President Trump on Wednesday hit back at Sen. Jeff Flake after the Arizona Republican denounced him during a speech on the Senate floor.
“The first time I saw him on television I assumed he was a Democrat,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
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Trump’s comment came after he mocked Flake for criticizing him earlier Wednesday, writing in a tweet that the retiring senator has just an 18 percent approval rating in his home state.
Trump also noted that his other GOP colleagues gave the president a standing ovation during his lunch with the Senate Republican caucus on Tuesday.
Flake tore into Trump during a blistering floor speech Tuesday in announcing his retirement, saying, “we must never adjust to the coarseness of our dialogue with the tone set up at the top.”
“We must never regard as normal the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country, the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms and institution, the flagrant disregard for truth and decency, the reckless provocations — most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have been elected to serve,” he said.