President Trump tweets Sen. Flake ‘had zero chance of being elected’
Oct 25, 2017, 8:02 AM
PHOENIX — A day after Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) announced he was not running for re-election in 2018, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to give his thoughts.
The president tweeted Wednesday that Flake, and Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), were not running again because they had no chance of winning.
The reason Flake and Corker dropped out of the Senate race is very simple, they had zero chance of being elected. Now act so hurt & wounded!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2017
He followed it with a tweet about a lunch he had with GOP senators on Tuesday.
The meeting with Republican Senators yesterday, outside of Flake and Corker, was a love fest with standing ovations and great ideas for USA!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2017
And then an hour later he added another tweet in response to an interview Flake had given on TV.
Jeff Flake, with an 18% approval rating in Arizona, said "a lot of my colleagues have spoken out." Really, they just gave me a standing O!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2017
The senators met with the president during their weekly policy lunch. There are various reports of whether the senators and president talked about policy, such as the tax overhaul, or bounced around on topics. At one point, he essentially polled senators on whom he should nominate as the next Federal Reserve chairman, asking for a show of hands on various candidates.
It was shortly after the lunch when Flake stood at his Senate desk and delivered a speech that included his announcement.
“There are times at which we must risk our careers in favor of our principles,” he said while announcing his decision on the Senate floor.
He went on to say, among other things, the current political climate is not normal and it must not be accepted as such.
“We must never regard as ‘normal’ the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country – the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve.”
Flake never endorsed Trump and the two have had many disagreements during the president’s time in office.
Over the summer, Flake published a book calling for the Republican party to return to its traditional values.
In August, when the president was in Arizona for a campaign rally, he said Flake was weak on the border issue.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
