Before Republican Senator Jeff Flakes blasted Donald Trump on the floor of the senate on Tuesday, another Republican Senator, Bob Coker also lambasted the President of the United States earlier on the same day.
On Tuesday
morning Senator Bob Corker accused Trump of "debasing" the country with "untruths" and "name-calling". This feud between Trump and Bob Corker sullied a policy lunch with Republican senators on Tuesday.
The lunch was meant to be a unifying moment for Republicans to rally around tax reform, but the war of words between Trump and Corker instead revealed the deep fault lines that exist between some elements of the party and the president.
Corker told reporters ahead of Trump’s arrival on Capitol Hill for the lunch: "You would think he would aspire to be the president of the United States and act like a president of the United States. But that’s just not going to be the case, apparently."
Trump arrived on Capitol Hill just after 1 p.m. where he was greeted by the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, with whom Trump has also quarreled. As the men walked to the policy lunch, a protester threw some small Russian flags at the president and shouted: "Trump is treason".
Despite what happened before Trump and Corker went in for the meeting, several senators said their tussle did not arise during the discussion, which focused on taxes, trade and judicial nominees as members dined on meatloaf and cherry pie.
Leaving the meeting, Corker told reporters: "I ate my lunch like I normally do at policy. I normally don’t speak much at policy. It was a normal day."
The rebuke from Republican senators Bob Corker and Jeff Flake are said to be the fiercest rebukes of the president yet from members of his own party.
The war of words with the president and Corker played out across Twitter and cable TV in the hours prior to the lunch but was left out of the policy lunch. Corker, the chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, said world leaders were "very aware" that much of what Trump said "is untrue". The president, he told CNN, was "debasing our nation" and "has great difficulty with the truth on many issues".
Corker wrote on social media himself, tweeting: "Same untruths from an utterly untruthful president. #AlertTheDaycareStaff."
That was a reference to a comment he made earlier this month, when he said: "It’s a shame the White House has become an adult daycare center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning."
Corker was considered for both vice-president and secretary of state and was a key Trump ally during much of the 2016 campaign. He has since become a vocal critic, claiming Trump could be setting the nation on a path to a third world war.
Just like Jeff Flakes, Corker has revealed he will not run for re-election after his tenure ends. He later took to Twitter to praise his colleague Flakes for his speech criticising Trump.
He wrote: .@JeffFlake is a true conservative, an outstanding senator and a cherished friend."
Meanwhile, as expected, Trump has taken to his favorite news site, Twitter, to call out both senators.
See his tweets below.
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