Donald Trump hasn’t exactly been shy in his recent condemnations of Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
“Murkowski’s terrible, terrible to us, terrible to the country,” the president said in early June.
A couple weeks later, Trump goaded a conservative crowd into booing the Alaskan, saying the senator would “never win another election.” The same week, the president called Murkowski “deranged.”
Over the weekend, however, he went quite a bit further.
Early Saturday morning, while much of the country was still asleep, the Senate narrowly confirmed Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination. It was the closest confirmation vote in American history for an attorney general nominee: 50 Republicans voted for the president’s former defense lawyer, while a bipartisan minority of 49 opposed his nomination.
Murkowski, as promised, was part of the bipartisan 49.
Roughly three hours later, Trump published an item to his social media platform promoting a supporter’s condemnation of the Alaska senator. The piece, which was apparently written before the floor vote, read in its entirety:
Lisa Murkowski will not vote for Todd Blanche… After having no problem voting for Merrick Garland. Claiming Blanche will weaponize the DOJ and is too political. The same Garland that personally signed off on the raid of President Trump’s home.
Murkowski is owned.
Traitor.
To be sure, the president didn’t write these words himself, but he did decide to amplify the condemnation, apparently because he thought it had merit.
In case this isn’t obvious, the argument presented against Murkowski simply does not make sense. That Garland, in his capacity as attorney general, signed off on a court-approved search warrant of a private citizen’s glorified country club is not evidence of a “weaponized” Justice Department.
Federal investigators had reason to believe the then-former president had classified materials at Mar-a-Lago that he was required but had refused to return. A subsequent search offered extensive evidence that Trump did precisely what he was accused of doing. To see some parallel between this and Blanche politicizing his office is plainly silly.
But just as notably, I’m hard pressed to imagine what Trump thinks he’ll gain from labeling a sitting senator from his own party — who isn’t up for re-election until 2028, and who’s already demonstrated an ability to win without her party’s backing — a “traitor.”
The president still has 2 1/2 years in his second term, and he might want (or need) Murkowski’s vote on any number of key issues. How eager do you think she’ll be to listen to the White House’s appeals after the president’s ugly name-calling?
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