WASHINGTON — Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker on Thursday lambasted Donald Trump, saying the president is driving the United States toward “great peril” because he lacks the “stability” and “competence” for the country’s highest office.
The Tennessee Republican once appeared on stage at a Trump campaign rally, but it any goodwill he might have built with Trump likely evaporated Thursday. The president, as he did with a Twitter attack earlier in the day on Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., often attacks any critics — and holds grudges.
“The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful,” Corker said during an interview that was posted on Facebook.
“He also, recently, has not demonstrated that he understands the character of this nation,” Corker added, apparently referring to the recent racially tinged violence in Charlottesville, Va. “He has not demonstrated that he understands what has made this nation great and what it is today. … And without the things that I just mentioned happening, our nation is going to go through great peril.”
Corker once was considered a candidate for secretary of state — even vice president — under Trump. But on Thursday, he said Trump must find “way more discipline” and “a lot more inner strength” in order to “be measured and to try to solve problems.”
“Radical changes” must “take place, at the White House itself,” Corker said. “It has to happen. The president needs to take stock of the role he plays in our nation and move beyond himself — move way beyond himself. And move to a place where, daily, he’s thinking about what’s best for our nation.”
Two senior White House spokeswomen had not responded to a request for comment about Corker’s comments.
Corker’s comments show just how frustrated many congressional Republicans, especially in the Senate, are growing with Trump.
Trump, just over 200 days into his term, often appears mostly concerned with how he is perceived, his and his family’s brand and the far-right political base he will need to win re-election in 2020.
Corker called the white supremacist events, violence and subsequent fire storm in Charlottesville “repugnant.”
“And anything that’s done to incite or cause a movement — white supremacy group, KKK, neo-Nazi group — anything that’s said to make them feel that their standing in our nation is enhanced is repugnant,” Corker said in a thinly-veiled message to Trump.
Corker said the president has yet to “appropriately” address the country on the Charlottesville situation.
“I think that sometimes he gets in a situation where he double(s) down to try to prove — to try to make a wrong a right,” Corker said in his typically blunt fashion. “I think he’s done that in this case. I would ask that he take stock of who he is as president of all the people in our nation.”