Friday on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said President Donald Trump’s “tone” on immigration was “unseemly.”
Flake said, “I certainly don’t like the tone that President Trump has taken with regard to blaming immigrants. Having that ad, which I thought was just sickening. And frankly, very untrue with regard to the threat that is posed by illegal immigrants.”
He continued, “And the notion that Democrats have prevented any fix, the last real vote we had on substantial immigration reform was the bipartisan bill we did in 2013. Every Democrat in the Senate voted for that bill, which included about $41 billion for additional border security. That’s more than the president has even asked for on border security. So this notion that this is all the Democrats’ fault is just wrong.”
He added, “To see the fear-mongering, particularly with regard to immigration is unseemly.”
On George Soros, Flake said, “George Soros, with the antisemitism that goes on, we just had an example last week of Radio Martí, the broadcast that goes to Cuba. They produced a program that called George Soros a multi-billionaire Jew. And went on to blame him for the financial crisis of 2008. Now, after I wrote a letter and asked for an investigation, they have suspended those who were involved in that program. But that was taxpayer-funded antisemitism and there’s a lot of it that goes on with George Soros, this reference to being a globalist and on and on. And it’s just wrong. It’s just wrong. It shouldn’t go on.”
He added, “As you mentioned, he gives a lot of money to progressive and liberal causes. Nobody denies that. He certainly wouldn’t. But some of the conspiracy theories out there are that he somehow was standing in the way of those helping the Holocaust victims back when he was, I think, 14 years old in Hungry. Some of these are absurd on their face. But anybody who funds liberal causes or who isn’t a conservative is fair game for some conspiracy theories and things thrown out there that just doesn’t speak well for us as conservatives or Republicans.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN