Alaska's Senator: 'You're Roadkill in the Middle' - The Assignment with Audie Cornish - Podcast on CNN Podcasts

CNN

10 hours ago

John King
00:00:02
'Senator, let me just start there. This poll is remarkable. It shows you as a write-in candidate at 3737. But you know, and I'm sure all your advisors are telling you, a number is one thing. It's tough when people have to not only fill in that little circle and spell out your name. How do you get from a dead heat today to victory on election day?
Audie Cornish
00:00:21
I, like many people at the time, did not always spell the name Murkowski right, the first time I tried. But after Lisa Murkowski lost to a Tea Party candidate in an upset primary in 2010, she made sure everyone would learn.
Lisa Murkowski
00:00:35
Let me tell you, you tell Alaskans that we can't do something and by golly our backbone just gets a little bit stiffer and we say of course we can. You don't think that we can't fill in an oval and write in a name.
Audie Cornish
00:00:50
This was back when it was said that the Tea Party and politicians like Sarah Palin were the future. And incumbents, like Senator Murkowski, were going the way of the dodo.
John King
00:01:01
If the Republicans ignore the message of the Tea Party, do you see a civil war in the party?
Audie Cornish
00:01:05
This is an interview with John King. It took place around 15 years ago.
Lisa Murkowski
00:01:09
I want to be able to deal with those in a manner that is realistic, pragmatic, thoughtful, reaches across the lines, works to build consensus. Consensus should not be a dirty word in the political process.
Audie Cornish
00:01:25
'In the end, they were both right. Alaskans were convinced by her historic write-in campaign, and Murkowski won that 2010 Senate race with a message of pragmatism and consensus building. At the same time, the Republican Party did enter a philosophical civil war that purged most other consensus builders from the party. It culminated in the triumph of Donald Trump and his brand of pugilistic politics. Now, she's known as a Republican who regularly straddles party lines and one of Trump's harshest critics. She's a self-described positive centrist. She's the thorn in the side of Republican leaders who can't always count on her to vote the party line. I mean, could a leader like Lisa Murkowski still rise to power in today's GOP?
Lisa Murkowski
00:02:13
'I cannot accept that we will forever be this holy, bitterly divided nation. We won't survive as a bitterly-divided nation. We can't eat ourselves up with our own internal divisions. And that's where we're headed right now.
Audie Cornish
00:02:31
'What did she learn from her comeback story that has helped her thrive in the Trump era? And what's it like to be in the dwindling number of independent-leaning lawmakers when threats, both political and physical, are commonplace? I'm Audie Cornish, and this is The Assignment. Senator Lisa Murkowski, welcome to the assignment.
Audie Cornish
00:02:57
Great to be with you this morning. Thank you. So you have been asked to write a book many times. Why are you writing one now?
Lisa Murkowski
00:03:06
Because I've been asked to write a book many times, actually.
Audie Cornish
00:03:10
I have declined many times. Well, because here's the thing, when you write a book, you've got to come out and talk.
Lisa Murkowski
00:03:15
Well, I didn't realize that part of it.
Audie Cornish
00:03:17
Okay.
Lisa Murkowski
00:03:18
'You know, I have this story and it kind of began really with 2010 and the write-in campaign, just kind of the history that really Alaskans made with that amazing event. When I think about acts of political defiance, it was not... Lisa Murkowski politically defying the norms. It was Alaskans saying, we don't care how they do it on the outside. That's a bumper sticker, actually. We don't care. We, this is the person that we want and we're gonna figure out a way to return her. And so beginning then, people were like, you need to write a book, you need put this down. And I tried a couple times and it, you know, you get busy, it's hard. I didn't know how to write book. And I think it was just too, too fresh. You didn't know if, okay, well, maybe this is... Maybe this is not gonna be so interesting. Maybe it's going to be an event that was interesting and exciting for a brief moment in time and then people move on to other things.
Audie Cornish
00:04:18
Narrator, we would not move on to other things. Because that turned out to be a very formative moment like in our politics because it was a moment where we saw Tea Party candidates start to overtake incumbents and you had lost your primary. And I tried to convey to like some of my producers, I was like, you don't understand. She didn't just lose the primary. In the book you talk about you are sort of like political roadkill. Like the caucus was like, you can't have those committee seats, goodbye, we're not going to be seeing you. How much did that affect, even more than losing, how much did it affect how you saw the party at that time?
