ATTACKS ON TRUMP HIGHLIGHT RIFT IN GOP
• Bob Corker, a two-term senator from Tennessee, is hardly the only Republican lambasting Donald Trump and raising dark concerns about harm the president might cause the U.S. and the world. He’s just the only one who’s sounding off in public.
With his Twitter broadsides and his explosive New York Times interview on Sunday, Corker gave voice to concerns that circulate widely on Capitol Hill about an unpredictable president whose tendency to personalize every issue creates risks for the nation.
In the interview in which he responded to a series of Twitter attacks on him by Trump, Corker said that the president was as running the White House like it was “a reality show” and with bellicose threats that could set the nation “on the path to World War III.” He added that “every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him.”
Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, evidently feels liberated now that he has decided not to run for re-election and his political fortunes are not dependent on Trump’s enduring popularity with a segment of the GOP base.
Other Republican lawmakers, while privately nodding their heads, remained silent Monday morning. The few Republican senators who did provide public views aligned themselves with Trump, not Corker.
Montana’s Steve Daines’ office said simply that the senator “has confidence in the president.”
Sen. John Barrasso disagrees with Corker, according to his office. Referring to Barrasso and Trump, the Wyoming senator’s office said: “On tax cuts, border security, and rebuilding American infrastructure, they fight the same fight.”
Barrasso is among the establishment Republicans who face potential primary challenges from pro-Trump activists on the right.
The Associated Press sought to contact all 52 Republican senators on Monday for their response to Corker’s comments. With the Senate on recess this week and many offices closed for Columbus Day, the inquiries elicited few responses, and those who did largely declined to comment.
“Sen. Corker, who’s been a strong supporter of the president in the past, is essentially saying the emperor has no clothes,” said Michael Steel, who served as spokesman to former House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio.
But Steel added: “The president was elected under our constitutional system and that’s where we stand. Congressional leaders are going to continue concentrating on doing everything they can to get big things done for the American people, and they hope to have as much support from the administration as possible.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the target of Trump attacks after the Senate’s failure to pass health care legislation, didn’t directly answer when asked at an event in Hazard, Ky., whether he shared Corker’s sentiments.
“Sen. Corker is a valuable member of the Senate Republican caucus and he’s also on the Budget Committee and a particularly important player as we move to the floor on the budget next week,” McConnell said.
His comments underscored what has frustrated Republicans most about the Trump- Corker feud, which burst open Sunday when Trump began tweeting, inaccurately, that Corker had begged for his endorsement and decided not to run for reelection when Trump turned him down. Trump will need Corker if he is to get big tax changes through the Senate, where the narrow GOP majority thwarted McConnell’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
For House Republicans, who face voters every two years and largely represent conservative districts where support for the president remains strong, there’s even less incentive to turn against the commander in chief. Sixty- eight per cent of Republican voters approve of Trump, though that’s down from 80 per cent in March, according to a recent APNORC poll.