The conservative Club for Growth slammed Republican Sen. Bob Corker Thursday, calling him "a Democrat," after he accused fellow GOP Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee of playing to the media and risking a government shutdown over their opposition to Obamacare.
According to The Hill, the Tennessean took to the Senate floor to basically call out the two as hypocrites for launching into a nearly day-long mock filibuster Wednesday that delayed consideration of a stopgap spending measure to keep the government open that also would defund Obamacare. The two later voted for the motion to proceed to the spending bill anyway, after holding it up for 22 hours, even though Democrats planned to strip out the language eliminating funding for President Barack Obama's
signature healthcare law.
ObamaCare: You Can Win With The Facts
"The reason you don’t want to send a bill over to the House, who could possibly put in place some very good policies for us here, is that you want the American people and the outside groups that you’ve been in contact with to be able to watch us tomorrow," Corker told the two tea-party affiliated lawmakers, referring to an expected vote on a clean spending bill Friday, The Hill reported.
"Is it more important to the senator from Texas (Cruz) and the senator from Utah (Lee) that the people around the country watch this vote, or is it more important to us that we have a good policy from our standpoint and actually have a body that has a majority of Republicans to be able to react and send back something of good policy?" Corker said.
The senator's floor comments drew an angry response from Club for Growth Vice President Andy Roth, who said Corker's questioning of his fellow senators' motives sounded just like the criticism coming from the other side of the aisle.
"Sen. Corker effectively became a Democrat just now on the Senate floor," he tweeted to followers of the club, which grades lawmakers on their support for conservative policies.
According to the Hill, Cruz immediately labeled Corker's criticism as a misrepresentation of his position. While it was true he was trying to draw attention to his effort to defund Obamacare, the Texan said he had always planned to vote on the motion to proceed to the spending measure regardless of the outcome.
"He must have made a misstatement when he moments ago suggested that those of us who participated in the filibuster the other day somehow changed our position. The reason I know the senator from Tennessee is mistaken is because during the course of the filibuster, I explicitly stated I support the motion to proceed," Cruz said.
ObamaCare: You Can Win With The Facts
Corker's comments reflected the divisions that have emerged within the Republican Conference of late over the tactics associated with efforts aimed at trying to kill off Obamacare
by eliminating funding for it.
Related story:
Senate Advances Spending Bill After Marathon Cruz Speech
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.