Bob Corker

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Bob Corker (2009)
Corker during a Senate committee meeting in February 2016

Robert Phillips "Bob" Corker Jr. (* 24. August 1952 in Orangeburg , South Carolina ) is an American politician of the Republican Party . From 2007 to 2019 he was a representative of the State of Tennessee to the United States Senate on. He did not stand for re-election on November 6, 2018 .

Family, education and work

Corker grew up in Chattanooga , Tennessee. He studied at the University of Tennessee and received his Bachelor of Science there in 1974 . He then worked as an entrepreneur in the real estate business, began installing drive-in windows for burger restaurants and became a multimillionaire by building shopping malls in 18 US states.

Corker is married and has two daughters. He lives with his family in Chattanooga.

Political career

In the 1994 election, he ran for a seat in the United States Senate and was defeated by Bill Deadline in the party primary . That same year, he was appointed Tennessee's Commissioner of Finance and Administration , and held that position for the next two years. From 2001 to 2005, Corker held the office of Mayor of Chattanooga. In 2001, his Democratic rival John Wolfe only received 2.8 percent of the vote. In the 2006 election , he was elected to the US Senate against the Democrat Harold Ford junior for the state of Tennessee, in a generally difficult situation for the Republicans as the only candidate from his party who was not already a mandate holder. He took up his mandate on January 3, 2007, replacing his fellow party member Deadline. In the 2012 election , the re- election took place with a clear majority against a democratic candidate who was hardly supported by his own party. After the Republicans achieved a majority in the Senate in the 2014 election , Corker became chairman of the influential Foreign Affairs Committee in early 2015 , thereby gaining political prominence.

In the 2016 US presidential election campaign , Corker was brought up for discussion as a possible, politically experienced candidate for the office of Vice President at the side of political lateral entrant Donald Trump . A meeting of Corker with Trump in his New York Trump Tower in May 2016 fueled such speculation. At the beginning of July, however, Corker announced that he would not be available, but would support Trump in the election campaign and advise on foreign policy.

On September 26, 2017, Corker announced that it would not run again in the 2018 election. The difficult conditions for re-election are a decisive factor in this decision, as several more conservative candidates had already announced that they would challenge Corker in the party's internal primary. His mandate ended on January 3, 2019.

In May 2018, it became known that Corker had rejected President Trump's offer to serve as US ambassador to Australia.

Positions

Corker has made a name for himself above all in foreign and security policy and takes independent, moderately conservative positions on many domestic political issues. For example, he supported a proposal on energy policy from the George W. Bush cabinet against the resistance of his Senate colleagues from his own party. In 2007 he campaigned against the will of the White House for the continuation of a health insurance program for children.

Corker, who had little knowledge of international politics before his political career, gained in-depth insights on over 60 trips abroad, mostly without a congress delegation and in one-on-one discussions with foreign politicians. As his party's foreign policy heavyweight, he recognized that the problems of US foreign policy did not just begin with Barack Obama's presidency ; with the 2003 Iraq War - which Corker defended in principle - the United States would have found a hornet's nest. He criticized Obama's plan to withdraw from Afghanistan and his reluctance to take on the civil war in Syria . During the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program , he managed to get Congress to be involved in the planning of the Obama cabinet . When, in March 2015, 47 of the 54 Republican US Senators undermined Obama's conduct of negotiations to control Iran's nuclear program in a public letter, he was among the seven members of his party who did not sign the letter. Corker advocated arming Ukraine against the separatists in the east of the country (see War in Ukraine since 2014 ).

After right-wing extremist demonstrations in Charlottesville in August 2017, Corker said about Trump that Trump had so far shown neither the necessary stability nor any of the competence that a US president should have. Trump then publicly criticized Corker and said that "Tennessee" was "unhappy" with his work. In early October 2017, Corker said three members of the Trump Cabinet , Secretary of State Tillerson , Chief of Staff Kelly and Secretary of Defense Mattis , would help keep the United States out of "chaos"; when asked whether the chaos was related to President Trump, he did not respond.

After the Republicans presented their plans for a comprehensive tax reform to Congress in late September 2017, which would not only provide significant relief, especially for top earners, but also, according to independent estimates, also lead to a loss of $ 3 to 5 trillion in revenue, Corker said he did not support any tax reform to be able to contribute even a penny to the national debt. His restrictive fiscal policy is seen as a particular threat to these reform plans, especially since political pressure on Corker after his renouncement of re-election in 2018 can hardly be exerted. On October 8, 2017, Trump expressed disapproval of Corker in two tweets, to which Corker responded in a similar manner. He described the Trump White House as a "day care center for adults". Two days later, Trump tweeted again. On October 24, 2017, Corker said on CNN "I do not know why he goes down to this low level and devalues ​​our country." Trump has proven to be "unable to do justice to the office". Corker tweeted that Trump was a "thoroughly dishonest president."

On April 11, 2018, he said that voting for Trump's tax cuts in the Senate vote was possibly one of the worst decisions of his political career, if estimates prove that those cuts are US national debt rolled into one Increase by $ 1,900 billion over ten years.

Web links

Commons : Bob Corker  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ^ The man with a plan for Iran. In: The Economist , April 18, 2015.
  2. ↑ a b c Michael Collins: Sen. Bob Corker will not run for re-election in 2018. In: USA Today , September 26, 2017 (English).
  3. ↑ GOP Senators Praise Corker as Potential Trump VP. In: RealClearPolitics , May 24, 2016 (English).
  4. ^ Corker takes himself out of Trump VP consideration. In: CNN.com , July 6, 2016 (English).
  5. ↑ Dave Boucher: US Sen. Bob Corker turns down offer to become next US ambassador to Australia. In: The Tennessean , USA Today , May 21, 2008.
  6. ↑ Bob Corker: Always on the run
  7. ↑ US to be in Afghanistan for 'at least a 10 years'. In: Times Free Press , August 26, 2009.
  8. ^ The man with a plan for Iran. In: The Economist , April 18, 2015.
  9. ^ Republican Senators Warn Iran in Open Letter. In: Politico . March 9, 2015.
  10. ↑ Reuters.com November 11, 2016 / Matthias Williams, Natalia Zinets: Ukraine hopes Trump is 'no Tsar', will not abandon Kiev. .
  11. ↑ Julie Pace, Bill Barrow: GOP doubts and anxieties about Trump burst into the open. In: Associated Press , August 19, 2017
  12. ↑ Trump slams another Republican senator, warning Bob Corker that 'Tennessee not happy!' In: The Washington Post , August 25, 2017.
  13. ↑ Chris Cilliza: Bob Corker just told the world what he really thinks of Donald Trump. In: CNN.com , October 5, 2017.
  14. ↑ Jonathan Swan: Corker's line in the sand on tax cuts. In: Axios.com , October 1, 2017 (English).
  15. ↑ washingtonpost.com: Trump's tweetstorm against Corker may cost him a key policy ally ; Corker calls White House 'an adult day care center' in response to Trump's latest Twitter tirade
  16. ↑ nytimes.com: Trump Mocks Bob Corker's Height, Escalating Feud with a Key Republican
  17. ↑ sueddeutsche.de: Trump seeks argument with the wrong person ( comment )
  18. ↑ FAZ.net: War of the words between Trump and Corker escalates
  19. ↑ CNN.com: Video of the interview , Trump-Corker feud explodes ahead of critical Hill visit
  20. ↑ see also en: Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017
  21. ↑ thehill.com: Corker: Tax cuts could be 'one of the worst votes I've made'
personal data
SURNAME Corker, Bob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Corker, Robert Phillips Jr.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Orangeburg , South Carolina