U.S. Sen. Bob Corker speaks during an appearance at the Rotary Club of Downtown Chattanooga’s luncheon at the Chattanooga Convention Center on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018, in Chattanooga, Tenn. Corker rates the president
As he wraps up his 12 years in the U.S. Senate, Bob Corker offered his assessment of the three presidents he has served with in Washington.* George W. Bush: “He’s a great human being — the kind of person you would like to have for dinner at home. For someone who has been president, he is a pretty low-key guy,” Corker said. The attacks on 9-11 changed his focus on being a “compassionate conservative” to fighting the war on terror and ultimately the controversial war in Iraq. Corker said Bush was not as intellectually curious as he would prefer and didn’t always get the best advice from those around him.* Barack Obama: “He was a great father, but he was very buttoned up. He was somewhat difficult to have a fluid conversation with, unlike President Bush, because there was no real flexibility there.” Corker said Obama and his staff “were really bright” but tended to be inflexible. “He and his cabinet tended to think they knew more than anybody else and that ended up being a handicap to him.”* Donald Trump: “He is no doubt the hardest-working president of any I have served with,” Corker said. Trump has much of his day scheduled as “executive time” rather than in meetings. “He is on the phone most nights until midnight and he’s up early in the morning,” Corker said. “He is by far the most accessible president we’ve ever had. ” While Corker praised Trump’s top aides and cabinet members, he said Trump “is probably on the phone too much, talking to too many people so there [are] a lot of shifts.” The president is handicapped because he thinks everybody is like him, Corker said. “He doesn’t realize there are many people in our country who are virtuous and give of themselves freely because the currency he deals with is resentment, fear and anger. It keeps him from dealing with the better angels of our country.”
U.S. Sen. Bob Corker said Thursday that the United States needs to enforce its borders, but he said the focus by President Donald Trump on the migrant caravan from Guatemala heading to the U.S. border is more political theater than a significant threat to America’s security.
“I have never met, seen or known an immigrant that I am angry at because they want to come to the greatest nation on Earth to escape Central America where people are being raped, necks are being slit, people are being tortured and there is unbelievable corruption,” the Tennessee Republican said to applause Thursday from the Rotary Club of Chattanooga. “Much of this is theater. This has turned out to be an issue that obviously revs up the base.”
Trump, who ordered 5,200 troops to the U.S. border on Monday to aid border patrol agents with the caravan and other illegal border crossing attempts, told reporters Tuesday he could deploy “anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel – on top of Border Patrol, ICE and everybody else at the border” to turn back the thousands of Guatemalan refugees now walking north through Mexico to the U.S. border.
But Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he doubts that number of military personnel ultimately will end up at the border or be needed to stop the caravan.