Former Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker isn’t ruling out another bid for office amid his party’s reckoning.
Forgive Bob Corker if he sounds like he’s going to say, “I told you so.”
The former senator was lonely as a Republican critic of President Donald Trump, beginning in 2017. While most GOP lawmakers kept quiet about their concerns, Corker warned the White House had become an “adult daycare” and that Trump’s Cabinet members “help separate our country from chaos.” He even held a hearing to scrutinize the president’s power to use nuclear weapons.
Corker retired rather than run for a third term in 2018 amid a feud with Trump and potentially tough primary. But after a flood of GOP condemnation of Trump for inciting a deadly riot at the Capitol, the Tennessee Republican says he’s been vindicated.
“Nobody’s perfect. You don’t ever have all of the information. But I think I’ve been validated,” said Corker. “My observations about his character and his conduct certainly have been validated, unfortunately, with people’s lives being lost. And our country appearing to be run by a tin pot dictator to people around the world.”
Now with Trump on his way out and the GOP reckoning with Trumpism, Corker isn’t ruling out another run for office. He said that he has completed his self-imposed two-year sabbatical from public life, though his two terms in the Senate were enough to satisfy his desire to legislate.
His state’s governorship is up in 2022, and obviously a wide-open presidential primary waits in 2024. Corker has never considered challenging Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R), according to a source familiar with his thinking.
“Republicans are going to have to have a real debate about who they are going to be,” he said. “The Republican Party has been a party of adults, and people who make tough decisions. Obviously, that hasn’t been the case in recent times.”
Corker also sees a potential silver-lining to this week’s chaos. It was costly, Corker said, but now the president has been exposed in a way that will shrink his political influence permanently.
It allowed “his true character [to be] revealed in a way that hopefully will diminish his impact on our country in the future,” Corker said. “So that is the one plus that comes out of this. People have been able to see firsthand what all of us have known, just who he really is.”
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The former Tennessee senator, a frequent Trump critic, isn't ruling out another bid for office amid his party's reckoninghttps://t.co/SzKzDXk20n
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