Surprise, surprise. Retiring U.S. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) used some of his final moments in office to criticize President Donald Trump.
The former Chattanooga mayor, who is leaving the U.S. Senate in January, delivered his latest missive against the president in the Chattanooga Times Free Press. The story is available here.
Corker, who served as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, told the newspaper that the president’s governing model “is based upon division, anger and resentment, and in some cases, even hate.”
“He is able to keep his base together by his approach and instead of appealing to our better angels and trying to unite us like most people would try to do, the president tries to divide us,” Corker said. “There’s just no reason for it, and it doesn’t take us to a better place to squander the well-earned good will that we have around the world at a time when our leadership is more important than ever.”
The Tennessee Star has reported on Corker’s past attacks against Trump, including criticism in August over the president’s removal of former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance as “kind of a banana republic kind of thing.”
In July, Corker criticized Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland.
“I just felt like the President’s comments made us look as a nation more like a pushover,” Corker said at the time.
Trump has scolded many European nations for not doing as much as the United States or paying their fair share to support the North American Treaty Organization (NATO), making him less popular in Europe but improving financial support for NATO, the Times Free Press said.
Corker said, ”People start hedging their bets and they start creating relations with others because they are not sure of where we are going to be,” he said.
Corker told the Times Free Press that perhaps Trump is a “four-year aberration.”
“It has been an effective formula and he did get elected and, from a Republican standpoint, he has been effective in getting a lot of things done,” Corker said. “But I’m not sure people will appreciate that approach for an eight-year term. Maybe over a four-year period, people will say, ‘He shook things up’ and I like that.” But this could just be a four-year aberration.”
The Times Free Press referenced the possibility of Corker running for president in the Republican primary in 2020, which The Star reported last week. Corker continues to sidestep when asked about his plans.
The newspaper story also quoted Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill, who said, “The Republican candidates who ran with Trump won, and those who ran away from the president lost. Bob Corker had little base before and he has even less now that he has criticized the president so harshly. The idea that Bob Corker has in his mind that somehow being anti-Trump is going to get him a support base either in Tennessee or the rest of the country is beyond belief.”
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Jason M. Reynolds has more than 20 years’ experience as a journalist at outlets of all sizes.
What do we have, five weeks befor this P.O.S. is gone ? Please hurry !
My only thought about “liddle bobby” is that he finally realizes he is on his 14th minute of his 15 mins of Fame and the clock is ticking so he is expending what LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME he can get. Because when the clock strikes 15 mins for him, he is a NOBODY and TRUMP is still PRESIDENT! — chew on that liddle bobby
Corker would be better served staying silent.
Corker, you and your fellow republicans allowed the greatest division in the United States to take place under the previous president because you feared being called a racist. Yes that’s right Obama was black if you didn’t notice, and he used it to its full extent. Strange that the term racism was a thing of thr past until he resurrected it to be used as a whip to usher in hate and socialism. The worst division now, other than that coming from the socialist democrat party trying to destroy freedom, is the divide between your chin and nose that spews ignorance and liberal propaganda every time it opens. You’ve been nothing more than a tool for the destruction of things good and true that have made this nation great. So please shut up, see a psychiatrist about your little man syndrome, and stop selling your soul to the immoral of the world in hopes of being president elect one day.
Corker is a totally self centered person who can not see he is digging his own grave politically.
I cannot believe how tone-deaf this man is, and how completely out of touch he is with his constituency. What is wrong with him? You want to talk about divisive, we’re still dealing with the effects of the previous administration, THE most divisive in history, funny he had no problem with Obama. Thank God we now have Marsha Blackburn and hopefully we’ve seen the last of this little traitor.
I’m glad he’s gone.
Corker, your comments are irrelevant and actually are more divisive than anything President Trump has said or done.
I suggest you just go away quietly and try to preserve what little dignity you have left.
Is he talking about the current president or the previous president?