2020 presidential run?

Flake won't rule out 2020 presidential run against Trump

'We'll deal with that when it comes to it,' the Arizona senator says of a possible 2020 presidential run.

By LOUIS NELSON

Retiring Sen. Jeff Flake on Wednesday refused to rule out mounting a bid to unseat President Donald Trump in 2020, insisting that such a decision is “a long way away.”

“That's a long way away. I'm focused on my next 14 months in the Senate, making sure that we get some good policy, there are some things that I want to accomplish in the short term,” Flake told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in response to a question about his possible presidential aspirations down the road.

Pressed again on the question of a 2020 bid by anchor George Stephanopoulos, Flake reiterated that “you know, that's a long time away. And we'll deal with that when it comes to it.”

On Wednesday morning, Trump took to Twitter to criticize Flake and retiring Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who also publicly criticized the president Tuesday and previously announced he wouldn't seek re-election.

"The reason Flake and Corker dropped out of the Senate race is very simple, they had zero chance of being elected. Now act so hurt & wounded!" Trump tweeted. In a subsequent online post, the president again went after Flake, casting him as an outlier in the GOP: "Jeff Flake, with an 18% approval rating in Arizona, said 'a lot of my colleagues have spoken out.' Really, they just gave me a standing O!"

The Arizona senator announced Tuesday that he would not seek reelection in 2018, delivering a scathing rebuke of the president in a speech on the Senate floor. Flake has been among the loudest Republican critics of the president, characterizing the GOP’s support for him as a “Faustian bargain” in a book published earlier this year.

In an op-ed published Tuesday by The Washington Post, Flake asked “how much more damage to our democracy and to the institutions of American liberty do we need to witness in silence before we count ourselves as complicit in that damage?” He added that free from concern about winning reelection, his remaining months in the Senate will be “guided only by the dictates of conscience.”

Flake said his priorities for his remaining time in the Senate will be to push for authorization for the use of military force legislation as well as immigration reform, including legislation to codify protections for DACA recipients into law.

While Flake has mostly characterized his retirement as a principled stand, he has also conceded that his opposition to Trump has cost him politically. Former Arizona state legislator Kelli Ward, an archconservative, had already announced that she would mount a primary challenge against Flake in 2018 and a poll on the race conducted last August put her more than 20 percentage points ahead.

“I couldn't go on and run the campaign that I wanted to run and win in this kind of Republican party,” Flake said Wednesday.

"The bottom line is if I were to run a campaign that I could be proud of and where I didn't have to cozy up to the president and his positions or his behavior, I could not win in a Republican primary," Flake added later in an interview with MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "You can't question his behavior and still be a Republican in good standing, apparently."