Alaska’s senior U.S. senator today endorsed a blistering denouncement of President Trump and praised the political courage it takes to speak out against him yet said she’s struggling to decide if she still supports him.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski spoke about former Defense Secretary James Mattis’s critique of the president to reporters from CNN, Politico and the Washington Post, in an impromptu interview at the U.S. Capitol.
“I thought General Mattis’s words were true and honest and necessary and overdue,” she said, according to the publications.
Mattis, in a statement Wednesday, was unequivocal.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis wrote. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.
Murkowski spoke of his statement as a turning point.
“I felt like perhaps we’re getting to the point where we can be more honest with the concerns that we might hold internally, and have the courage of our own convictions to speak up,” she told reporters. “And so, I’m working as one individual to form the right words, knowing that these words really matter.”
Then a reporter asked if she could still support Trump.
“I am struggling with it. I have struggled with it for a long time … I work hard to try to make sure that I’m able to represent my state well, that I’m able to work with any administration and any president.”
Murkowski is one of the few Republican senators who has criticized Trump to any degree, outside of a few major incidents that drew near-universal condemnation, like his refusal to condemn neo-Nazis who marched on Charlottesville.
Murkowski is always a careful speaker. Immediate reactions to her remarks on social media included gratitude for her political courage, anger that she didn’t go further and blasts from conservatives who consider her not a real Republican. A few parsed her words, sifting for concrete evidence of her position.
