"Mr. President, I rise today to say: Enough" - Republican senator Jeff Flake blasts Donald Trump in blistering speech
Flake said he cannot be "complicit or silent" to what the current administration is up to because he had "children and grandchildren to answer to.". He went on to reveal that he will not run for re-election after his current term ends in early 2019.
In a passionate address to fellow senators, and TV cameras, Flake lamented the White House’s "reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior " which he said was "dangerous to a democracy". Flake, who is Trump's party member, went on to accuse the US President of having a "disregard for truth and decency".
He warned about the changes in the political climate, which he referred to as "the new normal" and said his colleagues must stop pretending those changes are normal because they are not. He proceeded to implore them not to embrace the "new normal."
Following Flake's speech, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the speech "petty" and also suggested his departure from the Senate was probably for the best "based on the lack of support that he has from the people of Arizona".
Mr. President, I rise today to address a matter
that has been much on my mind, at a moment when it seems that our
democracy is more defined by our discord and our dysfunction than it is
by our values and our principles. Let me begin by noting a somewhat
obvious point that these offices that we hold are not ours to hold
indefinitely. We are not here simply to mark time. Sustained incumbency
is certainly not the point of seeking office. 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 – 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.
In this century, a new phrase has entered the
language to describe the accommodation of a new and undesirable order –
that phrase being “the new normal.” But we must never adjust to the
present coarseness of our national dialogue – with the tone set at the
top.
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.
None of these appalling features of our current
politics should ever be regarded as normal. We must never allow
ourselves to lapse into thinking that this is just the way things are
now. If we simply become inured to this condition, thinking that this is
just politics as usual, then heaven help us. Without fear of the
consequences, and without consideration of the rules of what is
politically safe or palatable, we must stop pretending that the
degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive
branch are normal. They are not normal.
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.
Such behavior does not project strength – because our strength comes
from our values. It instead projects a corruption of the spirit, and
weakness.
It is often said that children are watching. Well,
they are. And what are we going to do about that? When the next
generation asks us, Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you speak
up? -- what are we going to say?
Mr. President, I rise today to say: Enough. We
must dedicate ourselves to making sure that the anomalous never becomes
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.
Here, today, I stand to say that we would better
serve the country and better fulfill our obligations under the
constitution by adhering to our Article 1 “old normal” – Mr. Madison’s
doctrine of the separation of powers. This genius innovation which
affirms Madison’s status as a true visionary and for which Madison
argued in Federalist 51 – held that the equal branches of our government
would balance and counteract each other when necessary. “Ambition
counteracts ambition,” he wrote.
But what happens if ambition fails to counteract
ambition? What happens if stability fails to assert itself in the face
of chaos and instability? If decency fails to call out indecency? Were
the shoe on the other foot, would we Republicans meekly accept such
behavior on display from dominant Democrats? Of course not, and we would
be wrong if we did.
When we remain silent and fail to act when we know
that that silence and inaction is the wrong thing to do – because of
political considerations, because we might make enemies, because we
might alienate the base, because we might provoke a primary challenge,
because ad infinitum, ad nauseam – when we succumb to those
considerations in spite of what should be greater considerations and
imperatives in defense of the institutions of our liberty, then we
dishonor our principles and forsake our obligations. Those things are
far more important than politics.
Now, I am aware that more politically savvy people
than I caution against such talk. I am aware that a segment of my party
believes that anything short of complete and unquestioning loyalty to a
president who belongs to my party is unacceptable and suspect.
If I have been critical, it not because I relish
criticizing the behavior of the president of the United States. If I
have been critical, it is because I believe that it is my obligation to
do so, as a matter of duty and conscience. The notion that one should
stay silent as the norms and values that keep America strong are
undermined and as the alliances and agreements that ensure the stability
of the entire world are routinely threatened by the level of thought
that goes into 140 characters - the notion that one should say and do
nothing in the face of such mercurial behavior is ahistoric and, I
believe, profoundly misguided.
A Republican president named Roosevelt had this to say about the president and a citizen’s relationship to the office:
“The President is merely the most important among a
large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed
exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad
conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and
disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore, it is
absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth
about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame
him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other
attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.” President
Roosevelt continued. “To announce that there must be no criticism of the
President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is
not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the
American public.”
Acting on conscience and principle is the manner
in which we express our moral selves, and as such, loyalty to conscience
and principle should supersede loyalty to any man or party. We can all
be forgiven for failing in that measure from time to time. I certainly
put myself at the top of the list of those who fall short in that
regard. I am holier-than-none. But too often, we rush not to salvage
principle but to forgive and excuse our failures so that we might
accommodate them and go right on failing—until the accommodation itself
becomes our principle.
