U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski told a room full of Alaska nonprofit leaders that the tumult of tariffs, executive orders, court battles and cuts to federal services under the Trump administration are exceptionally concerning.
“We are all afraid,” Murkowski said, taking a long pause. “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 Republican senior senator appeared for a 45-minute discussion with Laurie Wolf, president and CEO of The Foraker Group, during its annual leadership summit — the state’s largest gathering of nonprofit and tribal leaders — at a conference center in downtown Anchorage.
The questions were wide-ranging. Most dealt with the extreme uncertainty felt by many working in the public sector, nonprofit services and social safety net programs since the start of the second Trump administration in January.
“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 was exceptionally candid criticizing aspects of the Trump administration’s approach to implementing policy measures and service cuts, some of which she described as “unlawful.” She recounted a frenetic cycle of activity in her office among herself and staff chasing rumors about programming changes to find out if they are true, and if so, looking for ways to blunt the harm they might do to constituents in Alaska.
“It is as hard as anything I have been engaged in, in the 20-plus years I’ve been in the Senate,” Murkowski said.
The potential cuts she is most stressed by, she said, are broad changes to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the National Endowment for the Humanities, because of the disproportionately large impact they have on Alaskans. She also said she was unnerved by how USAID had “just been obliterated,” and by threats to end Ukrainian refugee resettlement inside the U.S.
Murkowski said that amid recent rumors that AmeriCorps would be terminated, she’d texted Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to try to register her concerns, but wasn’t clear how effective that kind of access to the White House might ultimately prove.
“I share this with you not to say that ‘we don’t know anything,’ but I’m saying that things are happening so fast through this Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE … none of us understand the half of it,” Murkowski said. “It’s literally piecing it together.”
Murkowski was interrupted multiple times by applause from the audience. It happened once after she called sweeping cuts to Medicaid in the emerging House budget bill potentially “devastating,” and called health care reductions that would hurt Alaskans a “nonstarter for me.”
“There is a growing number of Republicans, which needs to happen, who are saying ‘Medicaid is off the table,’” Murkowski said.
She said she expects there to be discussions of added work requirements for Medicaid recipients in the future, and that she is open to program reforms so long as they do not negatively impact Alaskans.
“I’m not saying you can’t touch Medicaid at all,” Murkowski said. “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.”
Since the first Trump administration, Murkowski has remained one of the few Republicans willing to criticize President Donald Trump and break with the administration on certain issues, even while welcoming measures and appointments she agrees with. She said that the administration’s actions refusing to disburse congressionally authorized money approved under legislation was “against the law,” and that Congress had allowed the executive branch to claim too much power that the U.S. Constitution assigns to the legislative branch.
“It’s called the checks and balances. And right, now we are not balancing as the Congress,” Murkowski said.
She expressed alarm at how the judiciary was increasingly being treated as a partisan entity, saying it was putting America in “a very dangerous place, because you stop believing in the rule of law.” And she called on Alaskans to “be affirmative” in protesting on behalf of programs they want to remain in place so that elected leaders are kept aware of where support and frustration exist among constituents.
“I think it’s important the concerns continue to be raised rather than letting the fatigue of the chaos grind you down,” Murkowski said.
Among the impacts of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration in the last week, Murkowski said she’d heard a lot of worry from constituents about the prices of home goods and the unintended consequences that rising heavy equipment costs could have on the mining sector. But the spiraling, escalatory tariffs with China — now well over 100% on both sides — could devastate Alaska’s commercial fishing sector, she said.
“The seafood side. Those on the industry side are more than a little bit anxious. We send a lot of product to China. We get a lot of it back from China. This is something that’s going to be very significant to us,” Murkowski said.
Likewise, Murkowski said that potential further cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — above personnel terminations that already took place — could jeopardize fisheries managers’ abilities to make informed decisions about sustainable harvest targets.
“We won’t have the well-managed fisheries that we demand,” Murkowski said, speaking to a group of reporters after her session on stage. “You’re gonna have your managers say, ‘Well, we don’t have what we need, we’re going to err on the side of caution.’ The quotas are going to be reduced. Your fishermen aren’t going to be able to harvest as much. There’s impact there. Or it could go the other way: ‘Well, we don’t really know, so we’ll engage in fishing practices that are not gonna be healthy and sustainable.‘”
Murkowski has several other public appearances and engagements this week across the state. On Tuesday, she’ll address attendees at ComFish Alaska in Kodiak, a commercial fisheries trade show. On Friday, she’ll be speaking in Nome as part of the city’s Arctic Investment Summit.
Zachariah Hughes covers Anchorage government, the military, dog mushing, subsistence issues and general assignments for the Anchorage Daily News. Prior to joining the ADN, he worked in Alaska’s public radio network, and got his start in journalism at KNOM in Nome.
