney general in an interview with The New York Times

Sessions endorsed Trump at a rally in August 2015 rally in Alabama that local authorities first tallied at 40,000 attendees and revised downward to 30,000 hours afterward.

Trump claimed Tuesday that Sessions offered his endorsement because the crowd was so large.

'He was a senator from Alabama. I won the state by a lot, massive numbers. A lot of the states I won by massive numbers. But he was a senator, he looks at 40,000 people and he probably says, "What do I have to lose?" And he endorsed me,' Trump asserted.

Trump unleashed on Sessions on Tuesday morning for his 'VERY weak' position on Hillary Clinton's emails and the leaks of classified information coming from inside the administration.

He also went after lawmakers on Capitol Hill for the 'witch hunt' probes into Russian collusion that he believes have become unfairly far-reaching.

'Jared Kushner did very well yesterday in proving he did not collude with the Russians,' Trump said of his son-in-law's performance on Monday. 'Witch Hunt.'

White House staffers hinted afterward in interviews that Sessions' days as attorney general could be numbered.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said shortly after Trump's tweets that Sessions is the attorney general 'right now' and it would be up to the president to decide whether to replace him.

'I know that he is certainly frustrated and disappointed in the Attorney General for recusing himself,' she said. 'That frustration certainly hasn’t gone away.'

In another bad sign for Sessions, Trump's new communications director Anthony Scaramucci – who has said the president and the AG need to get together to discuss their differences – spoke of a 'tension' between them after being asked if Trump wants Sessions 'gone.'

'I do know the president very well, and if there’s this level of tension in the relationship, that that’s public, then you're probably right,' Scaramucci told radio host Hugh Hewitt on his show, when asked if Trump wants to fire Sessions.

He added, 'I don't want to speak for the president on that because he's a cabinet official, and I sort of think that has to be between the president of the United States and the cabinet official.'

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, ducked when the topic came up during a mid-morning interview on Fox News. 'That is up to the president,' she said.

'But Sarah is right, the president has expressed frustration and consternation because the recusal really has allowed this, what he considers to a witch hunt and hoax, a complete nothing of a Russia investigation, to carry forward,' Conway added.

President Trump had ignored reporters' questions about the status of his attorney general during an Oval Office sit down with the prime minister of Lebanon and a bilateral meeting that followed on Tuesday afternoon.

It was not nearly as easy for him to wiggle out of the conversation during his news conference this afternoon. It still took reporters three tries to get an answer, though, and Trump declined to say in the end what he might do with Sessions.

'I want the attorney general to be much tougher on the leaks from intelligence agencies, which are leaking like rarely have they ever leaked before at a very important level. These are intelligence agencies. We cannot have that happen,' he said. 'I think that's one of the very important things that they have to get on with.'

'We all serve at the pleasure of the president, and I think the president has expressed his frustration that the, that particular recusal was done without consulting him and was done in a way that has led to a lot of investigations,' Kellyanne Conway said of Sessions today

Trump suggested in his interview with the Wall Street Journal that the leaks are coming from supporters of Hillary Clinton.

'They've lost an election and they came up with this as an excuse,' he said. 'And the only ones that are laughing are the Democrats and the Russians. And if Jeff Sessions didn’t recuse himself, we wouldn’t even be talking about this subject.'

Trump snarked on Tuesday morning that his 11-year-old son could be next on the witness stand after Kushner the way the probe is playing out on Capitol Hill.

Kushner spoke to Senate investigators yesterday after disclosing four contacts with Russians during the election and presidential transition. The senior White House official was back on the Hill today to take questions from lawmakers in the House.

Typically, the president defers to the Justice Department to prosecute crimes and keeps criminal investigations at arm's length. It is even more unusual for a president to scold the top Senate-confirmed law enforcement officer for failing to prosecute a political rival.

Yet he tweeted this morning: 'Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers!'

Sessions was at the White House Monday but he and Trump did not meet, Huckabee Sanders said. Trump brought two other Eagle Scout cabinet officers to his speech to the Boy Scout jamboree that evening but did not bring Sessions.

Conway said Trump blames Sessions for the explosion of Russia investigations during an appearance this morning on Fox News.

'We all serve at the pleasure of the president, and I think the president has expressed his frustration that the, that particular recusal was done without consulting him and was done in a way that has led to a lot of investigations,' she said.

She dodged anchor Shannon Bream's question about whether Trump should fire Sessions but commented on the Fox host's suggestion that the dismissal would invite allegations that the president, who's already been accused of obstruction of justice by Democrats, is trying to interfere in a criminal investigation.

'We're allowing these investigations to play out, meaning we're not interfering with them. But good lord, what are they about? What are we doing here?' Conway said.

'They've been going on for 9 months. I could have had a baby by now, and you've got Democrats still having a canary and nothing to show for it.'

Trump was up in arms this morning about Sessions, Clinton and the Russia probes.

In another tweet, he mentioned 'Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign' and tagged Fox News's Sean Hannity.

'Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign - 'quietly working to boost Clinton.' So where is the investigation A.G. @seanhannity,' he wrote in a tweet published at 6:04 am that referenced Ukraine's compliance with a Democratic effort to bring down one of Trump's former campaign managers.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said shortly after Trump's tweets on Tuesday that Sessions is the attorney general 'right now' and it would be up to the president to decide whether to replace him.

Trump added: 'Problem is that the acting head of the FBI & the person in charge of the Hillary investigation, Andrew McCabe, got $700,000 from H for wife!'

He did not give any context for his tweet on Ukraine, simply mentioning Hannity.

The Fox News host spoke of a months old Politico article on 'Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire' earlier this month.

Politico reported earlier this year that the Ukrainian government preferred Clinton over Trump in the presidential election and was eager to help a Ukrainian-American consultant to the DNC who was reportedly looking for information on former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who had already come under scrutiny for his own ties to a pro-Moscow Ukrainian political party.

Hannity called this a direct parallel to the current investigation into the Trump administration's dealings with Russia.

He asked his viewers to consider 'which was worse', saying: 'Now that you have evidence from both sides, you have to decide for yourself.'

Trump's attack on Sessions for not investigating his presidential rival in the race followed a pattern that intensified earlier this month with a harsh criticism of the attorney general in an interview with The New York Times.

Yesterday, Trump referred to the attorney general in a tweet as 'beleaguered'.

Trump has been angry that Sessions chose to recuse himself from the government's investigation of Russian meddling in last year's US election.

Privately, Trump has speculated aloud to allies in recent days about the potential consequences of firing Sessions, according to three people who have recently spoken to the president. They demanded anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The White House had maintained publicly that Sessions wouldn't have a job still if Trump had lost confidence in him. It's made it clear, though, that Trump wants his AG to reopen DOJ's investigation into Clinton.

White House officials notably would not say Tuesday that they expected Sessions to make it through this particular sandstorm.

Asked about Rudy Giuliani as a replacement for Sessions, Huckabee Sanders told Fox & Friends, 'I know he's somebody he respects, but right now, Attorney General Sessions is the attorney general, and I haven't been part of any conversations discussing potential replacements, so I can't comment on that.'

An FBI investigation that concluded last year let the former first lady and Democratic presidential nominee off the hook for her email scandal. Then-FBI Director James Comey argued that despite Clinton's carelessness, no prosecutor would proceed with the case. Trump has since fired Comey – who testified that he believes he was fired over the Russia investigation.

Trump indicated to the New York Times a few weeks after the election he had lost interest in going after Clinton.

'I don’t want to hurt the Clintons. I really don’t. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways,' Trump said. Asked about naming a special prosecutor to probe Clinton (long before he would be subject to a special counsel's probe), Trump said: 'It’s just not something that I feel very strongly about.'

To shut down a special counsel probe of Russian interference in the presidential election, Trump could fire attorney general Jeff Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (who appointed special counsel Robert Mueller after Sessions' recusal), and Mueller. Trump also went after acting FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe (right)

Trump often talks about making staff changes without following through, so those who have spoken with the president cautioned that a change may not be imminent or happen at all.

What is clear is that Trump remains furious that the attorney general recused himself from the investigations.

The Washington Post reported Monday that Trump and his advisors are discussing possible replacements.

One name that got floated, Giuliani, the former New York mayor, told CNN that he thinks Sessions was correct to recuse himself from the Russia probe. Sessions had been a close campaign advisor, and was revealed to have had undisclosed meetings with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Giuliani was at Trump's Washington, D.C. hotel on Monday night, according to Politico.

The Post reported that former Trump rival Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was near the top of Trump's list of choices to potentially trade out Sessions as attorney general.

Sessions is under pressure as Trump and his trusted advisers are reportedly discussing how firing him would play in the media

Ted Cruz is reportedly near the top of Donald Trump's list of choices to potentially replace Jeff Sessions as attorney general

Donald Trump and Ted Cruz talk over each other in the Republican presidential debate at the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston on February 25, 2016

Cruz, who was regularly mocked by Trump during the Republican primaries and nicknamed 'Lyin' Ted' by the then-candidate, could find himself taking Sessions' spot if the former Alabama representative resigns or is fired, according to the Paper.

Trump would reportedly be willing to make the Texan the country's chief law enforcement officer despite him having last year revived a rumor linking Cruz's father, Rafael, to Lee Harvey Oswald and the JFK assassination.

However, Cruz was quick to distance himself from the speculation on Monday night, releasing a statement that said he is 'deeply gratified that we have a principled conservative like Jeff Sessions serving as Attorney General.'

Trump rounded out his tweet storm on Tuesday by mentioning the US healthcare debate ahead of the major Senate vote on Tuesday which will decide if former President Barack Obama's healthcare law will be repealed.

'Big day for HealthCare,' he wrote. 'After 7 years of talking, we will soon see whether or not Republicans are willing to step up to the plate!'

He later added: 'ObamaCare is torturing the American People.The Democrats have fooled the people long enough. Repeal or Repeal & Replace! I have pen in hand.

'So great that John McCain is coming back to vote. Brave - American hero! Thank you John.'