Candidate for U.S. Senate from Arizona Dr. Kelli Ward blasted Sen. Jeff Flake on Wednesday as an “embarrassment to the state of Arizona” for the Senator’s floor speech comparison of U.S. President Donald Trump to “brutal dictator Joseph Stalin.”

Retiring Sen. Flake has been relentlessly critical of President Trump and on Wednesday monopolized time on the Senate floor to give a speech likening the U.S. President to ex-Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin when it comes to taking criticism. Flake criticized the President for Trump’s criticism of the media.

Ward, who is running for the seat the retiring Senator Flake is vacating, called Flake’s comparison on the floor of the Senate “appalling and an embarrassment to the state of Arizona.”

“Flake’s disturbing speech was not only disrespectful to the position and institution he now serves in, it only serves to exacerbate the very problem he claims to be railing against,” continued Ward.

Ward pledged that she would “never engage in this type of troubling rhetoric.”

She went further to call on all other candidates seeking to replace Flake in the Senate to “join me in publicly condemning his remarks.”

Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana