Former President Donald Trump said he would campaign against Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and criticized her as a “very disloyal and very bad senator” in a statement this weekend.
“I will not endorse, under any circumstances, the failed candidate from the great Alaskan state, Lisa Murkowski,” Trump said in a statement. “She misrepresents her state and her country even worse. I don’t know where the other people will be next year, but I know where I will be – in Alaska campaigning against a disloyal and very bad senator.”
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“Her vote to promote the radical Democratic leftist Deb Haaland as secretary of the interior is yet another example of Murkowski not defending Alaska,” he continued.
Trump’s statement isn’t exactly shocking – he said the same thing in June, after Murkowski told reporters that she was “struggling” to support the president in his re-election because of how he handled George Floyd’s protests.
ARCHIVE – Trump and Murkowski.
(REUTERS / Kevin Lamarque)
Most recently, Murkowski was among seven Republican senators who voted to condemn Trump on charges of inciting the January 6 Capitol rebellion in the Senate impeachment trial in February.
Although the Cook Political Report classifies Murkowski’s chair as solidly Republican, it has had problems before. She lost the 2010 Republican primaries to a Tea Party challenger, but defied the chances of defeating him as a candidate in the general election.
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Trump’s statement could put him in conflict with the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Committee chairman, Senator Rick Scott, R-Fl., Told Fox News Sunday last week that he will support any acting Republican senator against primary opponents, even if that challenge is supported by Trump.
Fox News’ inquiry into Murkowski’s office was not immediately returned.
Fox News’s Caitlin McFall contributed to this report.