Corker, Haslam on the state of politics and why the former GOP governor will now vote for Trump – The Tennessean

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Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam answers questions about his time in office. Larry McCormack / The Tennessean

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Two of Tennessee’s former top Republicans on Wednesday opined on the current state of politics in the United States, including shortcomings by their own party.

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Corker and former Gov. Bill Haslam, both of whom left office in January, lamented the polarization taking place between the country’s two major political parties.

Both men are moderate Republicans who have previously been critical of President Donald Trump’s crass rhetoric.

But despite announcing in October 2016 that he would not cast a vote for Trump after a report of misogynistic comments made by the then-GOP nominee, Haslam now says he will vote for the president in the 2020 presidential election.

“I’m going to vote for the Republican,” Haslam said, acknowledging that he believes that Trump would in all likelihood be the nominee, though “we can all talk about whether he should or not.”

In 2016, Haslam said he would be writing in the name of another Republican for president, and that he thought Trump should “step aside” after his degrading comments about taking advantage of women sexually.

Haslam did not elaborate on whether or how his opinion of Trump has changed in the roughly three years since.

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Just before the November 2018 U.S. Senate election, neither Corker nor Haslam would say how they were voting in the race between Marsha Blackburn, the former congressman and firebrand conservative who won the race, or former Gov. Phil Bredesen, a moderate Democrat.

He and Corker spoke to reporters separately after taking part in a question-and-answer session at the 36|38 Entrepreneurship Festival at Wildhorse Saloon, an annual conference hosted by Launch Tennessee, a state-funded nonprofit.

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Corker, who toward the end of his final term publicly criticized the president — who did the same to him — declined to comment on whether he believed Republicans should seek to challenge Trump in a presidential primary election.

“One of the things I’ve attempted not to be is a pseudo-senator where I’m weighing in on things after the fact,” Corker said.

Since leaving the U.S. Senate and re-acclimating to full-time life in Chattanooga, Corker has also tuned out the talking heads on TV.

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“I haven’t seen one second of cable television since I left the United States Senate,” he said. “Not one second.”

He offered an observation that “both of the parties” are becoming increasingly polarized, limiting their ability to enact change.

“Most people in Tennessee are accustomed to pragmatic government on both sides of the aisle,” Corker said, noting that Tennessee voters have long elected both Republicans and Democrats who have taken that approach to leading.

That is decreasingly the case, he said.

“It creates a little bit of an issue as it relates to finding solutions that move our country forward, and it creates a little bit of a problem in uniting our country,” Corker said. “It has almost become two very much at-war entities without a lot of common ground. Obviously, to move a nation ahead, you’ve got to work on common ground.”

Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.

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