In a remarkable interview with the New York Times on Sunday, Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, a prominent, lame-duck Republican, said Trump was treating his presidency like a reality show and accused the president of being reckless, a sentiment he said was shared by almost every other Senate Republican.
“Look, except for a few people, the vast majority of our caucus understands what we’re dealing with here,” he said in the interview. “Of course they understand the volatility that we’re dealing with and the tremendous amount of work that it takes by people around him to keep him in the middle of the road.”
Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Times he likes Trump but that the president’s threats toward other countries would set the United States “on the path to World War III.” He also said Trump’s tweeting habits undermined American diplomacy, citing Trump’s public declaration that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was “wasting his time” negotiating with Kim Jong-un.
“He concerns me,” Corker said. “He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation.”
Corker’s interview came after Trump took to Twitter on Sunday morning to claim that Corker had “begged” Trump for an endorsement. Trump said Corker didn’t have “the guts to run” for re-election and that he denied Corker’s request to be secretary of state. He also blamed Corker for “the horrendous Iran deal.”
Corker responded by tweeting that it was “a shame the White House has become an adult day care center.” In his New York Times interview, Corker repeated his belief that Trump was in need of supervision. “I know for a fact that every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him,” he said.
Corker disputed Trump’s tweets and told the Times that the president even said he wanted to come to a rally for Corker’s re-election. “I don’t know why the president tweets out things that are not true,” he said in the interview. “You know he does it, everyone knows he does it.”
Now the question is if Corker has opened the door for the other Republicans who know it to speak out.
