Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is known as one of a few left in the Republican Party in 2025 who is not an unabated Donald Trump sycophant. She’s been willing to criticize Trump while working alongside her colleagues in the Senate to help pass elements of his agenda, both in the first administration and now. That record is complicated by the fact that she sometimes criticizes things she ultimately votes for or at least helps pass, like her infamous “present” vote on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
But her recent remarks to a crowd back home in Alaska this week go a lot further than the usual gestures in the direction of Independent Thought. Strikingly, she admitted to a crowd of nonprofit leaders at an event that “we are all afraid,” referencing the societal upheaval that Trump has enacted in his first few months back in office, as he slashes federal services, guts federal agencies, defies court orders and risks economic collapse through tariffs.
“It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right,” she said.
She then, importantly, criticized her colleagues in Congress who have already ceded much of their authority to the executive branch. She called Trump’s DOGE actions — as he and Elon Musk rampage through the federal government, purporting to cancel congressionally authorized funds — “against the law,” a fact that hardly any of her Republican colleagues have acknowledged (beside her sometimes backbone-y friend Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who, in his on again-off again role as a Constitution-toting civil libertarian, has also acknowledged DOGE’s cuts aren’t real until Congress says they are).
“It’s called the checks and balances,” Murkowski said, explaining Congress’ constitutionally mandated role. “And right now we are not balancing as the Congress.”
Murkowski also nodded at the very real and very dangerous course Trump is on as he defies the judiciary and makes a mockery of the Supreme Court by asserting his own, erroneous interpretation of their opinion, which upheld a lower-court order mandating the Trump administration take steps to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Per the Anchorage Daily News:
She expressed alarm at how the judiciary was increasingly being treated as a partisan entity, saying it was putting America in “a very dangerous place, because you stop believing in the rule of law.” And she called on Alaskans to “be affirmative” in protesting on behalf of programs they want to remain in place so that elected leaders are kept aware of where support and frustration exist among constituents.
“I think it’s important the concerns continue to be raised rather than letting the fatigue of the chaos grind you down,” Murkowski said.
Her remarks on her colleagues’ capitulation are of particular importance in this moment. When Congress returns after its Easter recess, lawmakers will reportedly have to grapple with whether to make Trump’s lawless DOGE disaster permanent. The White House reportedly plans to send Congress what it is calling a “rescission” package upon their return, which would cancel about $9.3 billion in already congressionally approved funding for foreign aid programs, and for NPR and PBS.
As Murkowski noted, checking and balancing is not exactly what is happening when the executive branch is doing backwards dictation of legislation.
Getting Ahead Of The Medicaid-Cut Blowback
A dozen House Republicans sent a letter to House GOP leadership and Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY) earlier this week, warning them that they won’t vote in favor of any reconciliation package that includes sweeping cuts to “Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations.”
“We would like to reiterate our strong support for this program that ensures our constituents have reliable healthcare,” the letter, obtained by Punchbowl, reads. “Balancing the federal budget must not come at the expense of those who depend on these benefits for their health and economic security.”
The letter comes after Republicans passed their budget resolution last week, part of which directs the House Energy & Commerce Committee to find $880 billion in cuts, most of which will have to come from Medicaid, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Despite warning of the impact major cuts would have on nursing homes and hospitals, especially in rural and underserved areas, House Republicans who signed on to the letter left the door open for some obfuscation — of the sort that has been endemic throughout the GOP’s attempt to shepherd through their tax and spending cuts — around what “reforms” actually mean.
The vulnerable House Republicans are seemingly joining some of their Senate colleagues in opposing deep cuts to the popular program. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is one Senate Republican who has expressed concern about broad changes to Medicaid and SNAP. During a leadership summit this week she said that the sweeping cuts House Republicans are planning would be “devastating.”
“I’m not saying you can’t touch Medicaid at all,” Murkowski said. “What I hope we’re moving away from is an $880 billion cut to Medicaid. Because if that happens, this is going to be a very, very different state.”
— Emine Yücel
Positive News For Riggs In North Carolina
The 2024 North Carolina state Supreme Court race still has not been certified, but in positive news for Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs, it would appear that her Republican opponent Jefferson Griffin’s attempt to steal the race may be unsuccessful.
In a filing in federal court on Tuesday, the State Board of Elections said that military and overseas ballots in only a single county will be impacted by an earlier ruling from the State Supreme Court requiring some military and overseas voters to cure their ballots within 30 days.
Until this filing, it was unclear how many military ballots needed to be cured, but it was estimated that it could have been close to 7,000. But, according to the State Board Of Elections’ latest filing, only about 1,400 ballots need to be cured.
Although Riggs’s margin of victory is only 734 votes, Ann Webb, policy director with Common Cause North Carolina, speculated in an interview with TPM that Griffin is unlikely to be able to net sufficient votes to overcome that deficit.
“If I were Griffin today, I would be asking myself whether it’s time to concede,” she said, “because his only alternative option is to fight the State Supreme Court on this procedural question of which voters he properly protested.”
On Wednesday, Riggs filed for a stay in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, asking it to pause the cure process for military and overseas ballots.
“We are continuing to stand up for military voters in federal court to protect their constitutional rights to vote — we are grateful to these brave Americans for their service and know that they deserve better than this,” Riggs said in a statement on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, also on Wednesday, Griffin has asked the North Carolina Court of Appeals to include even more counties in the cure process.
— Khaya Himmelman
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Murkowski is all hat and no cattle. The GOP are all either spineless greedweasels, or full-on Christo-fascist. Some are both.
I don’t care if her hands are not perfectly clean, we need more of this.
Senator Murkowski is another reason not to consider all Republicans as part of an indivisible (heh!) monolith. We need to peel them off one at a time. Divide and conquer, right? The Republicans have been using this strategy against the left with stunning and depressing success for decades – so we know it works.
With all due respect, sir, that’s loser talk.
… while Murkowski didn’t vote to convict Trump in his first impeachment trial, she was one of a handful of GOP senators to concede that his extortion scheme toward Ukraine was wrong — and she did vote with Democrats to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial