Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said Monday that President Donald Trump’s comments about former President Barack Obama’s place of birth were “disqualifying,” Newsweek reports.
"I could never warm to the president,” Flake said at the Forbes Under 30 conference in Boston, Massachusetts. “Long before he ran, he talked about President Obama not being a citizen. I thought that itself is disqualifying. You cannot do that. And then talked about [late Arizona Republican Sen.] John McCain in a derogatory way. Then talked about Mexicans in a derogatory way. I just think that we've got to do better than that. We can’t refer to our opponents, political opponents on the other side of the aisle, as losers and clowns."
He added, “We have too big of issues to solve in this country than to just be partisan all the time.”
The senator also said that he hopes a Republican will run against Trump in 2020, but said he couldn’t do so himself. Trump and Flake have feuded several times since the president took office. In June, Trump blasted Flake as having been “humiliatingly forced out” of office after the senator announced he would not seek re-election in November.
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