Republican Sen. Jeff Flake says he will not seek re-election next year, delivering a forceful condemnation of the "flagrant disregard of truth and decency" and bemoaning political complicity in a Senate speech clearly directed at President Donald Trump.
The first-term Arizona lawmaker spelled out his frustration and disappointment in a Senate floor speech before relaying the news that he would not be on the ballot in 2018.
Flake says: "There are times we must risk our careers. Now is such a time."
Flake has criticized the path that the Republican Party has taken under Trump. He says the impulse "to threaten and scapegoat" could turn America and the GOP into a "fearful, backward-looking people" and a "fearful, backward- looking party."
