Last year’s question-and-answer session between legislators and Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, following his annual address to the Legislature, featured such brutal questions — like Would he commit to protecting Medicaid? (No), Would he stand up to Trump’s softball handling of Russia? (Obama’s worse), What was he doing about the indiscriminate cuts made by federal DOGE goons thousands of miles away from Alaska? (Here’s a form) — that House Minority Republicans went out of their way to pen an apology letter to the junior senator.
“The tone and manner of certain inquiries — preceded by what can only be described as unnecessary grilling and regrettable rhetoric — fell far short of the respect and decorum you deserve as a United States Senator who graciously accepted our invitation to speak,” read the painfully obsequious letter signed without apparent shame or irony by all 19 Republicans. “To say we were merely disappointed would understate the depth of our dismay.”
And Sullivan’s office would later claim that the questions, which essentially boiled down ‘How are you going to protect Alaska’s most vulnerable?,’ were planted by nefarious leftist groups. Democratic legislators, the reasoning went, couldn’t possibly be concerned about Trump on their own. It had to be a setup!
Well, those House Republicans won’t have to shield their eyes and ears for as long this year because Sullivan has reportedly set a strict limit on questions for this year’s address, which is set to happen at 11 a.m., with one question from each caucus. I’ve heard grumblings from legislators about the issue, but the official line is that Sullivan’s time in Juneau is limited, so he’d love to take more questions, but, gosh, he has places to be.
For a senator who has famously dodged critical audiences and tough questions about his unabashed support for everything Trump, cutting legislators short is just more of the same, but it’s also getting harder and harder for him to brush off the bad press. Heading into what’s expected to be a stiff challenge from a well-liked former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, Sullivan’s approval numbers are in the tank as the state is feeling the fallout from Trump’s policies. His milquetoast “But what about the oil and gas development!” attempts to sell Big, Beautiful Bill to Alaskans have largely fallen flat as he’s stuck mostly to already-friendly crowds.
For many Alaskans, what is happening domestically under Trump — particularly around ICE and its terrorizing of America (they just grabbed a mother and her three children, including a five-year-old, in Soldotna) — is soul-crushingly wrong, and we’d just like to know why Sullivan, as a person purportedly sworn to uphold the Constitution, is OK with it. But, dang, we’ll probably never know.