WASHINGTON — As President Trump delivered his address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday, many lawmakers wore blue to show solidarity with Ukraine. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski was among them.
The Alaskan senator was one of the few Republicans to criticize the treatment Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy got at the White House Friday.
She issued a statement the next day saying it made her “sick to her stomach” to see the White House apparently desert an ally and embrace Russian President Vladimir Putin, who she called a threat to democracy.
Murkowski said Tuesday that none of her colleagues called her out for it.
“If they didn’t like it, they didn’t mention it to me,” she said.
Republican senators have not backed her up in public, but she said she’s heard praise.
“I’ve gotten some ‘atta girls’ … from Republicans, and from some Democrats,” she said.
Sen. Dan Sullivan regularly speaks of the necessity to stand by America's allies to keep authoritarian aggression in check. And he often criticized presidents Obama and Biden for not doing enough to help Ukraine defend itself. But after the Oval Office event Friday, Sullivan issued no statement critical of Trump’s apparent alignment with Putin on how to end the war with Ukraine. His office declined an interview request this week and did not respond to a question about Trump's pause in aid for Ukraine. In a Senate hallway Tuesday, Sullivan took no questions and got into a “senator’s only” elevator.
Alaska Congressman Nick Begich’s office scheduled an interview for this week but cancelled it.
