Cooper: Trump, Corker feud - again

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., speaks to reporters recently in Washington, D.C.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., speaks to reporters recently in Washington, D.C.

Tennessee Republicans increasingly are feeling in the middle of a feud between a president they overwhelmingly voted for and a United States senator they twice voted into office and who is the essence of a plain talker.

The pair, President Donald Trump and Sen. Bob Corker, should be expected to be on the same team. Lately, at least in their war of words, they are not.

That war escalated again Tuesday morning. The senator, a former Chattanooga mayor and businessman, may have triggered this round by suggesting the president's trip to Capitol Hill Tuesday to speak to Republicans at their weekly policy luncheon, was "a photo-op."

That set off Trump, who - in rants he's used before - childishly referred to Corker as "liddle," accused him of helping former President Barack Obama deliver "the bad Iran deal" and said Corker had decided not to run for a third term "when I refused to endorse him." He later called him "the incompetent head of the foreign relations committee."

The state's usually measured junior senator, whose office quickly issued a news release on his work against the Iran deal, didn't hold back in his comments, accusing the president of "debasing our nation," "non-truth telling," and "name-calling." He said the president has "proven himself unable to rise to the occasion," has not been able to evolve as president and was no role model for children.

The problem - and where Tennessee GOP voters feel in the middle - is both men want the same thing. They both support, as do most state residents, tax reform, an end to Obamacare, a solution to unchecked immigration and a more reasoned foreign policy than was in evidence the last eight years.

Many in the state know Corker to be a careful, pragmatic senator, to say fewer rather than more words about a controversial issue and to speak his mind when he says something.

Indeed, earlier the feud between the two, he said, "I don't make comments I haven't thought about."

Many, on the other hand, insist they know Trump to bluster and bloviate and say things he may not really mean, but they believe he is still on their side, will lambaste the national media as they wish previous Republicans had done and is not timid with political opponents as his GOP predecessors were.

Corker and Congress deserve their share of the blame for lack of cohesion on many issues they essentially agree on, but we feel Trump is hurting himself and his efforts to achieve meaningful legislation by continuing to wallow in such silly, tit-for-tat exchanges. Together, they have few significant accomplishments to show for 10 months of governance. We deserve better.

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