Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake brought President Donald Trump's wrath on himself with his book "Conservative with a Conscience," as he wrote it "trying to poke" at the president, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Thursday.
"He should have known that when you poke at Donald Trump, he is going to come back at you," Huckabee told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program.
"My gosh, did somebody miss the entire 2016 presidential race and not see the primary as well as the general election?"
But even more importantly, Huckabee said he wishes Flake and lawmakers who have problems with Trump would address those issues with the president directly, and in private.
"What it seemed that Jeff Flake was interested in doing was selling a lot of books," said Huckabee. "By taking on Donald Trump, every liberal show was just gushing over him for having done that."
Democrats "stick together," said Huckabee, and "circle the wagons" when one of them says "something ridiculous."
"A Republican can't wait to get in front of a camera and bash the president," said the former governor.
Huckabee also said that he thinks that it is "nonsense" that Flake and other Republican lawmakers feel they need to air their grievances publicly.
"What they need to remember is that they live in this bubble called Washington," Huckabee said. "They need to get out of it every now and then and honestly go out in America and meet some of the 50 plus million people who voted for Donald Trump to be president."
Many Americans, he said, are "ticked off" at congressional Republicans for not replacing and repealing Obamacare for seven and a half years, as they promised and they haven't done tax reform.
"They challenge the president at every turn," said Huckabee. "People are sick of that. Get behind your president. If you can't agree with him on something and you aren't required to agree with him on everything, I get that, but do it privately."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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