The NPR Politics Podcast - Flake To Leave Senate, Says "I Will Not Be Complicit Or Silent"

Episode Date: October 24, 2017

In a surprise announcement Tuesday, Jeff Flake of Arizona became the second Republican senator to announce he will not seek re-election in 2018. Flake delivered a blistering critique of President Trump on the Senate floor saying, "there are times where we must risk our careers in favor of our principles. Now is such a time." This episode: host/congressional reporter Scott Detrow, White House reporter Geoff Bennett, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

You ever find yourself in a conversation about race and identity where you just get stuck? NPR's Code Switch podcast can help. I'm Gene Demby. Code Switch is a podcast that helps us understand how race and identity crash into everything else in our lives, including how a diverse and creative generation of writers and actors is forging new paths. Find Code Switch on the NPR One app and wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, y'all, it's Elaine calling from the New Braunfels YMCA. Today's show was recorded at 545 Eastern on Tuesday, October 24th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this podcast, so keep up with all important news at NPR.org and your local public radio station. OK, I need water.

Thanks. Bye. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. No, it is not Thursday yet. We're here in your feed because it was a pretty extraordinary day on Capitol Hill. Two different veteran senators, Republicans, laid out very serious concerns about President Trump. One of them, Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, came to the Senate floor to say he's not running for re-election and he's not going to be, as he put it, complicit. Reckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as telling it like it is

when it is actually just reckless, outrageous, and undignified. And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else. It is dangerous to a democracy. A few hours after Tennessee Republican Bob Corker upped his criticism of Trump, all of this on the same day the president went to Capitol Hill to meet with Republicans to talk about taxes and, yes, show some party unity. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR. I'm Jeff Bennett. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political

correspondent. All right. So this is one of those days where it's 3.30. You have a pretty good idea of what your story for the afternoon is going to be, then suddenly everything changes. Yeah, I mean, it was a remarkable day in what has been a series of remarkable days. I mean, to hear Jeff Flake and Bob Corker today, to say nothing of the fact of what former President George W. Bush said about President Trump. He spoke obliquely about the president, criticizing Trumpism and what he views to be this lack of civility. This is what Flake called one of the hinge moments of history. I mean, it remains to be seen whether or not other Republican senators will jump on his side. Yeah, and Mara, I really want to know what you think, which is the case for most stories,

but particularly this one. But first, let's just walk through parts of the speech, and then we can talk about it, okay? Okay. All right, so let's just walk through parts of the speech, and then we can talk about it. Okay? Okay. All right. So let's start with this. It's about 3.30, and Flake tells an Arizona newspaper he's not running for re-election, and then he goes out onto the Senate floor. And there are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles.

Now is such a time. It must also be said that I rise today with no small measure of regret. Regret because of the state of our disunion. Regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics. Regret because of the indecency of our discourse. Regret because of the coarseness of our leadership. Regret for the compromise of our moral authority, and by our, I mean all of our, complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs.

It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end. So I was in my Senate booth listening to this on the TV. And this seemed like a moment to maybe run down the hallway and watch in person in the Senate gallery. And it was notable to me when I got there that as Flake spoke, several of the senators sitting in their chairs listening were other Republicans who've been vocal in their concerns about Trump. And that's Bob Corker, John McCain and Ben Sasse, among others. The principles that underlie our politics, the values of our founding, are too vital to our identity and to our survival to allow them to be compromised by the requirements of politics. Because politics can make us silent when we should speak, and silence can equal

complicity. I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit or silent. Let's listen to one more moment here. Mr. President, I rise today to say enough. We must dedicate ourselves to making sure that the anomalous never becomes the normal. With respect and humility, I must say that we have fooled

ourselves for long enough that a pivot to governing is right around the corner, a return to civility and stability right behind it. We know better than that. By now, we all know better than that. So Mara, sometimes seeing something in person, most of the time seeing something in person is very helpful and clarifying. But sometimes I think it can kind of over heighten the tension of the moment. This seemed like a really huge deal to me in the Senate chamber. Was this that big of a deal? I think it was a big deal. His voice was shaking. And as Jeff said, we have seen a lot of these moments recently where elder statesmen of the Republican Party like John McCain or former President George W. Bush have spoken out about their concerns about Donald Trump.

That was just last week. But I think this was different. Flake gave a have you no decency speech and he gave it directed at his Senate colleagues and at the institution of the Senate as a democratic institution, as a check and balance, as a co-equal branch of government. And he was asking his senators to do something. He wasn't just complaining about the president or giving a speech about his own thoughts. What he was saying was, we have to stand up and counterbalance as a co-equal branch of government. We have to counterbalance the behavior that we would find unacceptable if it was performed by a Democratic president.

