Senator Lisa Murkowski shocks after saying there is 'fear' of Trump (2025)

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Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska sent shock waves around the country when she disclosed her colleagues are afraid of retaliation if they speak out against President Donald Trump.

'We are all afraid,' she told a summit of nonprofit and tribal leaders in her native Alaska when she was asked about the current political climate.

'We're in a time and place where - I don't know, I certainly have not - I have not been here before. And I'll tell you, 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,' she added.

Murkowski, who has been in the Senate more than 20 years, said she personally feels anxious about speaking out about Trump's tariffs, executive orders and cuts to federal agencies.

'Part of what I have been doing with my team 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, and we're honest up front in saying 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,' she said.

'And it is as hard as anything that I have been engaged in in the 20 plus years I've been in the Senate.'

Her remarks, recorded in a video posted by the Anchorage Daily News, spread across the internet.

She told the news outlet that she's approached in airports, meetings and hallways where people share their fears with her, particularly among federal job cuts and the trade war.

'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, with no notice whatsoever, are terminated' she said.

'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.'

Murkowski is one of the few Senate Republicans who have been willing to criticize Trump's policies, oppose some of his Cabinet nominees and vote to overturn his tariffs on Canada.

She also slammed Trump for 'walking away from our allies' as he aligned himself with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

And she's opposed the Department of Government Efficiency's mass firing wave and slash-and-burn efforts to cut down government agencies.

'It is head spinning,' 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.'

Murkowski has been in Trump's sight lines before.

She survived a Trump-backed challenger three years ago, after voting with six other Republicans to convict the president at his second impeachment trial in the Senate over the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.

In her talk in Alaska, she also said she would oppose sweeping cuts to the Medicaid healthcare program for low-income Americans being sought by some Republicans to pay for tax cuts.

She has voted against Trump already. She was a 'no' on confirming Pete Hegseth as defense secretary although he ultimately won enough votes to lead the Pentagon.

Trump's response was muted, saying there were 'no surprises there' and that it was 'too bad.'

The president remains popular among Republicans,with 86 percent of GOP voters approving of his job performance in a recent Quinnipiac University poll.

Murkowski next faces voters in 2028.

Donald TrumpPoliticsRepublicansAlaska

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