Arpaio slams Flake

Arpaio slams Flake as he presses forward with Senate bid

By LOUIS NELSON

Former Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio dismissed criticism from Sen. Jeff Flake Wednesday morning, telling Fox News that “at least I got the guts to face” voters in this year’s midterm elections.

Arpaio, whose hardline stance against illegal immigration made him a controversial figure nationwide, announced Tuesday that he would run for the Senate seat being vacated by Flake (R-Ariz.), who announced last year that he would not seek reelection. Flake, in an interview with CNN Tuesday afternoon, said he did not expect Arpaio’s candidacy to last long and would not support him because the controversial sheriff is “not our best forward as Republicans.”

“I know he doesn't like me. But who cares? He’s not running. He’s saying that I'm not going to last more than a month. That I’ll leave,” Arpaio said in an interview with Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” Wednesday morning. “Well what about him leaving? He didn't have the guts to face the people to get reelected. At least I got the guts to face all the detractors, the Democratic party, you name it. So he can have his opinion. I got mine. It doesn't bother me at all.”

A spokesperson for Flake did not immediately return a request for comment.

In announcing his decision, Arpaio said he was motivated to run in part by a desire to support President Donald Trump. Flake has been perhaps the loudest Republican critic of the president’s.

Flake was also critical of the president’s decision last August to pardon Arpaio’s contempt of court conviction that stemmed from the then-sheriff’s defiance of a court order to end a practice deemed by a judge to constitute racial profiling of Latinos. In announcing the pardon, a White House statement noted Arpaio’s “life’s work of protecting the public from the scourges of crime and illegal immigration.”