Bob Corker won't say whether he'll back Trump in 2020 - and he's not sure Trump is running
Senator Bob Corker, R-Tennessee suggested that the president may not run again in 2020, saying, "Whether the president runs again or not I think is very questionable, candidly." He declined multiple times to say whether or not he would back the president in 2020 during an interview with CNN on Thursday.
"Look, you know, who knows whether President Trump is even going to run," said Corker when asked if he would support the president's run today.
Pressed on the fact that the president has in fact already announced he is running for re-election in 2020, Corker, who has been critical of Mr. Trump, countered, "Surely, CNN is not taking for face value everything that comes out of the White House all of a sudden."
The president has already filed for re-election -- he filed his Form 2 paperwork with the Federal Election Commission hours after he was inaugurated over a year ago. He has also held a number of re-election campaign rallies already, and he has raised $4 million so far, anchor Alisyn Camerota pointed out. "Four million is a speck of sand in the ocean as it relates to these kind of things," Corker said. The major presidential candidates raise hundreds of millions of dollars for their election campaigns (although Mr. Trump raised considerably less that Hillary Clinton in 2016).
He went on to suggest that it was too early to weigh in on the race. "I have no idea whether the president runs for re-election, nor what the field will be on the Republican side, so I think it's way too early to weigh in on who one might support."
Corker added, "I want to know who else is in the field." He suggested that it was possible Mr. Trump had said he was running in order not to be perceived as a lame-duck president.
He told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast Wednesday that "any Republican senator who hasn't been conflicted over this presidency is either comatose or is pretty useless in their blindness." At the same breakfast, he said that he would not campaign against the Democrat running for his seat in 2018, former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, who, he said has been a friend for 20 years.
"I'm not going to campaign against someone who I've been a friend with and worked with, you know? So that's the way it's going to be." Corker is leaving the Senate after his second term ends this year.
Last year, Corker, who announced he would be retiring from Congress at the end of his term, publicly lashed out against the president, saying that he'll be remembered for "the debasing of our nation," and criticized the president's conduct at length. Asked if he regretted originally supporting Mr. Trump for president, Corker responded, " Let's just put it this way: I would not do that again."
The two have previously engaged in a twitter tit-for-tat, during which the president dubbed the Senator "liddle' Bob Corker."
