Bob Corker turns down offer from Trump to be US ambassador to Australia

Senator Bob Corker has turned down an offer from President Donald Trump to be the US ambassador to Australia. The Guardian has confirmed that Corker, the retiring chair of the Senate foreign relations committee, rejected an approach to serve in the position.

In an interview with the Tennessean, Corker said he had spoken to both Trump and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, about the position over the past three weeks. But he had decided against accepting the position, saying: “At the end of the day though … it just felt like it wasn’t the right step.”

Corker has had a tumultuous relationship with Trump. The two-term Republican was an early Trump endorser and had been a candidate to be both vice-president and secretary of state. But he has become a vocal Trump critic at times, saying the White House had “become an adult day care center” and told the New York Times that Trump could put the US on “the path to world war III”. Trump called Corker “Liddle Bob” on Twitter in response.

The news that Corker was being considered for the position was first reported by the Australian Financial Review, which also floated another retiring senator, Orrin Hatch of Utah, for the position. But in a statement to the Guardian,Hatch’s deputy chief of staff, Matt Whitlock, said: “Senator Hatch has not had any conversations about an ambassadorship but looks forward to a well-deserved retirement filled with early-bird specials at all-you-can-eat buffets and long walks through Costco.”

Trump had previously nominated Admiral Harry Harris, the commander of the US Pacific command, for the post in February. But in April, he withdrew Harris’s nomination and selected him to be the US ambassador to South Korea instead. The US has not had an ambassador in Canberra since September 2016 and has been represented by James Caruso, the embassy’s chargé d’affaires, since then.