Sen. Ben Sasse said Thursday that conversations about firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions were "goofy talk."
He also said he told President Donald Trump it would be "a very, very, very bad idea to fire the attorney general."
Sasse, who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke on the Senate floor and said he had also communicated with the president.
Nebraska's junior senator said Sessions does not do his job as a "political hack."
"That is not the job of the attorney general. The Attorney General's job is to be faithful to the Constitution and to the rule of law," Sasse said.
In an interview with "Fox and Friends" released earlier Thursday, Trump again criticized Sessions for recusing himself from overseeing the federal investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
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Trump said Sessions "took the job, and then he said, 'I'm going to recuse myself.' I said, 'What kind of a man is this?'"
Sessions responded Thursday, seeming to push back against Trump's latest criticism, by saying his Justice Department won't be "improperly influenced by political considerations."
Sasse said he believes Sessions has been faithful to his oath of office and to the Constitution in trying to defend the rule of law.
"I think everybody in this body knows that Jeff Sessions is doing his job honorably, and the attorney general of the United States should not be fired for acting honorably and for being faithful to the rule of law," Sasse said.