President Trump on Thursday took a swipe at Republican foe Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, accusing him of being “humiliatingly forced out of his own Senate seat” and making a play on his name.

Flake said last month that while it’s “not in my plans” to run in 2020 against Trump, he has not ruled it out.



Trump appeared to be responding to that in his tweet Thursday when he asked how Flake could consider running for office considering his “record low polling numbers” and adding that he was “forced” to retire.



“How could Jeff Flake, who is setting record low polling numbers in Arizona and was therefore humiliatingly forced out of his own Senate seat without even a fight (and who doesn’t have a clue), think about running for office, even a lower one, again?” he asked.



“Let’s face it, he’s a Flake!” he added.



Trump and Flake, who is retiring after the midterm elections,, have long thrown barbs at one another. Last month the moderate senator said that the “presidency has been debased” by Trump and accused him of having a “bottomless appetite for destruction and division.”



Flake has stepped into the role of Trump critic from within the Republican Party. Last year he released a book: “Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle.”



Recently he has been a vocal opponent of Trump’s tariffs on aluminium and steel imports, as well as voting against Trump’s pick for CIA nominee, Gina Haspel.



Flake’s barbs have been so intense that they have sometimes drawn criticism from GOP leadership. In January, Flake accused Trump of using Stalinist language and promoting global instability with his criticism of the media.

“It is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words infamously spoken by Joseph Stalin to describe his enemies,” he said.



‘Comparing the leader of the free world to murderous dictators is absurd," Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tweeted in response. "You’ve gone too far."

