Former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake talks with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about his criticism of the GOP and says the party must allow members to disagree with President Trump.

Washington

Former Senator Jeff Flake emphasized the importance of allowing dissenting voices within the Republican Party during a recent interview. He expressed concern that the GOP risks becoming too ideologically rigid by discouraging disagreement with party leaders, particularly former President Trump. Flake highlighted his own experiences of disagreeing with past Republican presidents without facing personal backlash, contrasting this with the current environment.

Flake also discussed recent U.S. foreign policy moves, including President Trump's nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize and changes in U.S. support for Ukraine. He commended the Abraham Accords and the resumption of weapons shipments to Ukraine, but reiterated that a healthy political party must tolerate internal debate to remain stable and effective.

Former Sen. Flake: GOP must ‘allow dissident voices within the party’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He's heading to Capitol Hill right now. He's set to meet with the House Speaker Mike Johnson after having dinner last night with President Trump at the White House. The Prime Minister said he believes what he calls very broad peace is indeed possible between Israel and other countries in the Middle East through President Trump's leadership. He also presented the President with a letter nominating him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Joining us now is Jeff Flake. He's a former Republican Senator from Arizona and a former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey under President Biden. Ambassador, I'll call you Ambassador, thanks so much for joining us. As you know, President Trump is turning up the pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu to try to get a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal in place. How do you see all this playing out? Well, I hope it plays out well. I'm glad the President is engaged and he obviously needs to speak to President Netanyahu, Prime Minister Netanyahu, but he also, you know, Hamas needs to be engaged in this. They have to want this peace and I hope they do. It's certainly time, past time, the people there are suffering greatly. On the letter that Prime Minister Netanyahu wrote and showed to the President last night during the course of their dinner, he nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize. It's an award that has long been a fixation for the President. Why do you think Prime Minister Netanyahu did this? Clearly, President Trump was very pleased, very excited, very surprised to see that letter. Do you think Trump would be a worthy recipient? And I ask that to you not only as a former U.S. Senator, but also as a former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. Well, I certainly hope that he's worthy of that and time will tell. Obviously, there are still conflicts going on. President Trump famously said that he could bring the Ukraine-Russia conflict to an end within 24 hours. We're still working on that. So I certainly hope and wish him well and hope that he can deserve that prize. I hope we have peace. What he did do during his first term was create what's called the Abraham Accords, which did lead to peace relations, full diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab countries in the Middle East. That was a very significant development and now he's clearly trying to expand that to include other Arab countries as well. At the same time, as you know, Ambassador, he says the United States will supply Ukraine with more weapons to defend itself from the Russians. It's a very notable change from how President Trump has generally talked about Ukraine. And just last week, the Pentagon paused some weapons shipments to Kiev. What do you think is behind this latest apparent shift towards Ukraine? Let me first say the Abraham Accords were great. And that's the basis of ongoing stable peace in the Middle East. And so I hope we can continue there. And the president is to be commended for doing that in his first term. With regard to Ukraine, certainly glad to see what the president said, that weapons will resume. That is desperately needed. We need to help Ukraine fend off Russian aggression. And so I'm very happy to see the president change his mind on that. And while I have you, Ambassador, I want to ask you about a very important op-ed that you wrote for The New York Times over these past few days, an article that you titled, The Republican Fever Must Break. And you warn about what you see as the current danger facing the Republican Party. Lay that out for us. Well, the current danger is that we become calcified just completely on the right and simply listen to only voices on the right. I mentioned that during my time in Congress, I differed with President Bush on a number of issues, no child left behind, prescription drug benefit, and voted against his agenda. Yet I was with him on other things, and he appreciated that. And he never took it as a slight personally. Now it seems that President Trump takes that as a slight personally. Senator Tom Tillis voted with the president on all his nominees. He supported the president's legislative agenda and then voted against one bill, the big beautiful bill. And the president said, I'm now going to support a primary against you. The Republican Party, if we want to be stable and a serious party and endure, we've got to allow dissident voices within the party. And I fear that we're not doing that. And I think that on the left, the Democrats have become too much on the far left. And we're going to do the same or we're doing the same on the right. And that's not good for the country. You think it's going to change? I hope so. But I have to say, looking at the record, we haven't seen much willingness for the president to allow or to tolerate divergent voices within the Republican Party. But if you're going to have a governing party, you've got to have a coherent governing strategy. And if you don't listen to voices other than the ones you firmly agree with, you're just not going to get that. You know, grievance and anger are not a governing philosophy. And it'd be good for the country if we allowed more dissident voices within the party. Yeah, important points indeed. Jeff Flake, thanks very much for writing that article. Thanks very much for joining us. Thank you.

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Kerrville

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State of Rio de Janeiro

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