So, Jeff, what is the solution here that Flake is calling for? Because it didn't seem quite clear to me. I don't think he really even knows what the solution is. I mean, Jeff Flake is facing a real political reality here. He's being squeezed on both sides. His voting record is almost entirely party line. CQ analyzed his voting record and says he votes with the party 90% of the time, the Republican Party. So that, in effect, means he has little appeal to Democrats. And yet his anti-Trump rhetoric has really ticked off the GOP base in Arizona. So he is really a man without an island here. And he really has nothing else to do beyond not run for re-election. The question that

I keep coming back to is Donald Trump's behavior, the lack of civility, his objectionable tweets, all of that was evident back in 2015, going back to his mounting of birtherism targeting then President Barack Obama. So the question is, you know, what has changed? Flake makes the point was evident back in 2015, going back to his mounting of birtherism targeting then-President Barack Obama. So the question is, you know, what has changed? Flake makes the point that here we are nine months into the Trump presidency, and he's fairly clear that there's no pivot coming. I think he is asking them to do something. I think he's asking them to not be silent. I think he's asking them to say in public what they say in private. We know that many senators in private agree with Bob Corker, John McCain, and Jeff Flake about their concerns about the president's

behavior and about his degrading of democratic institutions. You know, Jeff Flake talked about them as the personal attacks, the threat against principles, freedoms, and institutions, flagrant disregard for truth or decency, etc. And he said he doesn't want to be complicit anymore. And that's what he's asking his colleagues to do. I think that's pretty specific. What is the question that leapt out at me about this and about Bob Corker's comments earlier in the day? Are the only Republicans who can speak out against the behavior of Trump, are they the ones who have given up any hope of a political future? So, Mari, you're talking about the fact that Flake is now not running again,

that he would have had a hard time getting reelected anyway. The other person in that boat definitely not running again, though I think he would have had an easier time getting reelected, is Bob Corker, who, as we've talked about a lot on the podcast, has been really critical of Trump. Flake was never with Trump to begin with. Flake was never with Trump to begin with. Corker was with Trump to begin with. But a couple hours before Flake went and gave this dramatic speech, Bob Corker made some news as well, doing an interview with CNN where he really upped his criticism of Trump to a new level. So let's just take a moment here and walk through some of the key quotes. Toward the top of the interview, Corker said this.

The president has great difficulty with the truth on many issues. And Corker said that he had tried very hard to work with the president, like many Republicans have, to change the way that Trump approaches the job. He's proven himself unable to rise to the occasion. I think many of us, me included, have tried to, you know, I've intervened. I've had private dinner. I've been with him on multiple occasions to try to create some kind of aspirational approach, if you will, to the way that he conducts himself. But I don't think that that's possible. And he's obviously not going to rise to the

occasion as president. And here's the last quote that got the most attention. Corker had a big picture view of Trump that that was pretty harsh. But I think at the end of the day, when his term is over, I think the debasing of our nation, the constant non-truth telling, just the name calling, the things like, I think the basement of our nation will be what he'll be remembered most for, and that's regretful. So Jeff, you've been on the Hill today too, talking to people. Are Corker and Flake out on their own here, or do their colleagues who are still trying to win races agreeing with them? Publicly, they're on their own. I mean, the larger question is, is this the tipping point?

I started my day at the White House, but I came to the Hill after this whole thing with Flake happened because I wanted to check in with a couple of top aides to a few of the up-and-coming Republican senators that I've covered more closely in the past. And the question I put to them was, you know, why is there no public linking of arms? What's the deal? If there are more Republicans privately who share this view, why, as Maura points out, why does this fall to the people who see no future ahead for themselves in politics and then all of a sudden they're unburdened?

And this person made the point to me, and this is obvious, but it was interesting to hear this person say it, was that the president has a four-year term, potentially eight, but certainly four that they know about. Senators have a six-year term. Most of them want to have subsequent, you know, repeat six-year terms. And they, by and large, are having to make appeals to the same coalition of supporters that Trump has on his side. And because Trump, by and large, has a personal draw with a lot of these voters that is not based on ideology. They really don't know how to navigate what may lie ahead. It's really hard to see around the corners when you don't really even know what the hallway looks like politically, right? And so

that's one of the reasons why a lot of Republicans who do have the same misgivings as Bob Corker, as Jeff Flake, are really holding their fire. And yes, because the alternative to what Corker and Flake are doing is silence. It's not people standing up and saying, no, I disagree. I don't think he's debased the nation. I think he's uplifted the nation. No, you don't hear the alternative viewpoint being expressed. You just hear crickets. You do on the House side, but not that much in the Senate.

And of course, they're holding fire, biting their tongues because they know that the Trump base is the Republican primary electorate. Right now, you know, you've got a small group of outspoken senators and the decision not to run again frees them to say what they think. And we don't know yet what effect that's going to have. Yeah, we're in this weird moment of political limbo, because if you look at what Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, has said that he's going to target these Republican establishment figures, he does have these three wins, Luther Strange, Bob Corker, Jeff Flake. Yeah, he was taking a victory lap today. Yeah, exactly. But then if you look at the other side of it, it's, you know, the president risks becoming a president, in effect, without a party. And presidents without a party and a polarized Washington risk being irrelevant.

