Sen. Bob Corker has pointed to the nakedness of the emperor and accused his own party of cowering in equal nakedness.
“My gosh, if the President gets upset with us we might not be in the majority,” he said referring to sentiments he often hears from colleagues. “We might poke the bear!”
The rant was part of Corker’s reaction when he unsuccessfully tried to get a vote on his tariffs amendment as part of an ongoing debate over the Senate’s defense bill.
Corker, seeing the great potential for negative impacts on the U.S. and Tennessee economy from Trump-induced trade wars, has worked for the last two weeks to try to get a vote on an amendment that would claw back the president’s authority – any president’s authority – to unilaterally impose, without Congressional input, tariffs on the grounds of national security.
The legislation, which Corker wanted to make retroactive over the past two years, could squash the President’s recent steel and aluminum tariffs on U.S. allies like Canada, Mexico, Germany and France.