Former President Donald Trump continues to do exactly what he says he will do. Before he left office, he pledged that he would come to Alaska and punish U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski for the way she went against him at the end of his presidency.
“She voted to impeach me. And I did more for this state than any president in history. And that piece of (here Trump mouthed the words ‘garbage’ to the crowd) voted to impeach me!”
Trump spoke at the rally for 90 minutes at the Alaska Airlines Center. The facility holds 6,000, and according to the staff at the Center, over 5,000 people were attending.
The event was opened by GOP leader Kelly Tshibaka. She was joined by former Gov. Sarah Palin who is not a candidate for Alaska’s open U.S. House seat.
Palin brought the house down and she lashed out at Democrats, the present government, and the media. She reminded the roaring crowd just how important the midterm elections were this November.
“It’s no longer Democrat versus Republican. This is all about control versus freedom. It’s good versus evil. It is a spiritual battle,” Palin said.
The former Alaska governor also said that she learned from her father to “stiffen her spine and fight back.” She said his exact words were “Don’t retreat. Reload,.” The crowd loved it.
Trump used the platform to fulfill his promise against Sen. Murkowski. He did not pull any punches declaring that the Republican senator was “worse than a Democrat.”
Trump focused a lot of his speech on Murkowski. After calling her a lousy senator, he continued by saying, “She’s a total creature of the Washington swamp but much worse than that and a tool of a corrupt establishment, the likes of which we’ve never seen. The fake news media loves her.”
Trump went after the senator for opposing the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He also went after the fact that she joined with two other Republican senators and all 50 Democrats to vote in Justice Ketanjo Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Trump lashed out at Murkowski’s vote that was in favor of bipartisan gun safety legislation. This was passed in the emotion of the tragic shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas.
Trump thundered to the eager crowd, “This is your precious chance to dump the horrific RINO Senator Lisa Murkowski, who’s worse than a Democrat. She’s worse than a Democrat.” The president used the acronym for Republican in Name Only.
He gave his full support for Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka after calling Murkowski “Biden’s CEO,” the president’s “chief enabling officer.”
The heat between Trump and Murkowski has been brewing since she voted along with six GOP senators to convict the former president after January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Trump made the move to endorse Tshibaka in June of 2021. This should be one of the tensest Senate races in the country this November.
The rally was scheduled to happen on the heels of Alaska’s August 16th primary. The top four vote-getters will advance to the general election.
Trump also put the weight of his support firmly behind former Governor Sarah Palin. “She will be a true warrior for your state and the country. When she was at the platform, she said that the country needed Trump back in the office for four more years.
Murkowski’s campaign gave response after Trump’s rally and had some factual corrections. They said that Trump claimed in his Alaska successes that he “got … Cove Road, or whatever the hell they call it,” a reference to King Cove road. “For 50 years, they’ve been trying to get the highway, right?” he said. “I got that.”
Murkowski’s team said that it was a gravel single-lane road, not a highway, and its not been built yet.
