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

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

So far, Republican primary voters across the country have sent a clear message to the candidates. Support President Trump or lose. So if Republicans retain control of the Senate in the November general election, it seems possible that the next two years will look a lot like the last two years, where Republicans largely ceded their authority to the president. Former senator, governor and cabinet member Lamar Alexander has given a lot of thought to how his fellow Republicans have handled things in recent years. His new memoir is called “The Education of a Senator.” And he stopped by our studios here in Washington to speak with us. Welcome, Senator Lamar Alexander.

LAMAR ALEXANDRE: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

SUMMERS: Senator, if I may, I want to start by asking you about Article I of the Constitution to kind of anchor our conversation. Remind us what he says.

ALEXANDER: Well, if I were still in the Senate today, I would host a bipartisan breakfast of my fellow senators. And we would read Article I because Article I says that Congress has total control over spending. He has total control over tariffs, he has total control over taxes, he has the right to declare war. And the Constitution says elections belong to the states.

I think the president would be better off if he listened to senators’ opinions on these issues rather than those of his staff. I know the country would be better off because we’re not supposed to have a wild democracy. We are 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 control a president and a president to control the courts, and all to control the passions of the people.

SUMMERS: Looking back on your time in the Senate, is there an example you would cite of how things actually work? On paper, Article I of the Constitution demonstrates significant power. But that’s not always how it works here in Washington.

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

SUMMERS: That’s right.

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

SUMMERS: Yeah.

ALEXANDRE: …On prices, for example. I didn’t convince him. And I did it privately, and I did it publicly, always with respect for the function. I would like to see more.

SUMMERS: I 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 named Ed Gallrein. Massie said he had hoped for his re-election that it would allow his fellow Republicans to advance their campaign goals, even if it doesn’t align with President Trump’s views. 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 the support of President Trump. But he also had a lot of support from McConnell’s supporters. If I look on the positive side, I look at the Republican senators during the second half of last year. Ted Cruz said the FCC chairman was acting like a mobster when he tried to criticize ABC for its programming. Senator McConnell has spoken out against President Trump’s attitude towards Ukraine. Probably the most important was when Republican leader John Thune said: We’re not going to change the filibuster.

SUMMERS: I note that we have seen that there may be a very real price to pay by senators who do not align with President Trump. I’m thinking, for example, of Senator Bill Cassidy in Louisiana, who we just recently saw lose his primary. Is it reasonable to ask senators to oppose President Trump when it could cost them their jobs?

ALEXANDER: Well, keeping your job is not the most important thing if you’re elected. I mean, in my book I try to say that 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, like I did with Obama, or whose behavior you disagree with, like 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 go ahead and ask you a question that concerns the upcoming presidential election. You wrote in your book that President Trump was attacking one of the most sacred precepts of American democracy, the peaceful transfer of power. Are you worried that this could happen again?

ALEXANDER: I hope not. I mean, George Washington said the most important election in our country was not the first, but the second. Indeed, the Revolution was a rejection of what was happening in Europe, where there was no orderly transition of power. So I hope that what we saw on January 6 will never happen again.

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

ALEXANDRE: Well, the best thing elected officials can do is set a good example, like in a football or basketball game. If you see a hard-fought match, what happens after the match? The coaches hug.

SUMMERS: They shake hands.

ALEXANDRE: The players shake hands and off we go. This is the example given to schoolchildren across the country. We have more than 500,000 people elected to public office in the United States. If they behave properly, including stepping down gracefully when they lose an election, that is the best way to reclaim what has been traditional in this country in 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 forever changed the system of checks and balances designed by our country’s founders?

ALEXANDER: I don’t think so. I told my colleagues in the Senate: it’s difficult 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. It’s a pretty big responsibility. And we’ve had some very good United States senators, and we have some very good ones today. And I think when they sit down and think about it, they’ll think: I want to make every day count. I don’t want to stay 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 will speak to him privately, I will speak to him publicly, but I will say what I think.

SUMMERS: We spoke with Lamar Alexander, former Republican senator and governor of Tennessee. Thank you very much for stopping by.

ALEXANDRE: Thank you for

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