Should I have outed the people who said these things—or should the countless other press people who have heard similar views? No: Reporters do have to keep confidences, and I conveyed the substance of this case as best I could during the Trump Time Capsule series through the election. Moreover, it’s not clear that “concerns” like these would have changed anyone’s mind. During the campaign, most of Trump’s fallen rivals blasted him in exceptional terms—before truckling to support him against Hillary Clinton. One of the most remarkable illustrations was Senator Ted Cruz’s extended denunciation of Trump as a “pathological liar” just before Trump clinched the nomination. Of course Cruz turned around to support him in the general election and has cast nearly all his Senate votes (94 percent) in alignment with Trump. Meanwhile, it’s not even the lead news of the week that Trump’s own secretary of state has half-heartedly non-denied Stephanie Ruhle’s report on NBC that he called Trump a “fucking moron.”

Now that Bob Corker, one-time supporter of Trump, has taken the commendable step of going public, what’s next?

* * *

For reporters, there is a logical extension from the opening Corker has given. Get Mitch McConnell, get Paul Ryan, get John Thune and John Barrasso and John Cornyn, get Kevin McCarthy, get every Republican in a position of responsibility to answer: Do you agree with your colleague that Donald Trump is a danger to the country and the world? Who’s right here: Your comrade who is the veteran chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee? Or a president who can’t stop tweet-threatening “Little Rocket Man”? And what about Corker’s claim that the White House is a daily battleground to keep the incumbent under control? Are you going to call one of your own a liar? Or is he right about Trump?

They won’t answer. Knowing how not to answer comes as second nature. More smoothly than Rex Tillerson, they will decline to get into the “silly stuff.” But they should be put on the spot and made to take a stand. Especially the ones who will either face the voters soon—or who are deciding, as Corker did recently, whether that’s even worth it.

(To be clear: every reporter already knows these are the questions to ask, and overall the resilience of the press is one of the heartening aspects of this disheartening era. I’m just spelling out what to look for as day breaks and senators get within reporters’ range.)

For congressional Republicans, this is your moment in history’s eye. One of your colleagues, who has chosen not to run for office again, and who also was the object of one of Trump’s intemperate attacks this morning, has decided that he might as well tell the truth. It turns out that this is often the right way to go! As the (slightly altered) line from Mark Twain put it, by telling the truth you will gratify some people and astonish the rest. Perhaps Corker’s motivations are not the purest or most glorious. He was nice to Trump last year, when Corker was in the mentioning-cloud as a possible secretary of state, and he was part of the “respectable” Republicans who disastrous enabled Trump. Corker’s retorts today followed personal attacks from Trump. Still, he’s doing more than his colleagues have. And Corker has moved toward a better place for himself in the annals of Senate history than he would have had only 24 hours ago.