In just a matter of weeks, former President Donald Trump’s campaign went from riding high after the assassination attempt and the flagging confidence in President Joe Biden’s age to being caught flat-footed by his new challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris.
On Wednesday, Trump had a spectacular meltdown on the stage of the National Association of Black Journalists, where he suggested Vice President Harris “happened to turn Black” when it became politically advantageous for her. Of course, the former president overlooked the fact that Harris has long talked about her Black heritage, attended a Historically Black College, joined a historically Black sorority and was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
While many congressional Republicans once again either hid their criticism behind anonymous comments or insisted that they hadn’t seen it, Alaska’s U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski wasn’t shy about sharing her continued sharp criticism of the campaign.
“Maybe they don’t know how to handle the campaign, and so you default to issues that just should simply not be an issue,” Murkowski said, according to reporting by Axios.
A longtime critic of Trump, Murkowski is one of the few Republicans who has not been lured into Trump’s orbit. She has remained outspoken about her concerns with him and what his brand of politics has done to the Republican Party. In the 2022 elections, Trump endorsed Republican operative Kelly Tshibaka in her race against Murkowski. Murkowski ultimately beat her by more than seven percentage points.
In an interview earlier this week, Murkowski also took issue with resurfaced comments by Trump’s running mate, Ohio U.S. Sen. JD Vance, about “childless cat women” running the Democratic Party. The comments have also become a rallying point for Democrats, adding fuel to the fire that Republicans are “just weird.”
“If the Republican Party is trying to improve its image with women, I don’t think that this is working,” Murkowski told Politico, calling Vance’s comments unfortunate, unnecessary and “offensive to many women.”
As for the latest round of Trump’s comments, Murkowski said they were just the latest in a string of “very unfortunate” dispatches from the Trump camp.
“Childless cat women, DEI candidates, now, ‘Is she Black? Is she Indian?'”
Alaska U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan has not publicly commented on the latest comments, though he did call JD Vance “a strong, strong pick” and a “good friend” after his selection at the Republican National Convention last month.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
