Booker makes South Carolina debut amid presidential buzz

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Sen. Cory Booker opened his first trip to South Carolina as a potential presidential contender Thursday by blasting President Donald Trump for wrecking America’s standing on the world stage.

Speaking to reporters gathered at Allen University in downtown Columbia, the New Jersey Democrat expressed concerns about the Trump administration’s handling of the disappearance of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who Turkish officials have said was murdered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul more than two weeks ago.

“I’m worried about efforts to cover this up,” Booker said. “I’m worried about our administration being willing to just go along to get along because of a lot of the financial interests we might have.”

The senator is just one of several potential White House contenders swarming South Carolina, which holds the first presidential primary in the South. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Columbia earlier Thursday for a fundraiser for local Democrats. California Sen. Kamala Harris and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are scheduled to be in the state Friday and Saturday, respectively.

At his first stop Thursday, Booker painted a dire-yet-hopeful image of a country that has long struggled to reach its potential.

“If America hasn’t broken your heart, you don’t love her enough,” the senator told several hundred students at Allen, a private historically black college.

He offered a long list of problems from the wealth gap between whites and black and escalating college costs to mass incarcerations and the infant mortality rate.

But he didn’t blame Trump. “The Republicans didn’t do this to us. We did it to ourselves,” he said.