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Senator Lisa Murkowski boldly declared she did not fear Elon Musk spending money against her as she criticized the indiscriminate firing led by his Department of Government Efficiency.
Murkowski delivered her annual joint address to Alaska’s legislature on Tuesday and during her address, she attacked DOGE’s treatment of federal workers.
“The Trump administration’s approach lacks the type of planning you need to avoid unintended consequences, and it lacks the fundamental decency you need when dealing with real people,” she said. “Public servants are not our enemies. They’re our friends and neighbors, and they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”
During a later press conference, she pushed back against criticism that she is not a “better Republican” or that she should “get out of the party.”
“I’m not going to compromise my own integrity by hiding from my words when I feel they need to be spoken. I’m going to take the criticism that comes,” she said. “It may be, it may be that Elon Musk has decided he’s going to take the next billion dollars that he makes off of Starlink and put it directly against Lisa Murkowski. And you know what? That may happen.”
The Alaska Republican senator has occasionally opposed President Donald Trump, having voted to convict him for his actions on January 6.
She also voted against the confirmation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and FBI Director Kash Patel, but approved some of Trump’s more firebrand nominees such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and Tulsi Gabbard as director of National Intelligence.
Murkowski has also in the past criticized the Trump administration’s attempts to freeze federal spending.
Alaska holds ranked-choice voting, which allows Murkowski to not have to compete in a partisan primary like the one she lost in 2010 to a Tea Party candidate. Murkowski later won a write-in candidacy that same year.
Murkowski said that the criticism she receives for staking out her positions has made her Republican colleagues less willing to criticize Musk or Trump.
“I get criticized for what I say, and then everybody else is like, ‘Well, how come nobody else is saying anything?’” she said. “Well, figure it out, because they’re looking at … how many things are being thrown at me, and it’s like, ‘Maybe I just better duck and cover.”
Murkowski also criticized Trump’s tariffs against Canada and his criticism of Ukraine.
“They’re already harming our timber industry, and we have Canada threatening tolls on goods trucked to our state,” she said. “Or foreign policy … I am stunned by a turn of events that threatens to abandon Ukraine and collapse long-standing alliances from NATO to NORAD.”
But Murkowski said her criticism against Trump’s policies was not explicitly anti-Trump.
“I am standing up for my role as a duly elected senator and a member of the congressional branch, standing up for my responsibilities under the Constitution, and I think I can do that without it being interpreted that I am against Trump,” she said.
