Latest brawl on Twitter: Trump vs. GOP senator
Retiring Corker speaks his mind
WASHINGTON — An enraged President Donald Trump and a prominent Republican senator who fears the country could be edging toward “chaos” engaged in an intense and vitriolic back-and-forth bashing on social media Sunday, a remarkable airing of their differences.
The GOP’s foreign policy expert in the Senate felt compelled to answer his president’s barbs by tweeting: “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”
Trump had earlier laid bare his perceived grievances against retiring Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., in a series of stinging tweets that contended Corker:
was “largely responsible for the horrendous” Iran nuclear deal, which the Democratic Obama administration negotiated and Corker considered badly flawed.
intended to obstruct the White House agenda, saying he expected Corker “to be a negative voice.”
“begged” for Trump’s endorsement in his 2018 re-election campaign, then opted against seeking a third term when Trump declined, showing the senator “didn’t have the guts to run.”
wanted to be secretary of state, and “I said ‘NO THANKS,’” said Trump, who picked Exxon Mobil’s Rex Tillerson for that Cabinet post.
Corker has always had been one to speak his mind, and even before Sunday’s verbal volleys, his new free agent status promised to make Trump and the party nervous. Already, there was the prospect of even more elbow room to say what he wants and to vote how he pleases over the next 15 months as Trump and the party’s leaders on Capitol Hill struggle to get their agenda on track.
Corker, a fiscal hawk, is holding the GOP’s feet to the fire on tax legislation, declaring that he’ll oppose any measure that increases the national debt by a single cent. Republicans hold a 52-seat majority in the Senate, so just three defections would torpedo any legislation.
Corker delivered a rebuke of the Trump White House after the president’s provocative tweets potentially undermined Tillerson’s diplomatic efforts to resolve the North Korean crisis. Corker said Tillerson, along with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House chief of staff John Kelly, are “those people that help separate our country from chaos.”
Corker, 65, announced last month that his second six-year term would be his last. The self-described “citizen legislator” and former Tennessee finance commissioner now stands as a throwback to the fiscally diligent Republicans of yesteryear as his GOP colleagues embrace tax cuts that, they contend, will pay for themselves by spurring economic growth.