Corker Takes Veiled Jab At Tea Party Senators

Sen. Bob Corker has been less-than-popular with Tennessee Tea Party organizations. In recent weeks, he’s gotten grief over voting for an immigration bill that creates a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and a comment in which he called attempts to defund Obamacare “silly.” Credit: Blake Farmer / WPLN

Republican Senator Bob Corker says Tennesseans should be leery of some of his colleagues considering runs for president.

The second-term senator is in the state this week during the congressional recess.

At a meeting of the Murfreesboro Rotary Club, Corker was asked about the need for term limits. He responded by saying he sees value in the institutional knowledge that comes from serving several terms. He then warned about newcomers, vaguely alluding to recently elected senators aligned with the Tea Party.

“A lot of the people that you view from here as being principled – by gosh, they’re out there, some of the new names you see – I see them as some of the biggest politicians that ever landed in Washington,” he said.

Asked by reporters if he was referring to Ted Cruz of Texas, Kentucky’s Rand Paul or Marco Rubio of Florida, Corker declined to name names.

“I’m not that smart,” Corker said. “But I’m not that stupid.”

The nameless offenders simply rail on issues that have tested well in polls, Corker said.

“I get to watch people come down in the well [of the Senate],” Corker said. “I watch some of these people who – for instance – may think about running for president, look around and see what everybody else is doing.”