Jeff Flake is trapped in political purgatory.
The mild-mannered Arizona Republican is nowhere near ready to support Donald Trump, whose his rhetoric toward Latinos and policy positions are diametrically opposed to Flake’s long-held views. But Flake insists he will never, absolutely, under no circumstances vote for Hillary Clinton — leaving the first-term senator in a political no-man’s land come November.
Flake earnestly says he wants to get to a place where he could vote for Trump — and as Flake deliberates publicly he’s drawing criticism from the right for his waffling.
But for now, what is someone like Jeff Flake to do?
“There’s one sure thing: I don’t want Hillary Clinton to be president,” Flake said in a recent phone interview with POLITICO. “I’m not in the ‘Never Trump’ movement.”
While Flake isn’t the only Republican struggling with Trump’s unorthodox campaign, the real estate mogul’s blistering attacks on immigrants is a particularly potent sting for Flake, who has long worked on the issue and is facing a 2018 reelection bid in a state that’s rapidly diversifying, especially with Latinos. And for a senator known as a pragmatic deal-maker, Trump’s scorched-earth run doesn’t leave much for Flake to latch on to, policy-wise.
So the genial Flake has become one of Trump’s sharpest critics during the unpredictable 2016 presidential campaign. He’s confronted the GOP nominee in private, while openly musing that he would prefer to mow his lawn than witness Trump’s coronation at the party’s national convention in Cleveland.
But unlike other hardened Trump antagonists such as Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Flake is searching for any clue that the wealthy real estate mogul may be moderating his tone and policy stances. One encouraging sign for him was when Trump dismissed the crowd’s “Lock her up!” chants during his RNC speech. Instead, Trump shot back “Let’s defeat her in November” — something Flake tweeted was a “good response.”
He also maintains that Trump has given signals that he would walk back his proposed ban on all Muslims entering the United States, although the presidential nominee flatly denied on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday that he was rolling back his controversial plan. And Trump’s selection of Mike Pence was a major morale boost for Flake, who is close friends with the Indiana governor since their days in the House — and he's traded multiple text messages with him since Pence was added to the GOP ticket.
For Flake, Trump has to stop using language that demonizes Latinos and mocks prisoners of war such as Flake’s senior senator, John McCain of Arizona. Trump has to disavow his Muslim ban, while indicating a willingness to enter into some multilateral trade agreements, Flake said. And the businessman has to formulate a “serious” immigration policy that is more than erecting a wall along the southern border and forcing Mexico to pay for it, Flake argued.
In other words, Flake wants Trump to stop being so Trumpian.
“I want our Republican nominee to succeed,” Flake said. But “not with the positions he has taken.”
In Flake’s view, Republicans have a pretty strong case they can prosecute against a Clinton presidency: Her ambitious domestic policy proposals, such as free in-state college tuition for a wide swath of lower- and middle-income families, rely on “massive tax increases.” Clinton has a “penchant for overregulation,” particularly on environmental issues and financial policy that will trigger a significant drag on the economy, the Arizona senator said.
Flake has an even tougher critique when it comes to the former secretary of state’s foreign policy acumen. He raps Clinton on her active push for U.S. intervention in Libya, arguing: “We’re going to be paying for that for a long time in terms of ISIS strongholds.” The so-called “reset” with Russia in the early years of the Obama administration indicated a “huge naiveté” on Clinton’s part about the former Soviet nation’s ambitions, Flake added.
“How’s that for a start?” Flake said, closing five minutes of arguments against Clinton. “But my problem is, we’ll never get there because we’re chanting, ‘Lock her up.’ … It’s like, having arguments against Barack Obama but starting with, ‘He’s a Kenyan, he wasn’t born here.’ Nobody’s really trying to persuade.”
Still, Trump's steady stream of controversies continues to give Flake significant reasons for pause.