Lisa Murkowski
00:04:58
It's really hard to say that they were doing wrong. Or that it was not right that they had kind of discarded me. The fact of the matter is, is I lost. I lost a Republican party. So the party now had a different candidate, right? The party was changing.
Audie Cornish
00:05:20
In a very profound way.
00:05:21
The party, the party was change, the part was changing, and I don't deny that at all. I didn't feel ill will towards them, they did what they had to do. Now, did I feel that the party had shifted in a way that we had not anticipated? That is absolutely true. We saw it play out in Alaska in my race, but before that, earlier in the year, my friend Bob Bennett from Utah had been kind of the first fatality, if you will, to the Tea Party and what had happened in Utah. And he had advised me literally 10 days before the primary. He says, you have to take this seriously. They will take you out. And I said, Bob, Alaska is different. Alaska is different. That's not gonna happen here. We're gonna be just fine. And I get taken out.
Audie Cornish
00:06:15
It's interesting, when you look back at that period of politics, most political watchers thought that the politics of the Tea Party, emphasis on fiscal responsibility or states' rights, that that is what would last and that the style, whether it be Sarah Palin's kind of disregard for a lot of different norms or those candidates who said outrageous things, that that was going to go away. Can you talk about, because you write about her in your book, and I know some people have talked about the relationship that you guys have, both coming out of Alaska. I feel like I'm trying to ask in a subtle way how you both came out of Alaska. Like you're the most, Alaska's big.
Lisa Murkowski
00:06:56
Alaska's big!
00:06:57
But I don't know if you ever look in the mirror and say like, I don't know how we came from the same place. Like, what is it that, you're laughing, but like, this is a real thing people want to know because we don't if your path is extinct or hers is.
Lisa Murkowski
00:07:10
Oh, that's a fair question. I think what it says is how diverse and how eclectic. Alaska really is, and how...
Audie Cornish
00:07:21
But is your way of politics done?
Lisa Murkowski
00:07:25
Absolutely not.
Audie Cornish
00:07:26
Because I look around and I see way more Sarah Palins than I see Lisa Murkowski.
Lisa Murkowski
00:07:30
Well, then you need to come to Alaska. You need to come to Alaska.
Audie Cornish
00:07:32
I was waiting for that invitation and we are ten minutes into the interview.
Lisa Murkowski
00:07:37
I'll tell you why I think that my approach to politics resonates in Alaska, and it kind of ties into some of the political reforms you've seen in Alaska recently with the adoption...
Audie Cornish
00:07:52
But I actually don't mean Alaska, I mean nationally. there are not more Lisa Murkowski's. There are more Sarah Palins.
Audie Cornish
00:07:59
Okay, I'm not going to debate you on whether or not there is more of me or more of her. I think those that are more like me are perhaps quieter about it, and those that are more in the kind of more outwardly MAGA are louder about it. I look at Alaska specifically and I see, again, these voices in the middle, those who don't want the aggressive, partisan bickering, who want to try to see things actually get done, who just are tired of everything being divided between red and blue and R and D. And they just say, you know, can't we just have better communities, better schools, you now, better whatever?
Audie Cornish
00:08:49
But do people vote that way? I know you're saying Alaska does, but the reason why I'm harping on this is it feels like the group of people who talk the way you do is just smaller. It's much smaller than it used to be. And there are times, even in the book, for instance, you talk about Mitt Romney speaking out against Donald Trump, and being very forceful in the way he was doing it, and the reasons you weren't, that you were running for office, that you didn't feel it could make a difference. I'm trying to understand if those decisions, those moments of silence, are why we are where we are.
Lisa Murkowski
00:09:23
I think that there are... There are consequences when you voice your opinion. And when I say consequences, I'm not saying retribution, if you will, but you're subject to criticism, right? And I don't care whether you're in political office or whether you are a photographer. You speak up, you've got to now defend. I think what you're seeing is people are just, it's too wearying, I'm just not going to. That is worrisome because when people stop engaging, then those of us that are elected to office feel like, well, the signals we're getting from folks back home is everything's okay. Well, everything's not okay. Everything's not, okay. And so how can we encourage you? And this is where I guess one of the reasons why I felt it was still timely to focus on a book was because I think people need to have some level of hope and optimism. That maybe just maybe things can change, that maybe there are people who are willing to be that voice in the middle, even if it means that you're roadkill in the Middle. That's what happens when you stand in the the middle of the road. But there has to be encouragement to that.