So, Mara, here's the thing that I've been thinking about with all of this. And I was actually in some Twitter arguments about this even before Flake gave the Senate speech. And that is so many Democrats, so many liberals, progressives, whatever you want to call them, are constantly crying out, why aren't Republicans saying more? Why aren't Republicans standing up? Then a Republican like Bob Corker does express criticism. And these same groups of people, a lot of them say, your words are hollow. Why aren't you reaching with your words and doing more? You still vote with Trump, whatever.

And they attack people. Well, that's ridiculous. The fact is that Bob Corker was a conservative Republican before Donald Trump. His problems with him are not tax reform or other policy issues. It's about character and behavior and Trump's commitment or lack thereof to Democratic institutions. But I think, so I don't know what these left-wing Democrats want Corker and Flake to do other than what they're doing. They'll tell you in your Twitter feed tomorrow, Mara. Yeah, probably. But the fact is that these Republicans are now speaking out. And what Flake is talking about is that he's arguing that in the long run, this is bad for the Republican Party. He said, giving in the impulse to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward looking people.

And in the case of Republican Party, these things also threaten to turn us into a fearful, backward looking minority party, which is a hard thing to imagine now that they're at such a zenith of their power. But that's what he thinks will happen in the future. So, Jeff, Slake is taking the long view of things. Yeah. I will in turn take the short view of things because that is very relevant politically, you know. But when you speak out against Trump, as we have seen with Flake's approval numbers,

which have just cratered in Arizona, you make Trump Republicans mad at you and you don't seem to win much support from Democrats. You know, they're not like, oh, that Jeff Flake, I disagree with him on a lot, but I'm going to vote for him because of the way he's standing up to Trump. So short term, there doesn't seem to be any incentive to join the chorus of critics for Republicans. No, there isn't. I think the other thing that's fairly remarkable about this is that Jeff Flake, as you point out, is a tried and true conservative. And Bob Corker was never one of the never Trumper people. He appeared Corker was never one of the never-Trumper people. He

appeared at rallies. He was one of the few establishment figures to appear at rallies. He was on the short list to be Secretary of State at one point, although reportedly Trump thought he was too short to have that job. And then with the Foreign Relations Committee, he worked closely with the president. So now these folks, I think, are at their wits' end. But heretofore, they were not the Trump critics that you might assume they were, might have been based on their comments today or earlier this week. So let's just take a moment here and listen to how the White House responded to this. Sarah Sanders did her daily briefing shortly after Flake's speech. And here's what she said. I think that we support the American people on this one.

I think that the people both in Tennessee and Arizona supported this president. And I don't think that the numbers are in the favor of either of those two senators in their states. And so I think that this is probably the right out. It's good riddance. Your poll numbers were dropping. You couldn't have gotten reelected anyway because people in your states like Donald Trump better than they like you. There's an element of truth to that. And for all the talk about the Trump agenda, and the Trump agenda, as we know, isn't all that policy-based. I mean, I think in many ways, this is the Trump agenda, remaking the party in the image of Donald Trump, right? And it's sort of to follow the cult of personality of Donald Trump. And that is what Jeff Flake was objecting to, that you can't govern via the politics of grievance.

Well, you can't govern in a democracy. Well, that's true. But look, we talk about this a lot. We're at a first principles moment in the debate we're having in America. And now we're having a first principles moment inside the Republican Party. And Bob Corker has given a lot of interviews in the hallways of the Capitol. But today we had a senator stand up on the Senate floor and make an appeal to his colleagues and to the institution of the Senate as a check and balance, which, as we know, is a metaphor, not a mechanism. Somebody has to make it work. And I think that that's a pretty important moment in the era of Trump. Yeah.

But the other thing that struck me is that for a Republican Party that has a slim margin in the Senate, to have two Republicans who are going to be around at least through, what, January 2019, even though they're not running for reelection, they're still going to be around for a while. And I'm not suggesting that these two could vote against the Trump White House out of spite, but they certainly could. And, you know, they clearly have nothing left to lose. Their political careers, at least in the immediate sense, are done. But if they, for whatever reason, want to take issue with the president and whatever policy agenda he views as crucial to his own political standing, they could. And that's something that the president is whatever policy agenda he views as crucial to his own political standing.

They could. And that's something that the president is going to have to deal with. That being said, they have been reliable votes for him up until now. Yes, Senator Corker has talked about how he doesn't want to increase the deficit with tax cuts. But on policy issues, they have not differed with the president. This is about character and behavior and the president's commitment or lack thereof to democratic norms and institutions. All right. Well, who knows what will happen between now and Thursday. But on Thursday, we will be back with our regular weekly roundup. In the meantime, we have our coverage of this and everything else on NPR.org, on your local public radio station and on the NPR One app. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR.org, on your local public radio station, and on the NPR One app. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR.

And on days like today, that is an exciting beat. I'm Jeff Bennett. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. © BF-WATCH TV 2021