February 19, 2019 08:47 AM UTC

When Donald Calls Cory

• 3 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

We noted last week that Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) told at least one interviewer that he had personally talked to President Trump about the latter’s plan for an emergency declaration for border wall funding. Here is that exchange between Gardner and Ryan Warner of Colorado Public Radio:

WARNER: So how do you get the message to him perhaps that you don’t want him to declare a national emergency, as has been hinted, or raid other funds for this?

GARDNER: Well, it’s pretty simple. I can tell him that in person, that I think Congress needs to do its job.

WARNER: Have you done that?

GARDNER: I have.

WARNER: Alright.

When, exactly, did Gardner have this conversation with President Trump? As a front page story in today’s Washington Post, Gardner has plenty of opportunities to chat up the big orange guy:

The chatterbox in chief has eschewed the traditional way that presidents communicate with members of Congress, calling lawmakers at all hours of the day without warning and sometimes with no real agenda. Congressional Republicans reciprocate in kind, increasingly dialing up the president directly to gauge his thinking after coming to terms with the fact that ultimately, no one speaks for Trump but Trump himself…

…Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — whom Trump has called while the Kentucky Republican was attending a Nationals baseball game — is among the most frequent of the president’s phone partners. But Trump also speaks often with Sens. David Perdue (R-Ga.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), according to people familiar with the conversations. [Pols emphasis]

Gardner is apparently much closer to Trump than he would have Colorado voters believe. Given the fact that Coloradans generally are not very happy with Trump (or Gardner), this won’t make Gardner’s 2020 re-election campaign any less complicated.