Painful moment Lisa Murkowski stares down reporter for 10 seconds over bill question
Alaska Rep. Lisa Murkowski awkwardly stared down NBC reporter Ryan Nobles this week after he inquired about comments made by another senator regarding a bill Murkowski voted for.
Recently, the Alaska Sen. voted in favor of a GOP-backed bill aimed at repealing the Affordable Care Act. However, Republicans struck a deal with Murkowski, saying Alaska would keep Obamacare if she supported the measure. Afterward, Nobles asked the senator what her response was to Rep. Rand Paul, who said her vote "was a bailout to Alaska at the expense of the rest of the country."
Murkowski was visibly annoyed by the comments and were obviously hearing them for the first time. The Alaskan stared Nobles down for a long 10 seconds, which is punctuated by awkward silence.
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"I have an obligation to the people of the state of Alaska," she responded. "I live up to that every single day. I fight for my state's interests and make sure that Alaskans are understood"
She added that Sen. Paul's words were "offensive," and showed he is tone deaf to the complications one faces while living in Alaska.
"Do I like this bill? no." she continued. "But I tried to take care of Alaska's interests. I know that a lot of Americans will be disadvantaged by this bill."
The Alaska Republican's statement following the momentous vote, however, was even more startling: Murkowski expressed her hope that House Republicans would amend the Senate's version of the bill.
“We do not have a perfect bill by any stretch of the imagination,” she told reporters. “My hope is that House is going to look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.”
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The senator responded that she merely intended to keep the process going when asked why she voted in favor of a bill that she feels has to be amended before passing. Murkowski came to the conclusion, "Kill it and it's gone."
Even by congressional norms, this is rather strange. It appears that Murkowski believes the Senate's version of the ill-named One Big Beautiful Bill Act is just the most recent in a series of versions and that the package will continue to change over the next few days.
According to this logic, the Alaskan's vote was more of a means of continuing the process than it was a support for this particular idea.
However, it's hard to take such stance seriously. The proposal would not have been "killed" if she had joined the bipartisan minority that opposed it; rather, it would have paved the way for fresh Senate deliberations in which Murkowski could have had a significant impact.
