Bob Corker: 'Reality show' star Trump is setting US on 'path to World War III'

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker (R) told the New York Times on Sunday that President Donald Trump is running the presidency like an episode of his old reality TV show "The Apprentice" and that he's concerned Trump is setting the country on the "path to World War III."

Trump has spent the weekend locking horns with Corker, whose scathing assessments of the president's temperament and mental health over recent weeks have no doubt rankled the thin-skinned former TV star.

After Trump lashed out at Corker on Sunday morning, the Tennessee senator -- who announced he will retire at the end of his term -- accused the president of being so addled as to belong in a facility for dementia patients.

“It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center,” Corker wrote on Twitter. “Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”

“I know for a fact that every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him,” Corker told the Times' Jonathan Martin and Mark Landler by phone.

The president acts "like he’s doing ‘The Apprentice’ or something," Corker said and his reckless, bellicose attitude toward other countries could set the U.S. "on the path to World War III."

“He concerns me,” Corker said. “He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation.”

“Look, except for a few people, the vast majority of our caucus understands what we’re dealing with here,” Corker said, echoing Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein's comments this week that the Republican Congress now thinks of Trump as a liability.

Corker told the Times, “Of course they understand the volatility that we’re dealing with and the tremendous amount of work that it takes by people around him to keep him in the middle of the road.”

Trump's Sunday morning tweet storm contained allegations that Corker had decided to retire after "begging" for Trump's endorsement and failing to get it. Corker's office told the Washington Post that nothing of the sort happened, that Trump actually called offering his endorsement to Corker and urging him to stay in Congress.

“I don’t know why the president tweets out things that are not true,” Corker said to the Times. “You know he does it, everyone knows he does it, but he does.”