Flake responds to Trump, Jimmy Carter barbs: ‘We need to stop trying to disqualify each other’

Former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake (R) criticized former president Jimmy Carter’s suggestion that President Trump wasn’t elected legitimately, calling for a “need to stop trying to disqualify each other.”

“President Carter calling President Trump illegitimate is not right either,” Flake tweeted Saturday. “We should be better than this.”

We need to stop trying to disqualify each other. I could not support President Trump largely because of his awful embrace of birtherism. President Carter calling President Trump illegitimate is not right either. We should be better than this.

— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) June 29, 2019

Flake, a frequent Trump critic who left the Senate last year, said Carter challenging the president’s legitimacy was “an awful thing for one American president to say about another.”{mosads}

“Argue that he shouldn’t be reelected, sure, but don’t say that he was legitimately elected.”

This is an awful thing for one American President to say about another. Argue that he shouldn’t be reelected, sure, but don’t say that he wasn’t legitimately elected.https://t.co/jRjGdH6n9Q

— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) June 28, 2019

Carter said Friday during an event in Leesburg, Va. that “there’s no doubt that the Russians did interfere in the elections and I think the interference, although not yet quantified, if fully investigated would show that Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016.”

“He lost the election and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf,” Carter said.

When asked by moderator and historian Jon Meacham if he believed Trump was then an “illegitimate” president, Carter replied: “Based on what I just said, which I can’t retract.”

Trump dismissed Carter’s criticism Saturday morning, saying “he was a terrible president.”