Cooper: Tennessee senators consider Trump, the art of the deal

Tennessee's two United States senators find themselves in a particular public pickle. Do they, as influential committee leaders, warmly embrace everything the new president - who is of their party - wants, or do they seek to be oppositional in an effort to help shape policy that more reflects their take on the issues?

Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker didn't get where they are in life by either constantly bowing down or intentionally being combative, so the answer is that both men are seeking a middle road through the maze that is the first month of the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

We believe that middle road is the one the majority of Tennesseans would want them to walk, Alexander in the areas of health care and education and Corker in the area of foreign policy.

Politico Magazine, in recent days, spoke to both senators about their roles as the Trump administration, for which their constituents overwhelmingly voted, attempts to find its feet amid protests from factions of the Democratic Party which lost the election, an increasingly combative national media and an unsettled world stage.

Alexander, the state's senior senator, primarily has had his mind on the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration's signature health care plan which added millions to the ranks of the insured but has been unable to fulfill all of its promises, has cost far more than was ever planned and has never been popular with a majority of Americans.

If many Trump voters had their way, the new president would have signed as much of it away on his first day in office as he said he would and never looked back. With government, it's never that easy. Most Republicans don't want to see those with health care coverage lose that coverage without an option to replace it.

That is where Alexander is.

"What I'm trying to do is to make sure that we think carefully," he told Politico. "We're moving from a position - repeal and replace - to governing. It's a little more complicated."

Alexander, for instance, is wary of an immediate repeal of the law's taxes that fund the subsidies for lower-income Americans on the insurance exchanges. It's unclear how the government would continue to fund the subsidies without the taxes as long as those subsidies remain in place.

His point makes sense. We believe it's absolutely wrong to force Americans to either buy insurance or pay a fine. But to halt income without halting expenditures is ludicrous. And to just cut millions from the insurance ranks without a lifeline is heartless, a scenario Obama and his henchmen fully understood in wanting to get the bill passed in the first place.

Alexander is as adamant as red-meat Republicans about wanting to get rid of the law, but he'd prefer to wait to evaluate what the administration and new Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price have to offer and go from there. He hints repeal and replacement could take as long as four years.

We hope it won't be that long, but it needs to be done smartly, and we'd like to believe the state's senior senator can play a major role.

Meanwhile, Corker must take the volatile administration's temperature from his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. To Politico, he referred to Trump as a "wrecking ball" when it comes to his views about staid and establishment foreign policy.

We believe that's precisely what millions of Trump voters had in mind, but, as with Obamacare, life is a little more complicated than trashing the Iran nuclear agreement moments after inauguration or throwing more tariffs on products from China to help blue-collar workers in the United States.

Rhetoric on foreign policy has moved to a little more careful consideration from some of the president's early pronouncements - the temporary travel ban notwithstanding - and Corker is eager to work where possible to see where he and Congress can have common ground with the president.

"What I see happening is an evolution," he told Politico. "We should attempt to take those nuggets that are real and help as a Senate evolve them into a policy that is positive. It's taking nuggets, massaging them to a little bit different place."

Corker knows Trump better than most senators, having met with him last summer ahead of the selection of a vice presidential running mate on his 2016 ticket and again late last year as a candidate for secretary of state. The magazine interview makes much of the former Chattanooga businessman and mayor disagreeing with Trump "about virtually everything," though it quotes Corker saying only he offered "an alternative view."

As those who voted for him and against him have learned, what the president said on the campaign trail and what he plans to do as chief executive are sometimes two different things (though Corker believes the president's embracing of Russian President Vladmir Putin "is somewhat real").

Still, we believe as things settle down, Trump the deal-maker and Corker the pragmatist will have more in common than less. And voters also will be able to say the president is taking the actions they wanted him to.

However, what twists and turns it will take to get there, and how long, remain to be seen.