ABC News(WASHINGTON) — Conservative commentator Charlie Sykes said Republican Sen. Bob Corker’s recent searing criticism of President Donald Trump is a “come-to-Jesus” moment for the Republican Party.
“What Bob Corker said is what a lot of Republicans are thinking but not willing to say in public,” the former radio host told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on a roundtable for ABC News’ This Week Sunday.
It’s time for Republicans to “stop enabling” the president’s behavior, Sykes said.
Tennessee’s Corker, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and an erstwhile Trump supporter, has been in an escalating war of words with the president. Last week he warned that Trump’s foreign policy could put the U.S. “on the path to World War III.”
“What Bob Corker said was really a warning flare reflecting what’s going on, that these are major stakes,” Sykes said. “We’re not talking about Twitter wars anymore. [Corker] actually invoked World War III.”
Republicans have “allied themselves with a mad king,” Sykes said, adding that “conservatives who are in denial about this should give him some tough love rather than enabling … all of this.”
Sykes also noted Trump’s failure so far to accomplish major legislation such as on health care.
“We’re finding out that the guy who wrote The Art of the Deal is terrible at this,” Sykes said of Trump’s attempts to pressure Democrats into a health care deal. “He’s a terrible negotiator. He doesn’t understand policy. He doesn’t understand the legislative process.”
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