In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) said that after the lambasting he took for his vote on the tax bill from the liberal media, he had a new understanding of where it was President Trump was coming from. Corker, who has become one of the president’s top intraparty foes over the last few months, told the news network that he was beginning to come around to Trump’s way of thinking on the press.
“I told him that I’d had a healthy respect for the media and I deal with them all the time and…to attack the media has not been something I’ve done,” Corker said, referring to his advice to the president earlier this year. “I’ve never ever in my life used the word ‘fake news’ until today. I actually understand what it is the president has been dealing with.”
Corker was taken aback by the stories that accompanied his changing vote on the tax bill. Starting with a report from the International Business Times and spilling over into most of the mainstream media, journalists implied that Corker had only come around to a “yes” on the bill once he picked up provisions that would directly benefit his own real estate holdings. Corker said the implication was absurd and unfair, and that he had not even known about the clause before changing his vote.
Corker said he spoke to Trump this week about the coverage.
“He just mentioned that he’d been dealing with this for over a year, and look, I’m sorry I’ve witnessed it firsthand, it is not good,” Corker said. “I know other people have witnessed the same. I have a newfound empathy for what he and others have been dealing with this in this regard.”
It’s a shame these Republicans have to feel the sting of the fake news media themselves before they can support the leader of the party (and the country), but hey, it takes what it takes. Corker realized what McCain, Flake, McMullin, Sasse, Romney, and the rest of the anti-Trump Republicans will eventually realize: The media of today is not the media of yesterday. They aren’t simply “biased” anymore. They are vicious, spiteful, and fully willing to twist, bend, and distort the facts to sell papers and push their agenda. Trump isn’t just whining when he talks about fake news, he is shining a light on the reckless, irresponsible, partisan NONSENSE that now passes for respectable journalism in Washington.
Thankfully, many Republicans seem to be learning this lesson. Now they just need to learn how to fight back against it. For that, they can look to the White House.
