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Sunday, July 10th, 2022
Donald Trump promotes Sarah Palin, trashes Lisa Murkowski in rare visit to Alaska
Former Oval Office occupant Donald Trump dropped an “f‑bomb,” went on a tangent about trans athletes, described Elon Musk as “another (expletive) artist”, said climate damage will give us “a little more beachfront property”, and mouthed the word “garbage” to describe Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, all in a ninety-minute Saturday ramble before 5,000 rapturous supporters in Anchorage.
Biden’s predecessor came to the 49th State in quest of revenge against Murkowski, the lone Republican senator to vote “present” on Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, and one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the January 6th, 2021, insurrection at the United States Capitol.
The rally at Alaska Airlines Center was instructive, not in Trump’s false claims, but for the tone of what Politico described last week as “Trumpification” of the Republican Party. Courting crossover voters is out, motivation and mobilization of the “base” is in, as the party approaches the 2022 midterm elections.
A still of Newsmax’s broadcast of Donald Trump’s hatefest in Anchorage, Alaska. Note the use of teleprompters.
“This is your precious chance to dump the horrific RINO (Republican in Name Only), Lisa Murkowski, who’s worse than a Democrat,” Trump told his true believers.
“She’s a total creature of the Washington swamp and a tool of a corrupt establishment the likes of which we’ve never seen. The fake news media loves her.”
The former president said Murkowski “wiped out ANWR”, referring to the Arctic Refuge.
Truth be told, Murkowski slipped a provision into Republicans’ 2017 tax bill that opened the coastal plain of the Refuge to oil and gas leasing.
“She voted to impeach me, and I did more for the state than any President in history, and that piece of” – Trump mouthed the word “garbage” – “voted to impeach me.”
Alaska will be a test for Trumpification.
In 2010, Murkowski lost the Republican primary in August to a far-right Tea Party challenger named Joe Miller. The senator mounted a general election write-in campaign to hold onto her seat. It was the first such effort to succeed since 1956, when Strom Thurmond won in South Carolina.
Alaska has moved to ranked choice voting this year. The top four vote getters in the August 16 primary, regardless of party, head onto the November ballot.
Voters will rank their choices. Trump decried the new system, saying without evidence that ranked voting “can be crooked as hell.”
“We’re stuck with it,” said Trump.
“You know why? Because of Murkowski. It’s the only way she can win.”
Ex-Governor Sarah Palin, a Trump-backed candidate for Alaska’s vacant U.S. House seat, depicted the midterm election as a holy war. “It’s no longer Democrat vs. Republican,” she told the crowd. “This is about control versus freedom. It’s good versus evil. It is a spiritual battle.” Added Palin, backing a 2024 Trump comeback, “Sir, we need you. Four more years. Four more years.”
Trump did far more venting at Murkowski – “a lousy senator”, “She’s the worst” — than praising the senator’s challenger Kelly Tshibaka, a former Alaska state official. The former president also took after Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan.
Sullivan has endorsed his seatmate Murkowski.
“Murkowski is a bad person and Sullivan should never have endorsed her,” said Trump. “Sullivan should be ashamed of himself.”
Trump was on a vengeance mission, but Trumpification could bring changes to the U.S. Senate and intensify gridlock in Washington, D.C.
Lisa Murkowski speaks at AFGE’s 2019 Legislative & Grassroots Mobilization Conference (Photo: AFGE)
Murkowski has been central to what bipartisan cooperation there is in the capital. She helped craft the bipartisan gun safety bill passed by Congress after the Uvalde, Texas, massacre.
She was a force behind the infrastructure package, which will provide $3.5 billion in highway funding for Alaska and money for essential ferry service to support rural communities.
Murkowski and Senator Maria Cantwell, D‑Washington, have broken the ice to get construction underway on a new polar ice breaker, with a second under design.
Several Senate Republicans, backers of infrastructure and gun safety, are retiring this year. Would be replacements, in Ohio and Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Missouri, are hard liners. Running to replace Senator Richard Burr, R‑North Carolina, Representative Ted Budd has called the infrastructure package “a liberal Trojan horse for a socialist agenda.” J.D. Vance, nominated to replace Senator Rob Portland, R‑Ohio, has described the bill as “a total disaster for our country.”
Celebrity physician Mehmet Oz, running to replace Senator Pat Toomey, R‑Pennsylvania, has abandoned his past support for such gun safety measures as red flag laws, and vowed to “fight against federal gun control schemes.”
Trump is a speaker who goes off in many directions. He butchered pronunciation of the name of new U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, talked about giving advice to U.S. commanders in Iraq with the words: “I’d hit ‘em on the left, hit ‘em on the right, I’d hit ‘em in the (expletive) center – right smack.”
He morphed into a denunciation of transgender athletes, describing NCAA swimming champion Lia Thomas as “a person with a man’s body.”
Once “totally pro-choice”, Trump took a victory lap over the United States Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe vs. Wade. “We got it done,” said Trump, who named three of the individuals that signed the majority opinion.
Nor could Trump ignore the decision by Tesla maker Elon Musk to back out of his $44 billion plan to purchase Twitter. “Elon. Elon. Elon,” exclaimed Trump. “He’s not going to buy Twitter. He’s got himself a mess. I’ve looked into his contract. Ya know, Elon says he’s never voted Republican, but I didn’t know that because he told me that he voted for me, so he’s another (expletive) artist.”
Such words are frequently used to describe Donald Trump.
# Written by Joel Connelly :: 1:20 PM
Categories: Elections
Tags: AK-Sen
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