Flake: Republican Party ‘is a frog slowly boiling in water’

Retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said in a new interview that the Republican Party has been inured to the danger of President Trump’s continued criticism of special counsel Robert Mueller. 

“It’s like the party is a frog slowly boiling in water, being conditioned to not be worried, to not think too hard about what’s happening around them,” Flake told The Washington Post.

“They feel at a loss about what to do because it’s the president’s party, without any doubt,” he said. “So, there’s a lot of whistling by the graveyard these days.”

{mosads}Flake, who has been a longtime critic of Trump’s, is in a standoff with other Senate Republicans over Trump’s judicial nominees.

The Arizona Republican has refused to vote for any of them until the Senate votes on legislation that would protect Mueller, who is investigating alleged collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has postponed votes on nearly two dozen judiciary nominees as Flake stands for the legislation he sponsored.

Flake has said he believes the bill has the votes to pass the Senate.

Rudy Giuliani, who is representing Trump in the Mueller probe, dismissed Flake’s criticism in comments to the Post.

“He’s a bitter, bitter man,” Giuliani said of Flake. “It’s sick. Nobody likes him and they would like him gone.”