Jeff Flake on Free Trade, Immigration, and Trump’s GOP

In 2017, Sen. Jeff Flake (R–Ariz.) announced he wouldn’t seek reelection. He told his colleagues that “we must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal.”

Eight years later, Flake reflects on why he walked away. In this conversation with
Reason‘s Nick Gillespie, just before the government shutdown in September 2025, he talked about the GOP’s turn toward grievance politics, the abandonment of free markets and immigration reform, and waiting for the Trump fever to break.

Q: One of the most memorable speeches from the floor of the Senate came from you
in October 2017. You announced you were not running for reelection, saying you would not be complicit in the degradation of our politics. We’re talking hours before a government shutdown, and President Donald Trump recently posted an AI video on social media mocking Democratic Party leaders Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer [both of New York]. What’s
your response?

A: Well, that’s exactly what I was talking about in 2017. Anybody who gets to the Senate wants to spend more than one term. I would have liked to run again. But the price to be paid would have been to say: Those things I said I believed in, I don’t believe in those anymore—on immigration or Muslim bans or tariffs. I just couldn’t do it.

I wrote a book as soon as Trump was elected [Conscience of a Conservative]. It took a while, because I didn’t tell my staff I was writing it. I didn’t want them to talk me out of it. I had hoped I could explain myself and say: Here are the conservative principles I believe in—traditional conservatism, limited government, economic freedom, individual responsibility, strong American leadership—not what we’re seeing out of the White House now.

It became clear by October 2017 that the voters in Arizona—that subset of a subset that votes regularly in Republican primaries—wanted somebody who was all in with the president, and I couldn’t do it.

Q: The Tea Party was all about stopping spending rather than caring about social issues. How did Trump turn the Republican Party inside out in what seemed like a matter of months?

A: I called it a fever back then—that this fever will have to break. It’s been a longer fever than I had hoped. Trump has been right to ridicule Democratic presidents for spending too much. But boy, we’re breaking records now. This “big, beautiful bill” was big, certainly, and expensive. Strong American leadership abroad and value in alliances—we’ve just thrown all that aside. And I said at that time, someday we Republicans will wake up and say, “We did this for this man?” I do think that will come because grievance and anger are not a governing
philosophy. They can win elections a time or two, but at some point, you have to govern.

Q: What were the votes and positions that you took that angered Trump?

A: Well, I think any vote you take that doesn’t go along with him, he gets upset about.

[Before he was elected] he came to a Republican Senate luncheon off campus. He pointed his finger at me and said, “You’ve been critical of me.” I said, “Yeah, I have. The things you were saying about Hispanics in Arizona and about immigration aren’t good.” He said, “You’re gonna lose in November.” I reminded him I wasn’t up in November.

Q: Along with being pro-immigration, you are pro–free markets and pro–free trade—things that were part of the Republican catechism but are no longer in favor. Is there a connection between becoming anti-immigrant and becoming anti–free trade?

A: Yes, there is. The anti–free trade thing is just baffling—this notion that we have to put up protectionist barriers, just like immigration barriers, that’s just not right. If we’re gonna put up immigration barriers, we better do a lot more in terms of trade barriers to make it more free trade, or we will decline. Protectionism leads to decline. And tariffs are inflationary. There’s no coherence to this tariff policy or protectionist policy other than trying to please one group or another.

This interview has been condensed and edited for style and clarity.