Murkowski Increasingly Becomes a Thorn In Trump’s Side in Alaska

Murkowski Endorses a Dem, Denounces Trump’s Attack on Alaska’s Election

Like Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the pattern with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), a relatively moderate voice in today’s extreme GOP, is that while she may critique Trump publicly, she often votes to support his policies when it matters.

But in recent days, Murkowski has been offering some substantial, pre-election pushback to the president.

On Tuesday, she endorsed a Democrat for governor over Trump’s chosen candidate.

“I have found fault with the Dunleavy administration,” she told Alaska News Source of the current governor, Republican Mike Dunleavy, who is term-limited. “I think that they have left federal money on the table. I think in certain areas, where we have worked hard to put opportunities from the federal side, here, into the state, the state has failed with it.”

“I think it’s been a hard eight years in many different areas, and Alaskans are looking for something different,” she added, describing Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, the Democrat, as a “young Alaskan with a view and a perspective that I think Alaska needs right now.”

JKT, as he’s often called, is up against three Republicans, one of whom, Bernadette Wilson, was endorsed by Trump. He was already favored to win, in part because of the split Republican field.

Murkowski has supported Democrats before — she endorsed Mary Peltola’s campaigns for House in 2022 and 2024. Her more significant move, I’d argue, was on Friday denouncing the DOJ’s pre-emptive lawsuit seeking to block Alaska from certifying its election if a Democrat wins, a lawsuit Trump said he ordered.

“The State of Alaska has already handled this by clearly distinguishing the candidates on this year’s ballot,” she said, pushing back on the DOJ’s premise that two Dan Sullivans on the ballot had hopelessly tainted the election.

“The Department of Justice should never have filed this lawsuit,” she said.

That clear-eyed assessment from the most prominent Republican voice in the state predictably triggered Trump to lose it. Over multiple Truth Social posts, he called Murkowski “Republicans’ Worst Senator, by far,” “a DISGRACE to Alaska and our Country,” and falsely suggested she fraudulently won a previous race.

“They’ve been trying to get rid of Lisa Murkowski forever in Alaska,” he claimed.

Flávio Bolsonaro’s Big Escape

• When Brazilian authorities ordered Flávio Bolsonaro — the recently defeated, Trump-aligned candidate for president — to turn over his passport this week amid a money laundering investigation, he scoffed that he would never think of fleeing the country.
• But yesterday morning, news began to emerge in various South American outlets that that may, in fact, have happened.
• Its unclear how Bolsonaro ultimately made his escape, with some reports suggesting it was via Argentina, to the south, where President Javier Milei is an ally of the Bolsonaro family and Trump, and others suggesting he left via Venezuela, to the north.
• Regardless, it was the Trump administration that offered his family refuge, and by Tuesday evening he was in Florida.
• The journey inspired a bit of déjà vu, as his father took a similar trip after a 2022 auto-coup attempt he led, reminiscent of January 6, failed.
• Flávio Bolsonaro promised to keep rallying his allies from the U.S.

Tabs

• The Department of Justice has failed to indict Trump foe Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Mark Meadows aide who in 2022 described to Congress Trump’s aggressive push to get to the Capitol on January 6. Two Republicans referred her to the DOJ for that testimony, claiming she lied. Its very rare for a grand jury to not return and indictment, though it’s become common in Trump’s retribution campaign. “When the failures are so consistent and so abject they have the effect of advertising both the president’s abuses of power and his weakness,” Josh Marshall writes.
• The FEC has been attacked by a hacker, Reuters reports, taking down the electronic filing system through which candidates and super PACs must disclose their campaign donations. “To be absolutely clear: This has NOTHING to do with voter files or voter registration,” a Democratic FEC commissioner, Dara Lindenbaum, wrote on X.

Man of the Hour

It’s Tennessee state senator Brent Taylor (R), who, confronted by Nashville Scene on his alleged history of sending unsolicited nude photos, dismissed questions about his “youthful indiscretions,” which occurred when he was 53.