Alaska’s U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she had plenty of concerns about Trump using the military against American cities, launching criminal charges against his political opponents and the upending of long-standing science around vaccines.
What she didn’t have, however, was a solution.
Murkowski touched on a wide range of issues during her appearance with Alaska Public Media’s weekly call-in show, Talk of Alaska. She voiced glancing criticism of Trump’s ongoing violations of policy and legal norms. As has become the case with the once-reliable Trump skeptic, she said she was concerned but had little to share about what, if anything, could be done to check the president’s power grabs.
On the president’s mobilization of the military against Democrat-led cities and states over largely imagined crime waves and civil unrest, Murkowski said she was concerned:
“I have concerns again, about bringing in our military without the consent, without the agreement of a governor and and really taking over the role of law enforcement at the direction of the President,” she said, “and whether it is, whether it is in Portland or in Chicago, or wherever the state may be.”
However, it’s worth noting that Murkowski seemed to echo the president’s justification for the use of the military, claiming it was part of the president’s efforts to crack down on crime — one that she didn’t think was effective — rather than an attempt to stir up unrest.
On U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s completely unsurprising attack on established vaccine science, which extended to the controversial-yet-consequence-free ouster of CDC director Susan Monarez over her refusal to rubber-stamp RFK’s latest attack on vaccines, Murkowski was also concerned:
“What is going on again should not only concern all of us,” she said about RFK Jr.’s attack on vaccines. “I don’t care what your position is on vaccines, but you should be worried if the head of your Centers for Disease Control is being told, just follow the leader here, without the science and the full research behind it. I think we should all be worried.”
But when asked if she regretted her vote to confirm RFK or if she had felt misled during the confirmation process, she resorted to the hypothetical: “Am I disappointed with the direction that he has taken with this? Do I think that he didn’t keep his commitment to me?”
She never said.
When asked about what concrete actions the Senate could take to rein in Kennedy, she referenced a hearing where he defended his handling of Monarez. Aside from putting some of his claims on record, no concrete action resulted from the hearing.
During the call-in portion of the appearance, one person asked about Kennedy’s plan to kill the Commercial Fishing Safety Program at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. They wanted to know if there was any update on the efforts to save the program, which is critical for the state’s commercial fishing industry, in some form.
Murkowski conceded that “I don’t have an update,” but said she was worried the Trump administration would use the shutdown as an excuse to cut it anyway.
“My concern is that it may be one where we have seen, because it, because it, it was not supported as part of the President’s priorities, that through this, this shutdown, they would effectively work to eliminate that altogether,” she said, later adding that she hoped that other federal programs might be able to backfill the need for health and safety oversight.
On the Trump administration’s efforts to install loyalists on the Federal Reserve Board, which economists warn could give way to global economic turmoil if the board begins acting in the president’s interests rather than the economy’s, Murkowski also said she was concerned.
“I think we should be concerned about that. And I had an opportunity just a few weeks ago to say, No, the Federal Reserve needs to be independent,” she said, referencing a vote on the confirmation of Trump’s economic policy advisor Stephen Miran to the Federal Reserve Board. “I said I felt that that was improper, that was too close a situation … and I voted against him.”
Murkowski’s vote against Miran made her the lone Republican to vote against his confirmation. He was confirmed anyway, a point she didn’t mention in the answer.
At least her language around the Trump administration’s nakedly partisan criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey was a little firmer.
“I think it’s wrong, just plain and simple wrong,” she said, adding, “That’s not how due process works, that’s not how justice for all works around this country. And so when you have a campaign of political retribution, as the commander in chief, as the President of this country, that is not right. It is not who we are.”
Still, she stopped well short of offering any pathway to check that behavior.
With the ongoing government shutdown, she added that she was also concerned about the Trump administration’s suggestion that furloughed employees would not receive pay. She said they may have unfortunately found a loophole in the federal law.
“I find this, quite honestly, very, very unnerving to see that they’re suggesting that there might be a loophole, and that our furloughed federal employees would not automatically receive that back pay,” she said, adding that “We’re going to try to get some clarity on it. … My goal is going to be to make sure that anyone who has been on furlough status or non-furlough status, that back pay comes to you as quickly as possible once the government shutdown is over.”
When one caller asked, “Are you ever going to grow a backbone?” Murkowski bristled, suggesting that it shouldn’t all fall on her.
“You might not think that I have much of a backbone,” she said, “but I am one of the few Republicans who has actually pushed back, stood up and said, This is unlawful, and we as a legislative branch have a role in denying the executive what they’re doing. … Unfortunately, I need more of my colleagues to agree with me.”
She said many of her fellow Republicans were falling over themselves to stay in the Trump administration’s good graces. She said, though, that she understood their point of view.
“I do think that you have many Republicans who are kind of walking a line here in terms of trying to avoid criticizing or being skeptical of actions of the administration, of President Trump’s actions,” she said. “They want to back their Republican president, and I get that I want to support our Republican president when he’s doing good things for us.”