Former senator calls on fellow Republicans to talk with the president more : NPR

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

So far, Republican voters in primaries around the country have sent a clear message to candidates. Back President Trump or lose. So if Republicans retain control of the Senate in November’s general election, it seems possible the next two years in there could be much like the past two, where Republicans have largely ceded authority to the president. Former senator and governor and cabinet member Lamar Alexander has been thinking a lot about how his fellow Republicans have handled things over the last few years. His new memoir is “The Education Of A Senator.” And he stopped by our studios here in Washington to talk with us. Senator Lamar Alexander, welcome.

LAMAR ALEXANDER: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SUMMERS: Senator, if I can, I want to start by asking you about Article I of the Constitution to sort of ground our conversation. Remind us what it says.

ALEXANDER: Well, if I were still in the Senate today, I would organize a bipartisan breakfast of my fellow senators. And we’d read Article I to each other because Article I says that Congress has complete control over spending. It has complete control over tariffs, it has complete control over taxes, it has the right to declare war. And the Constitution said elections belong to states.

I think the president would be better off if he would listen to senators’ views on those issues rather than just his staff. I know the country would be better off because we’re not supposed to have a wild democracy. We’re supposed to have a republic where we check and balance each other. The founders didn’t really trust human nature.

SUMMERS: Yeah.

ALEXANDER: And they wanted a Senate to check a president and a president to check the courts, and all of them to check the passions of the people.

SUMMERS: Thinking back to your time in the Senate, is there an example that you would point to as to how things, like, actually work? On paper, Article I of the Constitution shows significant power. But that’s not always how it works here in Washington.

ALEXANDER: Well, I can give you an example. In President Trump’s first term, he decided he would spend money that Congress had appropriated for military barracks and schools to build the border wall.

SUMMERS: Right.

ALEXANDER: There were, at least by my count, 22 Republican senators who objected to that. I was one of them. And 12 of them voted against it and joined with Democrats to stop that. Now, the president was able to veto that. But then the courts came along and said that what he was doing was unconstitutional. So at least you had Republican senators in the first Trump term – on the border wall, on cuts to the National Institutes of Health, on debates about war power, debates about tariff – you had a vigorous discussion. I argued with the president a lot myself in the first term…

SUMMERS: Yeah.

ALEXANDER: …On tariffs, for example. I didn’t convince him. And I did it privately, and I did it publicly, always with respect for the office. I’d like to see more of that.

SUMMERS: I do want to ask you about some recent news because last night, Republican Congressman Thomas Massie lost a primary in Kentucky to a Trump-backed challenger by the name of Ed Gallrein. Massie said that he’d hoped his reelection, that it would empower his fellow Republicans to stand up for what they campaign on, even if it doesn’t align with the views of President Trump. But Massie lost. So what lesson do you see there?

ALEXANDER: Well, if you look at Kentucky, the Republican Senate candidate won 2-1. And he had President Trump’s endorsement. But he also had a lot of support from McConnell’s supporters. If I’m looking at the positive side, I look at the Republican senators in the last half of this past year. Ted Cruz said that the FCC chairman was acting like a mafioso when he tried to criticize ABC over its programming. Senator McConnell spoke up against President Trump’s attitude toward Ukraine. Probably the most important was when the Republican leader John Thune said, we’re not going to change the filibuster.

SUMMERS: I’ll note that there – we’ve seen that there can be a very real price paid by senators who do not align with President Trump. I think about, for example, Senator Bill Cassidy in Louisiana, who we just saw recently lose his primary. Is it reasonable to ask senators to go against President Trump when it could cost them their jobs?

ALEXANDER: Well, keeping your job isn’t the most important thing if you’re elected to office. I mean, in my book, I try to say what you need in politics is a sense of purpose and a sense of humor. Sometimes that means you stand up against the president whose views you disagree with, as I did with Obama, or whose behavior you disagree with, as I did with Donald Trump. I had a good relationship with both of them. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t give them my advice and vote against them when I needed to.

SUMMERS: We’ve talked a lot about the midterms. But I want to push forward and ask you a question that’s about the next presidential election. You wrote in your book that President Trump assaulted one of the most hallowed precepts of the American democracy, the peaceful transfer of power. Do you worry that that could happen again?

ALEXANDER: I hope it doesn’t. I mean, George Washington said that the most important election in our country was not the first one, but the second one. That was because the Revolution was about a rejection of what happened in Europe, where there wasn’t any orderly transition of power. So I hope what we saw on January 6 never happens again.

SUMMERS: Is there something that you believe that the president or leaders of the Republican Party could say or do to ensure that if the election results are not ones they support that people can trust in American elections, can trust in the democratic process at work when they go to inaugurations like the ones that you and I and others have been to for years?

ALEXANDER: Well, the best thing elected officials can do is set a good example, just like in a football game or a basketball game. If you see hard-fought game, what happens after the game? Coaches hug each other.

SUMMERS: They shake hands.

ALEXANDER: Players shake hands, and they’re off. That’s the example that’s set for school kids all around the country. We have over 500,000 people in America elected to public office. If they conduct themselves properly, including gracefully stepping aside when they lose an election, that is the single best way to reclaim what has been traditional in this country about our democratic system.

SUMMERS: If you had a crystal ball, what do you think it would tell us about the future when Trump is no longer president? Has this Senate changed the checks and balances system that was designed by the founders of our country forever?

ALEXANDER: I don’t think that. I used to tell my colleagues in the Senate, it’s hard to get here. It’s hard to stay here. And while you’re here, you might as well try to accomplish something good for the country. That’s a pretty tall responsibility. And we’ve had some awfully good United States senators, and we have good ones today. And I think when they sit back and think about it, they’ll think, I want to make every day count. I don’t want to just sit here and take orders for the next five years. I’m going to do what I think is right and I’m going to respect the president. I’ll talk to him privately, I’ll talk to him publicly, but I’ll say what I think.

SUMMERS: We’ve been speaking with Lamar Alexander, formerly the Republican senator and governor of Tennessee. Thanks so much for stopping by.

ALEXANDER: Thanks for having

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