CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake to assess President Trump as a “spiritual leader” on Tuesday.
Flake, a first-term Republican senator who has been a fierce critic of the president, announced on Tuesday that he would not seek re-election in 2018. Flake has struggled through disastrous approval ratings, in part because of his repeated, public clashes with Trump.
In Flake’s first interview following his announcement, Tapper pressed the one-term senator on the president’s spiritual leadership. Tapper cited CNN colleague Van Jones as his inspiration for the question. Jones, a former communist, was briefly the “green jobs czar” in the Obama administration before he resigned amid controversy in 2009.
“There is a friend of mine, Van Jones, he talks about the spiritual leadership that presidents offer sometimes,” Tapper said.
“That after — during the JFK presidency, a lot of people were inspired to join the Peace Corps., during the Reagan presidency, a lot of people were inspired to go to Wall Street or to join the military. What kind of spiritual leader do you think President Trump is?” Tapper asked. “What is he inspiring people to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know how to answer that. My concerns are well-known,” Flake said, before noting that he was highly critical of the Republican president in his recent book, Conscience of a Conservative.
“I guess let me put it more directly,” Tapper said. “Do you think that President Trump is setting a bad example for the nation’s children?”
“Yes. The statements that are made about people and seeming to ascribe the worst motives to people as well, that’s something we tell our kids not to do, and, you know, just the mean and cruel tweets or language that is sometimes used, that’s something that I would certainly, you know, think that we shouldn’t do,” Flake answered.
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