Sen. Jeff Flake says Trump's border wall plan is 'just a bit, you know, out there'

In further evidence that tensions are rising between President Trump and Republican Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Flake just criticized Trump's signature proposal to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. "This notion of a 2,000-mile wall has always been just — for anybody who spends time on the border — just a bit, you know, out there," Flake said in an interview Thursday with ABC15 in Arizona. He offered to show Trump the landscape of the Arizona-Mexico border to prove a wall isn't necessary.

Flake's criticism came two days after Trump worked hard to avoid calling the Republican senator out by name at a rally Tuesday night in Phoenix — only to call him out the next morning on Twitter. After a quick brag about the "packed house" at his rally, Trump tweeted that he is "not a fan of Jeff Flake, weak on crime & border!" Politico reported that at a meeting before the Tuesday rally, Trump referred to the senator as "the flake."

Flake seemed unruffled by Trump's criticisms and rather amused that the president had gone to such lengths to avoid calling him out by name. "I'm like that Harry Potter character, he who is not named, I guess," Flake said, referring, of course, to the evil Lord Voldemort.

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