WASHINGTON — Alaska's U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski voted with her fellow Republicans on Friday to pass a funding bill for the rest of the fiscal year.
That was the big headline issue for Congress. But in several other ways last week, Murkowski continued to show that she’s one of the only Republicans in Congress willing to break with President Donald Trump.
Early in the week, Murkowski gave a firmly pro-Ukrainian speech on the Senate floor. In nearly eight minutes, she never mentioned Trump by name, but it was all a rebuke of Trump’s willingness to abandon Ukraine and his trust in Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Murkowski said what America does now is a test of its leadership.
“If we falter, others are watching,” she said in her speech. “Others are watching the situation — in Moscow, in Beijing, in Tehran, in Pyongyang. And so if it is seen that we are walking away from Ukraine, if we embrace appeasement, we embold(en) every aggressor around the globe.”
It’s in Putin’s interest to break NATO apart and sever the United States from its allies, Murkowski said.
“He just probably didn't expect that America was going to do it for him,” she said. And by “America,” in this case, she meant Trump.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy angered Trump earlier this month by insisting that security guarantees be part of any peace deal with Russia.
Murkowski took the same Trump-defying stance.
“We all want this war to end, but it cannot end on Russia's terms. If it does, we should expect nothing more than a temporary respite before the resumption of hostilities,” she said. “Why are we going to start trusting and believing Putin's word now, given his track record? We've seen this before. History doesn't lie, and the appeasement of tyrants does not bring peace.”
With its unspoken digs at Trump, it was the sort of speech that makes MAGA Alaskans furious. They call her a Republican in name only. They vow retribution at the ballot box.
Alaskans on the left, meanwhile, are split between those lauding her courage and others mocking her for what they see as talking tough but voting as Trump wants.
On government funding, Murkowski said last week she had no good options. As she sees it, she had to vote for the continuing resolution, which keeps the government running until September, even though Congress didn’t have a chance to shape it.
“I am very reluctant to support a long-term CR. I do not like the fact that it gives the executive branch the authority that we own as members of Congress when it comes to defining spending priorities,” she said. “But I also cannot … be part of anything that ultimately shuts this government down.”
Just before she voted for the big spending bill Friday, Murkowski voted for an amendment that would have defunded the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, run by Elon Musk. DOGE claims to have cancelled billions of dollars in government contracts and terminated thousands of civil service jobs.
The amendment sponsor, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., made it clear this was a statement against Musk and, by extension, against Trump.
“The amendment’s pretty simple. It says no moneys may be spent on that illegal operation,” he said, “which has nothing to do with government efficiency and everything to do with taking a chainsaw to important public services that help every American, and to rig the government for people like Elon Musk.”
Murkowski was the only Republican to vote for the Van Hollen amendment, and it never had a serious chance of passing.
