Sen. John Cornyn admitted in an interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram over the weekend that he has disagreed with President Donald Trump on such important issues as budget deficits, tariffs, and border security, but said he tried to work out those differences in private with the White House stafff rather than publicly declaring his objection.
With just over two weeks until the election, the Republican senator finds himself in a tight race, according to the polls, in once solid-red Texas with Democrat MJ Hegar.
Cornyn told the paper his relationship with Trump was “like a lot of women who get married and think they’re going to change their spouse, and that doesn’t usually work out very well,” adding that “what we found is that we’re not going to change President Trump. ... What I tried to do is not get into public confrontations and fights with him because, as I’ve observed, those usually don’t end too well.”
Cornyn said he gladly backed Trump publicly on judicial nominations, a U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal, and tax cuts, but said disagreeing only in private on other issues “has allowed me to be much more effective, I believe, than to satisfy those who say I ought to call him out or get into a public fight with him.”
Cornyn said among his several disagreements with the president was in 2017 when Trump pulled out of a Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal that would have expanded trade in 12 countries, explaining that “I applaud him for standing up to China but, frankly, this idea that China is paying the price and we’re not paying the price here at home is just not true.”
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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