The weird White House attacks on Bob Corker continued today. He derided the senator as “Liddle Bob Corker” in a tweet earlier in the day, and the White House spokesperson said the following:

WH @PressSec Sanders says that while Corker voted against Iran nuke deal, “he not only allowed the deal to happen, he gave it credibility.”

— Michael Mathes (@MichaelMathes) October 10, 2017

It goes without saying that Sanders’ claims are false, but for some reason Trump and his staffers think this is a very clever attack. The odd thing about the White House’s attack is that Corker was doing his best to interfere in the process of finalizing the deal back in 2015. He was trying to find a way to let Congress meddle with the agreement, and he was trying to come up with a bill that Obama wouldn’t veto. The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act was the product of hostility to the deal, and Corker was one of the architects of that legislation because he was one of the deal’s most prominent opponents.

Like other opponents of the agreement, he made criticisms of it that didn’t hold water. Anyone paying the slightest attention two years ago would know that Corker was doing what he could to derail the agreement, but he was unsuccessful. It is more than a little bizarre to keep hearing how he was instrumental in “allowing” the deal to happen, as if he were omnipotent and could have halted the negotiations by willing it. If it had been up to Corker, there would have been no nuclear deal, but fortunately it wasn’t up to him or the Congress. The point in rehashing all this is to say that Corker is natural ally of the president in opposing the nuclear deal, but Trump is so hung up on attacking anyone that criticizes him that he pretends that Corker is an enabler of an agreement that the senator tried to block. With any luck, the Trump White House’s habit of shooting itself in the foot might just end up sabotaging its effort to blow up the nuclear deal by making an enemy out of Corker at a crucial time.