Last week, Trump declared that as president, he wouldn’t automatically defend NATO allies if they were attacked, particularly if they hadn’t contributed their fair share to the military alliance — a view Flake said was “very, very troublesome.” The senator added that he’s concerned Trump hasn’t had the requisite national security briefings to bone up on foreign policy, and added: “That he still at this point in the campaign can espouse that kind of position with regard to NATO is very worrying.”
And just this week, Trump call on Russia to hack into Clinton’s private e-mails — which the campaign now dismisses as sarcasm that was misinterpreted. Yet his comments were widely savaged as an extraordinary call from a major party nominee to a foreign power to interfere in U.S. elections.
“If Republicans all simply climb on board and say we’re fine with you demonizing a federal judge or talking about Mexicans crossing the border being rapists, or you talking about there is no security arrangement with NATO … some of us need to push back,” Flake said. “And that’s what I’m doing.”
His strategy is notably different than that of McCain, who is running for reelection in a tougher-than expected race. The veteran senator and 2008 GOP presidential candidate long said he would support his party's nominee, and hasn't backed off that pledge. But McCain has distanced himself as well, choosing not to attend the GOP convention in Cleveland and instead campaign back home.
Asked whether he would consider voting for libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, Flake didn’t explicitly rule it out.
“All I can say is, I’m not going to vote for Hillary Clinton. I want to vote for Donald Trump,” Flake responded. “I’m hoping that things change in the next four months in terms of his campaign.”
Flake’s position has drawn jabs and a closed-door threat from Trump to oust him, as well as creating the perception among some GOP partisans that he’s a moderate squish. Flake may be more prone to disagreeing with his party’s tactics, but his voting record suggests he’s the same hardline fiscal conservative that he’s always been.
As a House member, Flake was best known for his crusades against earmarking — a persona he’s kept alive as a senator by regularly producing colorful reports that detail numerous examples of government waste.
But after four years in the Senate, Flake has transformed into one of the most influential deal-makers – co-writing a sweeping immigration overhaul measure with the Gang of Eight in 2013 and more recently, trying to nudge fellow Republicans toward a modest gun control measure.
Alongside Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine, Flake has been a vocal advocate of Congress taking up an authorization of the use of military force against the Islamic State, and an ally for the White House on normalizing relations with Cuba. He’s been one of just a few Republicans who’ve wobbled on the GOP blockade of Merrick Garland, arguing the Senate should work to confirm the veteran jurist this fall if it becomes apparent that Clinton will win the White House.
That track record of bipartisanship has earned Flake his share of Democratic fans.
“I don’t agree with him but he’s sort of the best of America,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who worked with Flake closely during the Gang of Eight immigration negotiations. “He’s an honest, hard-working guy who states his mind, who’s willing to stick his neck out on issues.
But that’s also led Flake to catch flak from the Republican base. The Senate Conservatives Fund — an outside group that’s agitated the GOP establishment by trying to oust Republican incumbents — recently derided Flake as a “liberal” on Twitter. That’s an eyebrow-raising label, considering the senator earns a 97 percent lifetime rating from the Club for Growth, 94 percent from FreedomWorks and 75 percent from Heritage Action.
In an e-mailed statement, SCF President Ken Cuccinelli said Flake should be replaced with a “true conservative” when the senator is up for reelection in 2018.
"Senator Jeff Flake has been a major disappointment to conservatives in Arizona and across the country - I would go so far as to say he's been an embarrassment,” Cuccinelli said. “He campaigned as a principled conservative in 2012 but has governed as a liberal ever since.”
Meanwhile, Trump has openly mulled creating a super PAC to go after Republican adversaries such as Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and “maybe one other person that I’m thinking about.” It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Flake – whom Trump threatened to go after politically at a closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans earlier this month – could be that third person.
“If he does, he does,” Flake said. “There’s nothing I can do about that.”
But Flake has a deep reservoir of support among the Hispanic community – a necessity in a state where 22 percent of its eligible voter population are Hispanic, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.
“It’s Trump who should be worried about Jeff,” said Javier Palomarez, the president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.