President Trump needs Sen. Bob Corker to get this agenda through Congress
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In a public spat that just keeps getting uglier, President Trump and retiring Sen. Bob Corker from Tennessee had harsh words for each other on social media. Corker went even further in a New York Times interview.
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – President Trump may mock him as “Liddle†Bob Corker, but the Tennessee Republican senator will have a big role in deciding the fate of Trump’s agenda in Congress in the coming months.
On tax reform, immigration and health care, Trump needs Corker.
With a slim 52-48 majority, Senate Republicans can afford few defections when it comes to passing Trump’s priorities. The GOP already has been unable to win enough votes from its own party to follow through on Trump’s promise to repeal Obamacare. And Corker has indicated he won’t support the administration’s tax-reform plan in its current form.
“Unless it reduces deficits and does not add to deficits with reasonable and responsible growth models, and unless we can make it permanent, I don’t have an interest in it,†Corker said at a Senate Budget Committee meeting last week.
The friction between Trump and Corker, which flared up again Sunday with a series of nasty Twitter exchanges, could potentially make winning Senate approval for the tax cuts even more of a challenge.
Corker’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. But Trump insisted the spat has not put tax reform at risk.
“I don’t think so at all,†he told reporters in the Oval Office, just a few hours after tweeted his latest insult at Corker. “I think we’re well on our way. The people of this country want tax cuts. They want lower taxes.â€
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Trump needs Corker in other ways, too.
Corker is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has oversight of the State Department and is involved in a number of foreign policy matters, including treaties and authorizations for use of military force.
If Secretary of State Rex Tillerson quits – he denied persistent reports last week that he’s looking for an exit – Corker’s committee would have a key role in the confirmation of his successor. The committee also is responsible for holding confirmation hearings for Trump’s nominees to ambassador posts.
Nominees for 22 ambassadorships are now pending before the committee, including ones to India, Germany and Spain.
Two Republicans who sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee predicted Monday the rift between Corker and Trump won’t impede the committee’s work.
“Anybody who knows Chairman Corker knows he speaks his mind, maybe even more so now,†Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., told The Arizona Republic. “But he knows what he wants the committee to do, and we all have our franchise there, and I think it will be there as it was before.â€
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Sen. Marco Rubio, once mocked by Trump on Twitter as “Little Marco Rubio, the lightweight no-show Senator from Florida,” told the paper that Corker won’t let the feud interfere with the committee.
“I don’t believe Sen. Corker is going to block something the president wants just because of that,” Rubio said. “He may be against it if he doesn’t agree with it, but it won’t be because of some tweet. That’s just not the way he operates. Quite frankly, it’s not the way most of us operate.”
Herb Jackson of USA Today and Dan Nowicki of The Arizona Republic contributed information to this story.
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