‘Dangerous gamble’: Ex-GOP senator takes aim at former colleagues

Former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) issued a sharp warning to his onetime congressional colleagues, whom he accused of playing a “dangerous gamble” by refusing to speak out against the foreign policy direction of President Donald Trump.

In a stinging op-ed in the Washington Post, Flake told readers that during Trump’s first term, internal guardrails helped “mitigate the president’s more reckless instincts.” But that restraint, he wrote, is now gone.

“That brings us to Congress — particularly my fellow Republicans,” he wrote Thursday. “The responsibility to speak out now rests with you.”

The former Arizona senator, who later served as U.S. ambassador to Turkey, used his Thursday opinion piece to blast the GOP for failing to push back on Trump’s foreign policy instincts.

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“Some might hope that the worst of the administration’s foreign policy impulses will eventually be corrected, just as some tariffs were quietly rolled back under pressure,” Flake wrote. “But that’s a dangerous gamble. The world doesn’t pause for long while we wait for better leadership."

“Trust, once lost, is not easily regained,” he warned.

Flake concluded by urging his former colleagues in Congress to make clear that America still supports its allies and opposes "countries standing against Russian aggression."

“The world is watching,” he added. “And our allies are listening to what members of Congress have to say. Let’s give them reason to believe that the American leadership that they have come to rely on can endure far beyond this administration.”