In that way and over time, we can justify almost
any behavior and sacrifice almost any principle. I’m afraid that is
where we now find ourselves.
When a leader correctly identifies real hurt and
insecurity in our country and instead of addressing it goes looking for
somebody to blame, there is perhaps nothing more devastating to a
pluralistic society. Leadership knows that most often a good place to
start in assigning blame is to first look somewhat closer to home.
Leadership knows where the buck stops. Humility helps. Character counts.
Leadership does not knowingly encourage or feed ugly and debased
appetites in us.
Leadership lives by the American creed: E Pluribus
Unum. From many, one. American leadership looks to the world, and just
as Lincoln did, sees the family of man. Humanity is not a zero-sum game.
When we have been at our most prosperous, we have also been at our most
principled. And when we do well, the rest of the world also does well.
These articles of civic faith have been central to
the American identity for as long as we have all been alive. They are
our birthright and our obligation. We must guard them jealously, and
pass them on for as long as the calendar has days. To betray them, or to
be unserious in their defense is a betrayal of the fundamental
obligations of American leadership. And to behave as if they don’t
matter is simply not who we are.
Now, the efficacy of American leadership around
the globe has come into question. When the United States emerged from
World War II we contributed about half of the world’s economic activity.
It would have been easy to secure our dominance, keeping the countries
that had been defeated or greatly weakened during the war in their
place. We didn’t do that. It would have been easy to focus inward. We
resisted those impulses. Instead, we financed reconstruction of
shattered countries and created international organizations and
institutions that have helped provide security and foster prosperity
around the world for more than 70 years.
Now, it seems that we, the architects of this
visionary rules-based world order that has brought so much freedom and
prosperity, are the ones most eager to abandon it.
The implications of this abandonment are profound.
And the beneficiaries of this rather radical departure in the American
approach to the world are the ideological enemies of our values.
Despotism loves a vacuum. And our allies are now looking elsewhere for
leadership. Why are they doing this? None of this is normal. And what do
we as United States Senators have to say about it?
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.
I have decided that I will be better able to
represent the people of Arizona and to better serve my country and my
conscience by freeing myself from the political considerations that
consume far too much bandwidth and would cause me to compromise far too
many principles.
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.
It is clear at this moment that a traditional
conservative who believes in limited government and free markets, who is
devoted to free trade, and who is pro-immigration, has a narrower and
narrower path to nomination in the Republican party – the party that for
so long has defined itself by belief in those things. It is also clear
to me for the moment we have given in or given up on those core
principles in favor of the more viscerally satisfying anger and
resentment. To be clear, the anger and resentment that the people feel
at the royal mess we have created are justified. But anger and
resentment are not a governing philosophy.
There is an undeniable potency to a populist
appeal – but mischaracterizing or misunderstanding our problems and
giving in to the impulse to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us
into a fearful, backward-looking people. In the case of the Republican
party, those things also threaten to turn us into a fearful,
backward-looking minority party.
We were not made great as a country by indulging
or even exalting our worst impulses, turning against ourselves, glorying
in the things which divide us, and calling fake things true and true
things fake. And we did not become the beacon of freedom in the darkest
corners of the world by flouting our institutions and failing to
understand just how hard-won and vulnerable they are.
This spell will eventually break. That is my
belief. We will return to ourselves once more, and I say the sooner the
better. Because to have a healthy government we must have healthy and
functioning parties. We must respect each other again in an atmosphere
of shared facts and shared values, comity and good faith. We must argue
our positions fervently, and never be afraid to compromise. We must
assume the best of our fellow man, and always look for the good. Until
that day comes, we must be unafraid to stand up and speak out as if our
country depends on it. Because it does.
I plan to spend the remaining fourteen months of my senate term doing just that.
Mr. President, the graveyard is full of
indispensable men and women -- none of us here is indispensable. Nor
were even the great figures from history who toiled at these very desks
in this very chamber to shape this country that we have inherited. What
is indispensable are the values that they consecrated in Philadelphia
and in this place, values which have endured and will endure for so long
as men and women wish to remain free. What is indispensable is what we
do here in defense of those values. A political career doesn’t mean much
if we are complicit in undermining those values.
I thank my colleagues for indulging me here today,
and will close by borrowing the words of President Lincoln, who knew
more about healing enmity and preserving our founding values than any
other American who has ever lived. His words from his first inaugural
were a prayer in his time, and are no less so in ours:
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be
enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds
of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched,
as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
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