Two retiring Republican Senators: Trump is utterly untruthful and has debased America

[Markhor]

Shame it takes retirement to shoot straight with people now they have no more elections to fight. If only they were this vocal when President Bush was in office doing likewise, but GOP Senators Jeff Flake and Bob Corker have rightly excoriated President Trump. Flake's speech in particular was powerful.

Here are some extracts:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/24/jeff-flake-full-text-senate-speech-transcript-244116

We must never regard as “normal” the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country - the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve.

Reckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as “telling it like it is,” when it is actually just reckless, outrageous, and undignified.

Were the shoe on the other foot, would we Republicans meekly accept such behavior on display from dominant Democrats? Of course not, and we would be wrong if we did.

If I have been critical, it not because I relish criticizing the behavior of the president of the United States. If I have been critical, it is because I believe that it is my obligation to do so, as a matter of duty and conscience. The notion that one should stay silent as the norms and values that keep America strong are undermined and as the alliances and agreements that ensure the stability of the entire world are routinely threatened by the level of thought that goes into 140 characters - the notion that one should say and do nothing in the face of such mercurial behavior is ahistoric and, I believe, profoundly misguided.

It is also clear to me for the moment we have given in or given up on those core principles in favor of the more viscerally satisfying anger and resentment. To be clear, the anger and resentment that the people feel at the royal mess we have created are justified. But anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy.

Bob Corker, supporter of the Iran deal that Trump is determined to undermine, has recently made a number of comments including:

"He is purposely breaking down relationships we have around the world that had been useful to our nation."

"It's amazing. Unfortunately world leaders are very aware that much of what he says is untrue."

"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 will be remembered most important, and that's regretful."

And there was this tweet in response to Trump's outbursts against him on Twitter:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Same untruths from an utterly untruthful president. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AlertTheDaycareStaff?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AlertTheDaycareStaff</a></p>— Senator Bob Corker (@SenBobCorker) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenBobCorker/status/922807083526914049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 24, 2017</a></blockquote>
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