He voted to confirm all 17 of Trump judicial picks this week (after giving his Trump is like Stalin speech) but could Flake be turning a corner?
As Sen. Jeff Flake’s (R-AZ) break from President Donald Trump intensifies, the outspoken lawmaker appears headed for another intra-GOP face-off—with the leader of his party in the Senate.
www.thedailybeast.com/exasperated-jeff-flake-bucks-mitch-mcconnell-sides-with-dems-on-shutdown
[an excerpt]
After a marathon session on Thursday night, Flake emerged from the Senate chamber frustrated with his Republican colleagues, in particular Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). After listening to McConnell and his Democratic counterpart, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), trade barbs over a stopgap spending bill to fund the government through Friday, Flake had decided it was better to side with Schumer and the Democrats on a key dispute over government funding.
In an interview late Thursday night, an exasperated Flake—who is not running for re-election this year—pinned the blame entirely on McConnell and Trump.
“We’re not going to get any better, particularly on the [immigration] issue, by waiting three weeks,” Flake told The Daily Beast. “It just gives the White House time to agree, disagree, and go back and forth. We just need to pass a bill and put it either on the president’s desk… or just pass a Senate bill and see what the House does with it.”
He told reporters that he would vote against a GOP-led measure to advance the House-passed spending bill, which would keep the government’s lights on for four more weeks. It’s a move that essentially kicks the can even closer to a March deadline to codify legal protections for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally.
Instead, Flake was openly siding with Senate Democrats, many of whom were vowing to vote against any stopgap spending bill that did not include those protections for so-called DREAMers.
In doing so, Flake bucked GOP leaders who were warning earlier in the day that a vote against the House-passed bill would play right into Democrats’ hands. Flake, in a remarkable break with his party, said he backed Schumer’s approach, which was also floated by Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS): passing a three- or four-day patch that would allow more time for negotiations on critical issues.