Washington (CNN)Hours before Donald Trump was set to huddle with Senate Republicans to rally support for his tax cut measure, Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker delivered an absolute bludgeoning of the President. And even that may be an understatement.
In an interview with CNN's Manu Raju, Corker said the President consistently doesn't tell the truth, dodged on whether Trump should have the nuclear codes, said Trump wasn't a role model for children, said he would not ever support him again and repeatedly suggested that Trump "debases" the country.
It was something else. Below, I've picked the nine roughest Corker lines and ranked them from least to most devastating.
9. "The shame of it is, there are some some really good people around him, and if he would stay out of their way and let them perform, people like (Rex) Tillerson and (James) Mattis and others, we could really make progress on things that matter greatly to our country."
8. "I would hope the staff over there would figure out ways of controlling him when they know that everything he said today was absolutely untrue."
7. "Four times he encouraged me to run and told me he would endorse me. I don't know. it's amazing."
6. "I think that he's proven himself unable to rise to the occasion ... I don't think that that's possible. He's obviously not going to rise to the occasion as president."
5. "The President has great difficulty with the truth. On many issues."
Corker wouldn't call Trump a "liar" in the interview with Manu. But he did everything but.
4. "I don't know why he lowers himself to such a low, low standard, and debases our country in a way that he does, but he does."
3. "We are going to be doing hearings on some of the things that he purposely is breaking down, relationships we have around the world that have been useful to our nation."
2. "I think world leaders are very aware that much of what he says is untrue."
1. "When his term is over, I think the debasing of our nation, the constant non-truth telling, and the -- just the name calling, the things that I think, the debasement of our nation is what we will be remembered most important, and that's regretful."
