Sen. Jeff Flake wants to know when the GOP will stop rationalizing Trump's actions

Sen. Jeff Flake.
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) writes in his new book, Conscience of a Conservative, that the Republican Party created President Trump and is now rationalizing his actions, and he'd like to know when they'll stop giving him a pass.

Politico ran an excerpt from the book Monday, with Flake pinning the rise of Trump on people who "felt abandoned and ignored by the major parties" and reached "in despair for a candidate who offered oversimplified answers to infinitely complex questions and managed to entertain them in the process." It didn't help that conservatives "mocked Barack Obama's failure to deliver on his pledge to change the tone in Washington even as we worked to assist with that failure," Flake said, and the GOP hurt itself by making its No. 1 priority upon his election "not advancing a conservative policy agenda" but rather "making Obama a one-term president."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.