Bob Corker makes a series of key moves to derail Donald Trump
Up to now, Republican Senator Bob Corker had largely been limiting his attacks on Donald Trump to the verbal variety. He’s accused Trump of being mentally unstable and dangerously unfit for office. He’s asserted that Trump belongs in adult day care. But now Corker is taking a different approach. On multiple fronts, he’s seeking to essentially derail Trump’s entire agenda.
Senator Corker began the day by actively seeking to get Trump in trouble his boss Vladimir Putin. This summer Congress passed a tough sanctions bill against Russia in retaliation for Putin having helped to rig the election in Trump’s favor. Trump reluctantly signed that bill once he realized he couldn’t pull off a successful veto, but he’s since refused to implement those sanctions, apparently hoping no one would notice. Now, however, Corker is jumping in and directly forcing Trump’s State Department to implement the sanctions, bypassing Trump in the process (link). So much for Trump’s ability to continue shielding Putin financially. But that was just the beginning.
By Thursday afternoon Bob Corker was publicly ripping Donald Trump’s tax plan to shreds, calling it “ridiculous” and asserting that the plan was merely “buying off” special interests (link). Even as a number of Republicans in Congress are falling in line with the tax plan because it benefits the GOP’s wealthy donors, it’s clear that Corker is instead intent on sabotaging it – at least in its current form.
Some have questioned how much Bob Corker can do against Donald Trump on his own. Even though fellow GOP Senator Jeff Flake has joined Corker’s side, and John McCain is largely there already, there are only three of them. But simply by telling the ugly truth about the things Trump is trying to do, and by meddling in his agenda in every way a Senator is allowed to, it’s clear that the anti-Trump Republicans in the Senate are going to carve quite a chunk out of him all on their own.