Audie Cornish
00:10:42
I was actually wondering if you put this anecdote in the book also, because did you have some regrets? You spoke so highly of Romney, right, in that moment, and you seem to be revisiting that moment for a reason. And what do you think that reason was?
Lisa Murkowski
00:10:59
I try not to spend a lot of time on regrets, wishing that I had done something different. Because in this job, you just don't have time to do that. I was asked the other day, you know, do you regret voting for this nominee? It was actually RFK. Do you regret it voting for him, in the light of his changes to the vaccine? And I said, yeah, I'm mad at what he has said. I don't I think that this is a way to regain trust and confidence in the system of vaccines. But I don't have the opportunity to redo that. I've just got to figure out now. What do I do with it?
Audie Cornish
00:11:40
I think there is a perception that maybe there are lawmakers who are going along to get along, or maybe they want a certain outcome, and so they're willing to put up with a lot. And what people are seeing is cynicism. I think I remember Saturday Night Live skit along these lines, that Republicans somehow were all disliking Trump, hating Trump, but going along with it in public. And do you hear that? I'm sure you hear things from all sides. But the idea that Republicans like went along with a lot if it got them what they wanted. I worry about that.
Lisa Murkowski
00:12:13
'I worry about that because we don't want to be in a situation where basically... The ends justify the means. So, for instance, let's use tariffs as an example. A month or so ago, the president moves forward unilaterally with tariffs declaring this emergency using the authorities that he had under emergency action. I don't happen to think that trade imbalance that has existed for a period of time constitutes an emergency. But what I was hearing from many colleagues was that, Well, no, I- I agree with where the president is going. We want to get these other countries to a better place in terms of trade. So I'm okay with where he's going. So I am okay with how he's getting there. We have to make sure that we've got some fidelity here, some fidelity to the rule of law, some fidelity our responsibility. And so I worry about the kind of the purity test. There's this expectation that you've got to line up because this is what your party is asking. And so, again, to take it back to why I spend so much time in the book talking about how I get somewhere is because, believe me, the easiest thing to do would just be to follow the party line.
Audie Cornish
00:13:39
We are in a moment with a climate of fear and a fear around political violence. You had these Minnesota lawmakers, one who was killed, who was a pragmatic politician in her state, along with others of the attempted murder there. Right away you had a senator, right, Mike Lee, kind of casting aspersions online saying, "oh, well, this is what the Marxists deserve." I mean, just wrong on so many counts, the politics of the alleged shooter, what that would mean, the implications. First, can you give me your reaction to that? Because it has become something of a conversation in the Senate.
Lisa Murkowski
00:14:21
Political violence against anybody is wrong. It's just wrong, and so to make light of it or to suggest one way or another that somehow or other the victims had kind of...
Audie Cornish
00:14:37
I know, but it's also the native tongue of the internet. Like, when I think about that world online of influencers going back and forth and political chatter on X, on truth social, et cetera, that's extremely common. And Mike Lee, in particular.
Lisa Murkowski
00:14:52
And extremely wrong.
Audie Cornish
00:14:54
Say more.
Lisa Murkowski
00:14:56
It's just wrong.
Audie Cornish
00:14:58
But it seems to work. There are certain lawmakers who, I mean, this is how they've been propelled.
Lisa Murkowski
00:15:04
Why is it working? It seems that the more aggressive we become with our words, the more defiant we become with our positions, the people eat it up. Instead of saying, yes, let's cool the temperature down here. Let's dial the rhetoric back. Let's keep us all safer. So I don't know why we are seeing this other than maybe the public is expecting it or demanding it. I don't even want to think, then, about how
Audie Cornish
00:15:40
Right. If you want to cool the temperature, shouldn't more of you be saying to each other, hey, chill, like this is unnecessary, and why don't people do that?
