‘We Are All Afraid’: Republican Senator Admits Colleagues Are Terrified of Being Punished for Criticizing Trump

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) openly admitted that she and her Republican colleagues were “all afraid” of “retaliation” from President Donald Trump as she criticized what she called “unlawful” executive overreach and sweeping federal cuts.

Murkowski’s  comments came during a 45-minute session at The Foraker Group’s annual leadership summit and stands as one of the starkest public admissions from a Republican yet of the political pressure facing those in the party who push back against Trump policy or rhetoric.

“We are all afraid,” Murkowski told the crowd on Monday.

Pausing, she added: “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.”

Murkowski went on to criticize what she called an “unlawful” approach to implementing service cuts and recounted her staff’s constant scramble to confirm and mitigate rumors of abrupt changes.

“It is as hard as anything I have been engaged in, in the 20-plus years I’ve been in the Senate,” she said.

Her list of concerns touched on federal cuts to USAID but also policies that could impact Alaskans directly, including changes to Medicaid cuts and tariffs that could gut Alaska’s commercial fishing industry.

“This is going to be a very, very different state,” she predicted.

Watch above via YouTube.