Jeff Flake spent the past year grandstanding against President Trump on his way out of office and still can’t get supporters in the liberal media. The Republican senator from Arizona was mercilessly grilled on his Kavanaugh vote on Tuesday’s The View, all the while being lauded as a "moderate" voice in his party.
ABC started off by playing the clip of liberal activists trapping Flake in an elevator on his way to the Kavanaugh confirmation vote back in September. As the table oohed and ahhed over the spectacle, co-host Abby Huntsman wanted to know what message the retiring senator had for his protesters:
“[I]f those women were in this room right now, what would you say to them?” she asked. Flake praised the women while slamming Trump for calling them paid protesters. “I don't believe that. They had a story to tell, and they wanted me to hear it, and it was effective too,” he gushed, giving them credit for delaying the vote (even after one of the women has admitted she is a leader of a liberal activist organization.)
Co-host Joy Behar jumped in to start grilling Flake.
“Nothing really got accomplished in my opinion,” she dismissed the “complete sham” of an FBI investigation. “[T]never asked Kavanaugh or Dr. Blasey follow-up questions. They never really interviewed corroborating witnesses. It was kind of like a slap dash investigation,” she snarked. But Flake said he felt satisfied with the thoroughness of the report, asserting it addressed all the primary alleged witnesses of Dr. Ford’s story.
Hostin got on board to emphasize what she’s been saying for weeks, that no corroboration is needed to convict:
But Senator, as a former sex crimes prosecutor, I prosecuted many cases with just a woman's testimony because with sex crimes there typically are no witnesses in the room. And I have convicted every single person based on a woman's testimony. Did you believe Dr. Blasey Ford's testimony under oath before the committee?
Flake claimed he didn’t know who to believe, which led Hostin to follow up with her gotcha question:
“So you didn’t believe her?” she accused.
Flake live up to his name, saying “I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t know. don't know if I believed him either.”
Behar asked why President Trump just didn’t pick another nominee.
“Why not find another person? There are many judges out there who are quite capable for the job. Why him?” Behar gushed as the audience applauded. Whoopi Goldberg asked this same question again two more times later in the interview.
Flake actually gave a decent answer to this one, saying that if “the mere allegation with no corroboration was sufficient to disqualify someone we had entered a new phase.”
After the grilling the hosts took time to slam Republicans for not supporting Flake or McCain for defying Trump. Whoopi urged more moderate Republicans to run:
HUNTSMAN: Why don’t you stay in and fight?
FLAKE:There is no room for Trump skeptics, let alone Trump critics in Republican primary these days.
HOSTIN: That's unbelievable!
FLAKE: And that's the way it is in Arizona.
WHOOPI: That's on us also. That's on us the voters because we allowed this to happen. Moderate Republicans, come out, come out, please come out wherever y'all are because we desperately, desperately need you!
HOSTIN: And keep people like Senator Flake in office!
