U.S. Sen. Bob Corker swung through Nashville Friday to talk to the attendees of the summer conference of the National Association of Secretaries of State, and he paused for a few minutes to talk to reporters.
We all, predictably, asked him about Donald Trump. Even after this many weeks of Corker's (wavering) support of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, it still seems unfathomable that someone as relatively sane as Corker would have willingly jumped into bed with the man (metaphorically speaking, of course, unless there's something we really don't know). Why would Corker — why would anyone? — want to be second-in-command to someone so unpredictable, someone so volatile, someone so, frankly, unintelligent? Most of all, why would any non-hateful person want to be associated with a campaign that has stepped far past the traditionally coded boundaries of "politely, casually" racist Republican policies into outward and open racism?
Well, those are questions Corker is not going to answer, not now, and possibly not ever. In fact, when pressed about the campaign's racism, he refused to answer questions. And so you can see for yourself how much he does not want to talk about it, here is the entire exchange transcribed, starting with a question asked by Blake Farmer of WPLN, the answer to which Corker used as his justification for not answering me:
Blake Farmer, WPLN: What can we read into you pulling yourself out of the vice-presidential pick? I mean, does it show maybe a lack of confidence in Trump as president?Sen. Bob Corker: I think it just shows — I mean, at 63, Blake, you know, you understand who you are. And I did know that over the course of the next 120 days — I mean, it’s a highly, highly, highly political kind of thing, and I’m more of a policy guy, and I just felt like it wasn’t, uh, it wasn’t the right thing for me. It was a honor to be able to spend that much time with someone who had, you know, overwhelmingly won the Republican primary and to get some insights just into their family — and I got to know them really pretty well — and into him. But I went into the meetings — on the front end of every discussion I had, whether it was with Eric, his son, or Ivanka, his daughter, or Jared, his son-in-law, I started each meeting saying, “Guys, I just want you to know I’ve never envisioned myself serving in this capacity. I’ve always thought that If I were to serve in an administration for someone else that it would be more in one of these other positions.” And I felt, at the end of the day, the same way, and I caught a train down to Washington the next morning, early, and we sent out a release. They knew by early afternoon that I didn’t feel like it wasn’t my kind of thing.
Cari Wade Gervin, Nashville Scene: So the racism of so many of Trump’s speeches and of the campaign itself, of his Twitter feed, of the people on staff’s tweets — none of that was a concern for you?
Corker: I think my answer that I just gave Blake is adequate.
Gervin: That, that doesn’t address the racism whatsoever, Senator.
Corker: Um, well it’s uh —
Gervin: I mean, is that something that, that —
Corker: It addresses, it addresses my thought process.
Gervin: You don’t think that a Republican president who is supported by the Klan is, you know —that’s problematic? You don’t think so?
Corker: I’m not responding to your statements, which are very leading, I think.
Gervin: So do you or do you not think that it’s problematic that the Klan thinks that the Republican presidential nominee is a white supremacist?
Corker: I have no knowledge of what the groups that you’re talking about think or know or who they’re supporting. I have no knowledge. What I do know is my decision about entertaining being a vice-president was based on what I just said.
So there you go. Unlike everyone else paying attention to the campaign, Corker claims not to know anything about white supremacists supporting Trump, nor will he actually condemn racism. It's never a good look for a politician to not condemn the Klan, but it's an especially poor one for a white Southerner. Tennessee deserves better from its elected officials.
