Former President Donald Trump fulfilled a pledge made in the spring of 2021 to campaign against GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska.
“You’re going to fire your RINO senator. She’s worse than a RINO — Lisa Murkowski. She is the worst. I rate her No. 1 bad, and we have a couple of real bad ones, but she’s by far the worst,” Trump told the fired-up maximum-capacity crowd of over 5,000 on-hand at the Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage on Saturday.
Donald Trump: “You’re going to fire your RINO senator, she’s worse than a RINO – Lisa Murkowski. She is the worst. I rate her No. 1 bad, and we have a couple of bad ones, but she’s by far the worst.” pic.twitter.com/OEQu8aKJZL
— The Hill (@thehill) July 10, 2022
In February 2021, weeks after Trump left office, Murkowski voted to convict the 45th president of inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 of that year while Congress met to certify the Electoral College votes for the 2020 election.
“If months of lies, organizing a rally of supporters in an effort to thwart the work of Congress, encouraging a crowd to march on the Capitol, and then taking no meaningful action to stop the violence once it began is not worthy of impeachment, conviction, and disqualification from holding office in the United States, I cannot imagine what is,” Murkowski said in a statement at the time.
Trump said in a speech at a Jan. 6 rally near the White House, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Additionally, former acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller and his chief of staff Kash Patel have stated that the then-commander in chief authorized up to 20,000 National Guard soldiers to be present at the Capitol to keep the peace.
Further, an official timeline compiled by the U.S. Capitol Police and obtained by Just the News showed an offer of troops being made by the Department of Defense on Jan. 2, 2021.
As news circulated that then-Capitol Police Chief Steve Sund wanted the Guard deployed ahead of the rally, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser intervened.
Will Murkowski win re-election?
The Democrat sent “a preemptive letter [on Jan. 5] to Miller and other Pentagon and Justice Department officials asking that troops not be deployed unless the Metropolitan Police Department approved, citing an incident in summer 2020, when troops were deployed at Lafayette Park near the White House during civil disobedience,” Just the News reported.
In June 2021, Trump pledged to campaign in Alaska against Murkowski’s re-election.
At his Saturday rally in Anchorage, the former president listed several reasons he believes the four-term senator does not deserve to remain in office, including her impeachment vote.
“She voted to impeach me. And I did more for this state than any president in history. And that piece of –” Trump said, mouthing “garbage” to the crowd, “voted to impeach me!”
“Murkowski is a bad person and [GOP Alaska Sen.] Dan Sullivan should never ever have given her an endorsement,” Trump said. “Dan Sullivan should be ashamed of himself.”
Another reason Trump listed as to why Murkowski should not be re-elected was her vote to confirm Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who had been on the record voicing her strong opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve.
Haaland shut down drilling in ANWR soon after taking office and blocked the expansion of drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska this year.
Trump also highlighted that Murkowski voted against confirming his nominee Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and then turned around and voted for President Joe Biden’s pick, Kentanji Brown Jackson.
In 2019, Murkowski joined Democrats to vote to end Trump’s national emergency declaration regarding the U.S. border with Mexico, which he was using to help direct funding to build a border wall.
Last month, she voted for new gun control legislation backed by Biden and the Democrats.
Trump also raised the senator’s stand with Democrats to keep Roe v. Wade in place through congressional legislation.
He exhorted Alaskans, “This is your precious chance to dump the horrific RINO Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who’s worse than a Democrat.”
Trump has endorsed GOP candidate Kelly Tshibaka in the U.S. Senate race in Alaska.
A version of this article originally appeared on Patriot Project.
