How Donald Trump Came Between Mike Pence and Jeff Flake

They had been tight for two decades: Both ran conservative think tanks in their states in the 1990s; both were elected to the U.S. Congress in 2000, at one point occupying neighboring offices; both were lonely leaders of intraparty rebellions during the big-spending tenure of President George W. Bush; both left the House of Representatives in 2012 to run successfully for statewide office; above all, both strove to be regarded as gentleman conservatives, known for a personal decency that infused their relationships and reputations in the nationcapital.

And yet both men knew, after one fateful week in July 2016, that their friendship would never be the same. The reason: Donald Trump.

On a Thursday afternoon, one of these men, a junior senator from a Western state, found himself locked in a tense verbal confrontation with Trump. The presumptive GOP nominee was visiting Washington, D.C., to meet with Senate Republicans, and the niceties came to a sudden halt when Trump singled out one of them—Jeff Flake—for having criticized his candidacy. “Yes, I’m the other senator from Arizona, the one that wasn’t captured,” Flake responded, referring to Trump’s infamous assessment that John McCain was “not a war hero” and that he preferred “people who weren’t captured.” Flake, who was meeting Trump face to face for the first time that day, told the soon-to-be-nominee: “I want to talk to you about statements like that.”

Exactly one week after that showdown—nearly to the minute—reports surfaced that Trump had selected Mike Pence, the former congressman and then-governor of Indiana, as his vice presidential running mate. Pence would soon be whisked from Indianapolis to New York, where he was introduced over the weekend, before being formally nominated alongside Trump at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland the following week.

Flake had not planned to attend. In fact, as Trump snapped back at him in D.C. that day—predicting that Flake’s dissent would cost him his Senate seat—he took comfort in knowing he wouldn’t be sitting in the convention hall as Trump completed his hostile takeover of the GOP. But Trump’s pick of Pence—which, Flake tells me, left him in a state of “shock”—forced him to reconsider. He wouldn’t just be turning his back on Trump and the Republican Party by shunning the convention; he would be betraying one of his closest friends.

Ultimately, it wasn’t enough to change Flake’s mind. He stayed away from Cleveland, in protest of Trump—while his old pal Pence was crowned as his heir apparent.

The ascent of the 45th president has left a wreckage of relationships in its wake—neighbors, friends and families divided along lines of partisanship if not political philosophy. Yet there has been no more dramatic divergence than that of Pence and Flake, once ideological soulmates and indivisible comrades who now embody the right’s most extreme reactions to Trumpism. Pence, who grew enamored of it, accommodated it and ultimately embraced it, sits at the right hand of the president, wields considerable influence inside the White House, polls as the most popular Republican in Washington and is widely viewed as the de facto leader of the GOP. Flake, on the other hand, rejected and rebuked Trumpism with force—writing a book denouncing the president and even chastising him from the Senate floor, albeit not by name, for his “indecency” and his “reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior.” The consequences have been proportionately severe: Flake, having seen his popularity in Arizona crater, made those brutal floor remarks in a speech announcing his retirement from the Senate. Trump’s prophecy had been fulfilled.

The distance traveled is not merely political. A late November dinner at the vice presidential residence—attended by several other senators, and centered on tax reform—was the first meeting in months for Pence and Flake. The old friends had not even spoken when Flake announced his retirement. In an interview on the eve of the dinner, I ask Flake, who wears a pained expression when talking about Pence, if the unraveling of their relationship makes him sad. “Yeah. It does. It does,” Flake whispers, looking past me. He thinks for a moment. “But I guess those who have embraced Trumpism, or are resigned to it … ” Flake’s voice trails off. Pence’s office, asked for comment on his relationship with Flake, said in a statement, “The vice president, like the president, is eager and willing to work with any member of Congress that wants to work in the best interest of the country.”