Lisa Murkowski
00:15:48
'And what I will suggest is more of those conversations are happening directly. Bad thing, really we need to dial this back. But there's a difference between what is said privately, one-on-one with one another or in a small group versus to the broader audience through the media. Again, my sense is there is this need to make sure that my base knows that I'm a tough guy Levi. I don't ascribe to that, and maybe that makes me odd man out. I don t know. I've been in the Senate now for a while. We didn't operate like this before. We just didn't. I think that is problematic for the country because people look to their president. They look to the members of Congress. They look their governors, their mayors. They look at their elected officials for leadership.
Audie Cornish
00:16:58
Do they? I've had moments where I'm watching guys up there and I'm like, okay, no oversight. No one's doing any real oversight of anything anymore. When it comes to legislation, we're waiting for a speaker or a leader to pretty much tell us how to vote. And I sometimes, other than the raising money, I'm, like, what do lawmakers even do anymore?
Lisa Murkowski
00:17:22
Maybe I can just suggest that you are too close to it.
Audie Cornish
00:17:27
That's a kind thing to say, but... Do you know what I mean?
Lisa Murkowski
00:17:29
I know exactly what you mean, yeah.
Audie Cornish
00:17:31
What is the point? Because in the end you're like, come join politics. But I'm like, I don't know how you do it if you're not Lisa Murkowski.
Lisa Murkowski
00:17:37
I think we are seeing good people who say, you wouldn't catch me in an assembly meeting for love nor money because they're turned off by what they consider to be the unappetizing political environment that we have there. So how do you change it? You got to stick with it and demonstrate it doesn't have to be that way because I'm convinced that after a point, the people who want to make their partisan issues and and say, you know, we're gonna ban these books, so. I want to get on the school board so that I can take care of that. After a while, maybe they're going to get tired of public service is actually hard work and you don't actually get to ban books every single meeting in your school board meeting. Sometimes you just have to work with really dreary things like the budget. Maybe they wander off after a while, because governing is hard. I have to remain optimistic. Every single one of these questions that you're asking is absolutely valid, and it's absolutely the moment that we are in, but I cannot accept that it has to be this way going forward, that we will forever be this holy, bitterly divided nation. We won't survive as a bitterly divided nation. If we're going to be this amazing country with all of these extraordinary opportunities, we can't eat ourselves up with our own internal divisions and that's where we're headed right now.
Audie Cornish
00:19:15
'We're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, I'll ask Senator Murkowski about how her political past shapes her decision-making today. Stay with us.
Audie Cornish
00:19:27
I want to talk next about the lessons that you learned from the last couple of years because I think it'll help people understand why you speak out the way you do now. For instance, when the president was willing to call in military to support ICE on the streets of LA during those protests, you've been asked about whether you think people calling him authoritarian was valid. How have you thought about that since?
Lisa Murkowski
00:19:55
I think the comment that I made was, is he being authoritarian or is it Trump being Trump? I think we are seeing authoritarian acts.
Audie Cornish
00:20:07
Is there a red line for you?
Lisa Murkowski
00:20:12
I've told people that when it comes to legislating, I don't like to advertise what my red line is because I've got to negotiate, right? But I think when you have clearly overstepped that rule of law, have defiantly pushed back. The Supreme Court as a president and said, I'm going to disregard that. I think those are red lines.
Audie Cornish
00:20:38
'Another thing that you're faced with right now, that quote-unquote big, beautiful bill in the conversation about entitlements and Medicaid cuts, for example. People have been very interested in seeing Senator Hawley from Missouri sort of speak up on behalf of Medicaid, of all things. I wanted to put this to you because, again, thinking about that Tea Party period where people cared about, like, the fiscal hawks, it's not the the fiscal hawks that are seem to be leading the obstacles here. It's the people who are kind of defending a certain kind of spending which is Medicaid Help me square that like is that still Republican?
Audie Cornish
00:21:22
A different kind of Republican? Yes. And I've had some good conversations with Senator Hawley about this. So many of the people that supported President Trump for president are people who are blue collar, lower income, for whom Medicaid is important to them. And so, has it changed? Is there a real reason that you're seeing a focus on Medicaid right now from some of the more conservative members? Yes, because it has significant impact on their constituencies.
Audie Cornish
00:22:00
Are you worried people will turn to Medicare to look for cuts or changes to get to the math they want?
