Barabak: Alaska Republican speaks truth about Trump: ‘Retaliation is real. … We are all afraid.’

Lisa Murkowski, Alaska’s longtime U.S. senator, was home from Washington this week, touching base. As part of her rounds, the Republican lawmaker appeared in Anchorage before an annual meeting of tribal leaders and nonprofit executives.

Inevitably, the discussion turned to the wrecking-ball presidency of Donald Trump and his autocratic and, frankly, un-American penchant for siccing the government on his political foes.

Asked what she had to say to those living in fear, or who represent constituents afraid of today’s McCarthyesque climate, Murkowski responded with honesty and bracing candor.

“We are all afraid,” she said.

She then paused five long seconds, her face a rictus of wonderment and concern, allowing the observation and admission — from a sitting member of the United States Senate, no less — to sink in.

“It’s quite a statement,” Murkowski went on.

Startling silence

Another brief pause, then several starts and stops.

“But we’re in a time and a place where … I’ve not been here before,” she said. “And I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

It’s a fine pass we’ve come to when simply speaking the truth and stating the obvious are considered newsworthy, much less an act of courage. But here we are, folks.

America, 2025.

If you wish to be cynical, there are reasons why Murkowski — whose comments Monday quickly ricocheted across the country — may be more prepared to speak out against Trump than her timorous Republican peers.

Trump easily carried Alaska all three times he ran for president. But his showing — the 54% of the vote he received in November was a high mark — is a shadow of his blowout victories elsewhere. Trump won Wyoming with 70% of the vote, West Virginia with 68% and Oklahoma and North Dakota with 65% support.

His executive order changing the name of North America’s tallest peak, Denali, back to Mt. McKinley has landed among Alaskans with a decided thud. A survey of adult residents found they opposed the switch by more than 2 to 1.

In other words, the Last Frontier is not exactly head over heels for Trump. Besides, Murkowski won’t face reelection — should she decide to run for a fifth term — until 2028, when Trump’s time in office will finally, mercifully be winding down.

Those factors, however, don’t take away from the starch in the senator’s spine or her willingness to stand up while so many others in her party cower in submission.

Give Murkowski her due: She doesn’t shrink from a fight.

In 2010, she notched a rare write-in victory after losing the GOP nomination to a right-wing “tea party” Republican. In 2021, Murkowski was one of just seven Republican senators — and the only one to face constituents in the next election cycle — to vote to convict Trump in an impeachment trial for inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Her act drew a censure from state GOP leaders and the petulance you would expect from Trump, who urged some Republican, any Republican — “If you have a pulse, I’m with you!” — to challenge Murkowski’s reelection. When Kelly Tshibaka, a 2020 election denier, stepped forward, Trump appeared at an Anchorage rally to lend his support. Murkowski won anyway.

She may be the state’s most popular living politician, said Amy Lovecraft, a political science professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. “She knows the state,” Lovecraft said. “She gets stuff done. She’s a doer.”

She’s also outspokenly independent, a rare commodity in today’s increasing cult-like GOP. In fact, the whole notion of checks and balances — a foundational principle of American democracy — has gone out the window, Murkowski suggested in Anchorage. “Right now, we are not balancing as the Congress,” she said, expressing concern, as well, over Trump’s attempted undermining of the judiciary.

Rare dissenter

Murkowski has taken on Trump more than once.

She refused to vote for him in 2024 — she didn’t support Kamala Harris, either — and was one of the few Republicans in office to publicly condemn Trump’s shameful pardon of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. She opposed Pete Hegseth’s risible nomination as Defense secretary and voted to undo Trump’s heedless tariffs on Canada. She’s also expressed concerns about Elon Musk’s wanton assault on federal employees.

“Things are happening so fast through this Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE” — the fictive name of Musk’s made-up agency — “None of us understand the half of it. It’s literally piecing it together,” Murkowski told those gathered in Anchorage.

Speaking on Monday to the Anchorage Daily News, Murkowski recounted conversations with some of those summarily fired in Musk’s precipitous purge. Many were in tears.

“They thought that they were in a profession they’ve given so much to and thought that they were doing well,” Murkowski said. “And literally, with no notice whatsoever, [they were] terminated and told that their work performance was not satisfactory, which was not true.

“These are real emotions. These are real people,” she said. “These are real fears and they need to be heard.”

Indeed.

Sadly, for now, Murkowski is one of vanishingly few Republican politicians with the guts to speak up against the party’s rogue president — a brave, but lonely, voice in the wilderness.

Mark Z. Barabak is a Los Angeles Times columnist. ©2025 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.