By now you've heard. Following a string of tweets aimed at him by President Donald Trump Sunday morning, Sen. Bob Corker spit hot fire at the White House.
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While the president's tweets attacking Corker are all hovering below 15,000 retweets, Corker's backboard-shattering dunk on the president currently has more than 125,000 retweets and has been liked more than 350,000 times. His office went on the record with reporters to say that essentially everything Trump had said in his tweets about Corker wasn't true. And Corker, apparently feeling free after announcing he won't seek re-election next year, wasn't done. In an interview with The New York Times published Sunday evening, the senator said Trump was treating his office "like a reality show" and that the president's recklessness could put the United States "on the path to World War III."
In an extraordinary rebuke of a president of his own party, Mr. Corker said he was alarmed about a president who acts “like he’s doing ‘The Apprentice’ or something.”“He concerns me,” Mr. Corker added. “He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation.”
I have tested the patience of Pith readers by repeatedly ranting about Corker's shameful support for Trump's candidacy and his, until recently, mealy-mouthed criticism of the president, so it's incumbent upon me to acknowledge that he has done no small thing here. Importantly, his harsh-but-obviously-accurate critique of Trump yesterday might liberate other Republicans to be honest about the president too.
Still, it does not absolve Corker of his own complicity in the Trump presidency, which he continues to ignore. The Times reports that Corker would not answer directly whether he believes Trump is fit for office. Further, the Times reports that Corker said he did not regret standing with Trump during the campaign last year.
How this could be true, after what he has now said about the man, boggles the mind. But setting that aside, there is a more important question Corker must answer now. If the American president is so reckless that he risks getting us into World War III — if he, per Corker, lies constantly and must be tended to like a toddler by his staff — then what should happen now? Should Donald Trump remain in office? Should Congressional Republicans take the corruption and scandal in the Trump administration seriously? Should they impeach the president? Or should these awful facts about Trump — which Corker says most of his colleagues know to be true — be ignored because of the slim chance that Republicans can successfully cut taxes for the richest Americans?
Corker's words yesterday were good. But what he actually does next matters more.
