By ANNIE KARNI NYTimes News Service
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Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the moderate Alaska Republican who has routinely broken with her party to criticize President Donald Trump, has made a startling admission about the reality of serving in public office at a time when an unbound leader in the Oval Office is bent on retribution against his political foes.

“We are all afraid,” Murkowski said, speaking at a conference in Anchorage on Monday. After pausing for about five seconds, she acknowledged: “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

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Murkowski’s comments were first reported by the Anchorage Daily News.

Murkowski, an independent voice in an increasingly tribal party, has been the rare Republican on Capitol Hill willing to criticize the Trump administration. After Trump in February berated President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine in the Oval Office, she warned that the United States was “walking away from our allies.”

She has routinely criticized the Department of Government Efficiency for creating a “tremendous amount of unnecessary anxiety” and for firing federal workers in her state. And Murkowski was one of only three Republicans who voted not to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Murkowski has become more outspoken in Trump’s second term, but she has long been part of a small minority in her party willing to stand up to its leader at a time when most GOP lawmakers have chosen to fall in line. She was one of seven Republicans who voted in 2021 to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, and the only one up for reelection at the time. She was also one of three Republicans who voted to support Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.

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