Saying he would no longer be ‘silent or complicit,’ Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake announced Tuesday from the Senate floor that he would not be running for re-election.
Flake, who has been a constant thorn in President Trump’s side – earning plenty of ire from the president too – noted that he had ‘children and grandchildren to answer to.’
‘I decided I would be better able to represent the people of Arizona and to better serve my country and my conscience by freeing myself of the political consideration that consumed far too much bandwidth and would cause me to compromise far too many principles,’ Flake said.
‘To that end, I am announcing today that my service in the Senate will conclude at the end of my term in early January 2019,’ he added.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she hadn’t spoken to the president about Flake’s decision though noted, ‘it’s probably a good move,’ citing the Arizona Republican’s lack of support.
The White House spokewoman also called Flake’s diatribe ‘petty.’
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., dramatically announced that he would not be running for re-election next year, citing the current, ugly state of politics
Sen. Jeff Flake said he was done being ‘complicit,’ as he belongs to the same political party of President Trump and thus announced Tuesday he would no be running for re-election next year
And that was surely the case Tuesday as Flake tore into the politics of President Trump through his Senate address.
Flake had previewed his political escape to the Arizona Republic saying earlier Tuesday, ‘there may not be a place for a Republican like me in the current Republican climate or the current Republican Party.’
He said he hadn’t soured on the Senate, but rather the current condition of his Trump-led party.
‘This spell will pass, but not by next year,’ Flake said.
On the floor, Flake said he had risen to address ‘a matter that has been very much on my mind at a moment when it seems that our democracy is more defined by our discord and dysfunction than our own values and principles.’
He began his speech by making the ‘obvious point,’ that elected political office isn’t an indefinite career.
‘We are not here to simply mark time,’ he noted. ‘Sustained incumbency is certainly not the point of seeking offices and there are time when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles.’
‘Now is such a time,’ he said.
Flake turned and expressed a number of regrets and implored that his colleagues not embrace what he called the ‘new normal.’
Among the things that fit the definition: the coarseness of the present dialogue, the undermining of democratic ideals, personal attacks, threats against freedoms and institutions and the flagrant disregard for the truth.
‘None of these appalling features of our current politics should ever be regarded as normal,’ Flake said, adding a ‘heaven help us,’ if that becomes true.
Then he went after Trump.
‘We must stop pretending that the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal,’ he said. ‘They are not normal.’
‘Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has been excuse as telling it like it is when it is actually reckless, outrageous and undignified,’ Flake said. ‘When such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else. It is dangerous to a democracy.’
‘Such behavior does not project strength because our strength comes from our values,’ Flake continued. ‘It, instead, projects a corruption of the spirit and weakness.’
Senate Majority Leader McConnell sat stone-faced through most of the speech, but applauded when it was over, then rose to salute one of his members.
‘We’ve just heard a speech from a very fine man,’ McConnell said.
McConnell had just invited President Trump to each lunch with the GOP senators, trying to get a tax reform package back on track.
However, before Trump’s lunch date, he had reignited his feud with Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, which quickly took over the news cycle.
McConnell, however, tried brushing that under the table as he spoke to reporters after having lunch with the president and the GOP caucus.
‘I don’t have any observation about that,’ McConnell said, before later labeling the feud a ‘distraction.’
‘I don’t know how many times I have to say the same thing, there’s a lot of noise out there,’ McConnell huffed. ‘But hat we’re concentrating on is the agenda that the American people need.’
‘I think there is great cohesion among Republicans of all persuasions to achieve this goal before the end of the year,’ McConnell said.
Several minutes later, Flake announced his plans to drop out of the 2018 race, smacking his party and his president around in the process.
Only a handful of senators were in the room at the time of the speech, with Virginia Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine calling a ‘ tragedy for the institution.’
‘I said to one of my Republican colleagues as we were walking off the floor. We both had the same thought: It was very depressing. A very depressing day,’ Kaine told reporters immediately after Flake’s speech.
The upside, according to the McConnell-aligned PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, is that Flake’s exit would shake up the race, making it harder for the Steve Bannon-backed former state legislator Kelli Ward to win.
‘The one political upshot of Sen. Flake’s decision today is that Steve Bannon’s hand-picked candidate, conspiracy-theorist Kelli Ward, will not be the Republican nominee for this Senate seat in 2018,’ said the group’s President and CEO Steven Law.
Bannon had marked Flake as endangered as he announced that he would field primary opponents for all the Republican incumbents, excluding only Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.