POLITICAL FIGURES: “Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee has been reconsidering his decision to retire this year, but Mr. Corker’s hopes for retaining his seat are running into a potentially insurmountable object: President Trump. Just over four months after Mr. Corker, upon declaring he would retire, unleashed a biting series of attacks on Mr. Trump, the president is refusing to bless his friend-turned-foe’s effort to re-enter the Republican primary race.
Instead, in a telephone conversation last week, Mr. Trump offered encouragement to Representative Marsha Blackburn, a conservative lawmaker and White House ally who has emerged as the favorite to win the Republican nomination for Mr. Corker’s seat, according to three Republicans familiar with the call.
Mr. Trump’s West Wing advisers, their memories still fresh from Mr. Corker’s jibes, are urging the president to resist entreaties from the senator and a handful of his colleagues who worry that the seat could slip from Republican hands in November. They are showing Mr. Trump polling that indicates how steep of a climb Mr. Corker would face in a primary campaign.”
-Jonathan Martin, “Corker Reconsiders Retirement, but He Must Win Over Trump to Do It,” The New York Times online, Feb. 13, 2018