Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., warned Friday that the abandonment of “decent politics” under President Trump is driving millennials away from the GOP, and said his party also needs to pay attention to rising student protests for federal gun legislation.
“Young people have been walking away from the party for a while,” Flake said during an event in New Hampshire. “I think now they’re in a dead sprint because I think they expect a more decent politics than they’re seeing and they expect Washington to work a little more than it is and don’t understand why we can’t get along.”
“We are told by the cognoscenti in Washington to ignore the president’s words. ‘Pay attention to what he does, not what he says,’ people say,” Flake added. “Those calls, of course, ignore the entirety of American history and exhort us to adopt a new norm to accommodate undignified public behavior just for this one president. In the sweep of our history, we have never been urged to not listen to what a president says. Such admonitions are preposterous now.”
Flake appeared in New Hampshire on Friday as part of the “Politics and Eggs” series, a partnership between the New England Council and the Saint Anselm College New Hampshire Institute of Politics. “Politics and Eggs” is often a stop for presidential contenders, and in the past, it’s been described as a rite of passage for candidates.
Flake said policymakers also need to pay attention to the recent uprising of students who are urging their elected officials at the state and federal level to pass stricter gun laws.
“It behooves us all to take note of what’s going on in Parkland and elsewhere,” he said.
Flake will retire from the Senate at the end of his term, and some are speculating he may be preparing to mount a challenge to Trump in the 2020 presidential election. The Arizona senator repeated that he hadn’t planned to run for president, but isn’t ruling it out.
“I hope that someone does run in the Republican primary, somebody to challenge the president,” he said. “I think that the Republicans want to be reminded what it means to be a traditional, decent Republican.”
