Temper Tantrum

Bob Corker is a mainstream Republican senator from Tennessee. Given the Senate only has a very slim GOP majority and Donald Trump is desperate for a legislative win, you'd think the President would bend over backwards to try to keep the peace with leaders of his own party.

That's what any sensible person would do. Except Trump isn't a sensible person.

Corker may be a conservative, but he doesn't suffer fools gladly, even in his own party. He initially supported Trump but no more. In recent weeks, Corker has openly criticized Trump's badly failing presidency.

Yesterday, Trump tried to trash Corker with one of his trademark Twitter tirades (details here). Corker responded with a single but brutal retort: "It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. “Someone obviously missed their shift this morning."

It's also worth nothing that many of the things Trump said about Corker are easily disproven lies.

Chris Cillizza at CNN dissected Trump's tantrum in a withering takedown (link here) with the title "Donald Trump is playing zero-dimensional chess." He writes: "with each passing day, week and month, it becomes more and more undeniable that Trump has no master plan and is no master strategist. His only guiding principle is his own personal vendettas."

Trump has nothing to gain and everything to lose by picking a fight with someone like Corker who should be a Senate ally. The more he does this, the more he pushes away other reasonable senators in his own party.

Sometimes it almost seems like Trump is daring Congress to impeach him, and then going out of his way to alienate as many members as possible, who would only be more inclined to boot him out the door.

It's sad to see this great nation and the office of the President so demeaned by such an emotionally fragile con artist.