Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said just before Christmas he had a "newfound empathy" for President Trump and how false information can get halfway around the world before the truth got its boots on.
"I told [Trump] that I'd had a healthy respect for the media and I deal with them all the time, and, you know, to attack the media has not been something I've done," Corker told Fox News Dec. 21.
"I've never, ever in my life used the word 'fake news' until today," he said. "I actually understand what it is the president has been dealing with."
The issue was Corker's "yes" vote on the congressional tax reform bill, which passed the House and Senate in December and was signed into law by the president. He had voted "no" on the original Senate bill before it went to a conference committee, maintaining he couldn't vote for a bill that increased the deficit more than $1 trillion.
In the conference committee, a provision was added that could benefit people with real estate holdings, such as that held by the Chattanooga lawmaker. Although he is not on the tax-writing committee and had no knowledge of the provision, it was reported the provision was added to secure his vote and how it might enrich him.
A furious Corker refuted the charges. Conference committee senators and House members also denied that Corker had anything to do with the provision being added to the reform bill. Still, the "Corker Kickback" became a social media meme.
Last week, in a meeting with Times Free Press editors and reporters, he made similar remarks about the circulation of falsehoods as he did to Fox without mentioning Trump.
"I have not appreciated the diminishment of the media," Corker said, referring to the president's frequent berating of the media for what it writes about him. But, he added, now "I'm more skeptical of respectable media."
His skepticism was understandable.
The day after telling Fox News about his empathy for Trump, Corker was the subject of another article in a national publication suggesting he had enriched himself in the Senate. The suggestion is based on a chart that showed him going from no net worth in 2006, the year he was elected, to $54 million in 2007.
The chart is not a reflection of fact, as Corker's office told the publication. The senator, based on the business he built and his real estate holdings, was wealthy before he was elected and was wealthy afterward. The difference on the chart reflects a move from assets on paper to assets in actual money, which occurred when he sold most of his real estate holdings to Chattanooga businessman Henry Luken in early 2006 but which wasn't reflected on his financial disclosure form until 2007.
Even though the publication, in its own words, made "updates" to the article and "changed the headline" to correct certain concerns, the words remained that "Corker's net worth has risen by millions since before being elected."
In fact, as the chart shows and the senator acknowledged during the meeting at the newspaper, his relative worth has varied little since taking office.
The fake "Corker Kickback" news gnawed at him, though, and, perhaps to satisfy himself and his critics, using numbers as available for 2017, he had his own tax figures run from the recently signed tax bill and its real estate provision.
What the result showed was that the changes stand to benefit him from virtually "no impact" up to maybe a fourth of his $174,000 annual salary (which he has given every year to the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga), he said.
Thus, even if Corker had advocated for the tax addendum, it would hardly enrich him.
But to listen to that same Beltway and national media, one also might believe the fall spat between Trump and the senator over what Corker deemed were careless remarks has made the pair bitter enemies.
Not so, said Corker, who said he speaks to the president and works closely with the president's advisers and his Cabinet. Most people do not understand the "true relationship" he has with the White House, he said.
For instance, "today and yesterday we were working [on] the Iran situation. I'm working with [National Security Advisor H.R.] McMaster. I'm probably [Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson's biggest ally."
Corker wouldn't say whether he regretted his comments earlier this year about Trump - "constant non-truth telling," "not going to rise to the occasion as president," among them - but maintained they don't reflect his ability to work with him.
"We have a very warm relationship," he said. "It's not what people think." Indeed, he said, "if people especially on the Republican side knew how we communicated," his 47 percent approval rating in Tennessee in a December Vanderbilt poll "would be very different."
About his candid remarks, Corker said, "I am who I am. That was me just being very transparent."
It's a shame one of the most forthright individuals in the Senate has to endure if not "fake news," then truth-twisting. It's a devious kind of strategy that keeps good people from running for public office and makes others reconsider whether to run again.
That's not what Corker said, but could you blame him?