A prominent Republican U.S. senator delivered candid and heartfelt responses to leaders of nonprofit groups in her state expressing concern over the massive and sudden cuts to federal agencies, programs, and the federal workforce—along with President Donald Trump’s tariffs, executive orders, and legal battles.
“We are all afraid,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), apparently referring to both her colleagues in Congress and her constituents, before pausing in thought (video below). The Anchorage Daily News first reported her remarks.
“It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right. But that’s what you’ve asked me to do. And so, I’m going to use my voice to the best of my ability.”
Murkowski, a moderate Republican who has held her seat for nearly a quarter of a century, also said that she “is just trying to listen as carefully as I can to what is happening and how it is happening and the impacts it is having on the ground.”
She admitted that “we don’t have all the answers, but we’re trying to unlock at different opportunities and in different ways as much as we can. And it is as hard as anything that I have engaged in in the 20 plus years I’ve been in the Senate.”
Explaining that she is trying “to figure out how I can do my best to help the many who are so anxious and are so afraid,” Murkowski, an Alaska native, shared stories of encounters with constituents and others.
“I’ve been an airports, I’ve been in meetings, I’ve been in hallways, and in my own office, in Washington, D.C., or where people have shared shared what has happened within their world, where they end up in tears, in tears because they thought that they were in a profession they’d given so much to, and thought that they were doing well and literally no notice whatsoever are terminated and told that their work performance was not not satisfactory,” she noted. “Which was not true, and [they] didn’t know what was going to happen.”
The Anchorage Daily News also described Murkowski as being “exceptionally candid” when “criticizing aspects of the Trump administration’s approach to implementing policy measures and service cuts, some of which she described as ‘unlawful.'”
Murkowski also shared that she has heard “fear” from “people who have said, ‘I’m afraid to, I’m afraid to talk to my coworkers about the status of where we are, because will I be viewed as questioning my my supervisors or my commitment to the agency here.’ These are unscripted moments where I am not soliciting them, and people are not planning on sharing them with me, almost serendipitous in an airport. And so these are real emotions, these are real people, these are real fears, and they need to be heard.”
Republican former U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock, responding to Murkowski’s remarks, wrote: “This is real. I and so many members – present and former – have heard these conversations privately, so it is refreshing to hear it publicly.”
Attorney Alex Morey also weighed in, calling it a “stunning admission by a sitting U.S. senator. Senators speak for their constituents,
with an oath to defend against ‘all enemies, foreign and domestic.’ Any threat to her ability to do her job demands transparency, bravery, and action — not self-interested self-censorship.”
Columbia University professor of history Simon Schama called it “extraordinary” that a Republican Senator was admitting to being “afraid of her President and government.”
The Senator also acknowledged that the GOP-controlled House and Senate are not fulfilling their oversight responsibilities.
“It’s called the checks and balances. And right, now we are not balancing as the Congress,” she said.
Just last week in a speech on the Senate floor, Murkowski told her colleagues, “I think it’s time for Congress to reassert itself. We owe that to those that we represent, as well as to this institution, for the long-term good of the nation.”