Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, an outspoken Republican critic of President Trump, said she fears retribution for opposing his policies.
Ms. Murkowski described the anxiety she and others in the GOP share about the fast pace with which Mr. Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency are moving to downsize the federal government.
“We are all afraid,” Ms. Murkowski told a room of Alaska non-profit leaders. “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.”
The Washington Times reached out to the White House for comment.
Ms. Murkowski is an avowed anti-Trump Republican. She was one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict the president following the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. That vote earned her a primary challenger the following year, whom she handily defeated.
Her comments about fearing retribution, first reported by the Anchorage Daily News, come on the heels of a dizzying first three months in office for Mr. Trump, who has signed over 100 executive orders and waged a trade war with countries across the globe.
Meanwhile, DOGE and Elon Musk have pushed for cuts and mass firings across a variety of federal agencies. The cuts could have a disproportionate impact on Alaska, which is home to one of the highest concentrations of federal employees in the country.
“It is head-spinning,” Ms. Murkowski said. “It seems that just when you’ve made a little bit of progress on one issue that had caused so much anxiety, there’s another one.”
She described the frenetic pace of policy changes coming from the executive branch, often without congressional input, as “unlawful” and “as hard as anything I have been engaged in, in the 20-plus years I’ve been in the Senate.”
She said the changes and recommendations from DOGE are happening so rapidly that lawmakers don’t “understand the half of it.”
Furthering her criticism of DOGE, the lawmaker railed against the Trump administration’s decision not to disburse funding already appropriated by Congress.
“It’s called the checks and balances. And right now we are not balancing as the Congress,” she said.
Congress is now poised to advance major components of the president’s agenda through the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process, but one major concern she and other Republicans have is potential cuts to Medicaid, the largest healthcare program in the country.
The House’s budget resolution instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee to find at least $880 billion in spending cuts, a target that lawmakers on the panel believe can only be attained in Medicaid.
The president and Republican leadership have assured lawmakers that cuts would go after waste and fraud, not benefits for legitimate recipients.
“There is a growing number of Republicans, which needs to happen, who are saying ‘Medicaid is off the table,‘” she said. “I’m not saying you can’t touch Medicaid at all. What I hope we’re moving away from is an $880 billion cut to Medicaid. Because if that happens, this is going to be a very, very different state.”
