When a violent mob stormed the Capitol Wednesday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski at one point ran for her life.
She called the day “awful in every way,” and doesn’t mind saying she was frightened.
“Yeah, I was scared. I was scared for our country,” she said outside the Senate chamber shortly after midnight. “But I’m going to go to bed tonight knowing we’re going to get through this, too.”
Alaska’s all-Republican delegation to Congress voted to accept the Electoral College vote. The state’s two U.S senators and sole House member did not support a campaign by President Trump to stay in office despite losing the election to Democrat Joe Biden.
The process affirming Biden’s win ended early this morning.
Murkowski was in her “hideaway” when the mob first breached the outside barriers — her tiny satellite office at the Capitol each senator has. Hers is on a lower level, with windows that face the Mall. Her windows are temporarily blocked by risers erected for Biden’s inauguration, so her hideaway wasn’t vandalized like the ones on the levels above.
“I’ve got pictures of these huge, beautiful, rounded, curved windows that have been smashed in and all boarded up,” she said. “Glass everywhere. Furniture thrown wildly.”
She was in the Senate chamber when insurgents broke into the Capitol building. Senators were told to evacuate quickly.
“And that’s where it gets a little scary, because everyone is trying to move all at the same time.”
The senators and staff were directed to an underground tunnel in one of the Senate office buildings. In the mass of people, Murkowski saw Sen. Dan Sullivan a few steps ahead of her. She said she linked arms with him.
“We went hand-in-hand, running,” she said. “He’s pretty fit, and I was wearing good running shoes today, so we set the pace. We got to the secure area before anybody else.”
From there, they saw the violence and destruction unfold on video.
To Alaskans who believe the president’s false claims, Murkowski said the election was not fraudulent. There were problems in some parts of the country, Murkowski said, but it wasn’t on a scale that could’ve changed the election outcome.
“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been duly elected,” she said.
It was important, she said, that the House and Senate went back into session once the invasion was put down.
“The angry mob can interrupt,” she said. “But they cannot rule. We will not let them rule.”