Lisa Murkowski
00:22:09
You know, there are some, I think, legitimate areas within Medicare and Medicaid where we can look at and say, you know what, that's a method that's being used that isn't equitable, isn't fair, and needs to be addressed. You put it in the legitimate account of waste, fraud, and abuse. And so when we say absolutely nothing can be done when it comes to Medicare, Medicaid, it limits your ability to really address some challenges. That I think by all rights should be. Now, in the eye of the beholder, obviously, my review of that is it looks like there's some gaming of the system there. It's challenging because people don't want to know the details. All they know is what they've heard, which is, ah, you're going after Medicare, ah, your going after Medicaid. So this is why you really haven't seen reforms.
Audie Cornish
00:23:05
There's just a handful of you who are considered potential votes to put this thing over or to cause problems for it. And you've been in this position over and over and again now, where you're one of one, two, three votes that everybody is looking at. And you're the office that their phone rings off the hook when people make threats on social media or whatever it is. You're at the center of something. Are you ever scared there?
Lisa Murkowski
00:23:31
I'll tell you, I worry about my staff because it puts a lot on them. You're right, the phones ring. It's like nonstop. Sometimes it's great stuff saying "hang in there Lisa." And other times it's awful. And that's hard on them.
Audie Cornish
00:23:50
What's awful?
Lisa Murkowski
00:23:53
Like, you know, foul language threatening the... That leaving a message anonymously threatening, you know, what I consider to just be stupid stuff, but just being mean and ugly. If there are threats that are left, we report those as we should. Do you take those threats seriously in a way that you didn't maybe 10 years ago? I think we all have to consider the environment that we are in. Yes, I have to. It's not just members of the United States Senate. You have to acknowledge that there is an anger that is out there in our society today, and you have to be aware and not dismiss it, as hard as that is. I've got to be aware.
Audie Cornish
00:24:50
You write that you learn that Trump responds to strength and bluffs, but if he doesn't get what he wants, he moves on. And I thought that was sort of an interesting thing to write about, and it made me wonder what advice you have for other sort of targets of the White House, so to speak, the universities or the attorneys or public officials, students. What do you say to these institutions right now Are talking as though they are fearful?
Lisa Murkowski
00:25:19
They need to believe in themselves and their mission. Maybe it's easier to say than do.
Audie Cornish
00:25:29
'I mean you had to tell a room full of non-profits, I think this went viral in April, look I get it you're afraid. I get it, there's uncertainty.
Lisa Murkowski
00:25:37
And I feel that that fear, I hear it from you. I can relate to what you're talking about. And sometimes it's really hard to speak up because there is that fear of retaliation and retaliation is real and we're seeing that. But you've got to figure out how to find your voice even when it's hard.
Audie Cornish
00:25:58
Do you expect to use your voice more? Do you expect to be louder? Because frankly, a lot of times when I meet lawmakers who are in that phase, they're also heading for the exits.
Lisa Murkowski
00:26:10
You know, it shouldn't make a difference whether you're headed for the exits or not. Sometimes there is that fear that, well, if I speak out, if I vote for impeachment, you know, I will never survive another election. And I guess my response back would be, is any job, is any position worth compromising your own personal conviction and integrity? I don't think it should be. And so don't let that position define you, but do the right thing.
Audie Cornish
00:26:47
Well, Senator Murkowski, thank you so much for talking with me. Thank you, I really, I appreciate it.
Lisa Murkowski
00:26:54
I appreciated this, Audie. I enjoyd the conversation.
Audie Cornish
00:26:57
That's Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Her new book is called Far From Home. This episode of The Assignment, a production of CNN podcast, was produced by Grace Walker, Matthew Vann, and Kara Harris. Our senior producer is Matt Martinez. The technical director is Dan Dzula. And the executive producer of CNN podcast is Steve Lickteig. If you'd like to share this episode, please know it is also online. You can catch it on YouTube. We're going to have a link in our episode notes. And to get that done, we had support from Osmon Noor, Jonathan O'Beirne, Steve Williams, and Joseph Merkel. I want to offer special thanks as well to Wendy Brundige. We'll be back with a new episode on Thursday. Thanks as always for listening. I'm Audie Cornish.