Jeff Flake, a frequent critic of former President Donald Trump and former Arizona senator, was awarded with a position in the Biden administration as the ambassador to Turkey.
Biden’s move to nominate the Republican lawmaker with a position in his administration comes after Flake endorsed and campaigned for Biden during the November 2020 election.
“With this nomination, the Biden administration reaffirms the best tradition of American foreign policy and diplomacy: the credo that partisan politics should stop at the water’s edge. U.S. foreign policy can and should be bipartisan. That is my belief as well, and my commitment,” Flake said in a statement after the announcement.
The former senator arguably assisted Arizona Democrats on multiple levels throughout the 2020 election — allowing the state’s two Senate seats to be occupied by Democrats for the first time in decades.
Flake, who was unlikely to receive an endorsement from Trump, retired from the Senate in 2019. He and the former president were consistently at odds.
“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? Let’s face it, he’s a Flake!” Trump tweeted of Flake.
Flake is not the only Arizona Republican that has been awarded a position within the Biden administration. Cindy McCain, the wife of the late Senator John McCain, was nominated by Biden to be the U.S. representative to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture. McCain, like Flake, endorsed President Biden in the 2020 election.
“I am honored to be selected by President Biden to serve as Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture. The communities this group serves need our support and focus, and I look forward to meeting the challenges this role presents,” McCain said at the time.
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Cooper Moran is a reporter for the Star News Network. Follow Cooper on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
