(CNN) Everyone knew President Donald Trump wasn't happy with Attorney General Jeff Sessions' decision to recuse himself from the FBI investigation into Russia's meddling into the 2016 election. No one -- until this week -- knew just how unhappy he was.

"Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else," Trump told three New York Times reporters on Wednesday in an interview at the White House. Trump added that Sessions' decision, on which he was not consulted, was "extremely unfair, and that's a mild word, to the President."

That's a stunning vote of not-much-confidence from Trump in a man who was one of his top surrogates during the 2016 campaign and one of his fiercest defenders in the early days of the presidency. What Trump told the Times, in short, was: Had I known what I know now, I would have never have given Sessions the AG job.

The next day, as fate would have it, Sessions was scheduled to talk to reporters, which is super awkward when your boss has said he wasn't and isn't happy with you and that he never would have hired you if he knew how things were going to play out.

"We love this job," Sessions, seemingly unbowed by Trump's smackdown, said . "We love this department, and I plan to continue to do so as long as that is appropriate."

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