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Former President Donald Trump has torn a strip off of one of his oldest rivals in the Republican Party, Senate Minority Leader and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell.
The former president was furious with Sen. McConnell for endorsing Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski against her primary opponent backed by former President Trump.
“Mitch McConnell, one of the worst & most unpopular politicians in the U.S., and the man that gave the Radical Left Democrats Trillions of Dollars for their Green New Deal Fake Infrastructure Bill (9% Infrastructure) without so much as a fight, is spending a fortune of donor’s money (the only way he holds power!) on pushing Left Wing Alaska hater Lisa Murkowski rather than great Republican candidate Kelly Tshibaka – a close race. Murkowski killed ANWR, Voted to Impeach, & against Supreme Court!” he said on Truth Social.
At a rally in Anchorage, Alaska, Trump set his sights on Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, calling her “worse than a Democrat.”
Trump was in Alaksa to support other Republican candidates, particularly Sarah Palin, who is running to replace the late Republican Rep. Don Young.
But it didn’t take long for the 45th president to turn his sights toward Murkowski, who is in the middle of a tough GOP primary race against Trump-endorsed candidate Kelly Tshibaka.
“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 said.
“This is your precious chance to dump the horrific RINO Senator Lisa Murkowski, using the acronym for “Republican in name only, “who’s worse than a Democrat. She’s worse than a Democrat,” Trump added.
Trump also took time at the rally to discuss Palin, the former Republican Alaska governor.
“She will be a true warrior for your state and for the country,” Trump said of Palin during the rally.
“Sir, we need you back. Four more years. Four more years,” Palin said while on stage with Trump. “And President Trump, you are home.”
Trump also discussed other topics, including Elon Musk’s recent decision to terminate the contract to buy Twitter.
For her part, Murkowski is admitting that she may lose her primary bid to Tshibaka.
“I may not be re-elected,” Murkowski told the New York Times about the possible end of her 20-year Senate career.
“It may be that Alaskans say, ‘Nope, we want to go with an absolute, down-the-line, always, always, 100-percent, never-question, rubber-stamp Republican,” she said about Tshibaka, who is leading in the polls.
“And if they say that that’s the way that Alaska has gone — kind of the same direction that so many other parts of the country have gone — I have to accept that,” Murkowski added. “But I’m going to give them the option… Maybe I am just completely politically naïve, and this ship has sailed. But I won’t know unless we — unless I — stay out there and give Alaskans the opportunity to weigh in.”
Establishment Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski admitted she may lose her primary bid to Trump-endorsed candidate Kelly Tshibaka. https://t.co/BNQ2ylC0NA
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) April 28, 2022
A new poll recently found that Tshibaka — who won the endorsement of the Alaskan Republican Party and scored Trump’s endorsement — is leading Murkowski heading into the August 16 GOP primary.
Alaska uses a ranked-choice voting system, meaning that voters get to rank the candidates in order of their preference. In each round, the candidate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated until a candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote. Primaries in Alaska are also non-partisan.
The poll, conducted the way Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting system will hold its election, finds that Tshibaka would emerge as the only candidate with a shot to get over 50 percent in a four-way field in November.
On that first choice on the ballot, Tshibaka comes in with 45.4 percent and Murkowski at just 28.7 percent — with a generic Democrat close behind Murkowski and a libertarian candidate in fourth place. The poll’s margin of error is 4.21 percent.
This is not a good year for Never-Trump lawmakers running for re-election.
In Wyoming, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney — also a notorious anti-Trumper — is underwater big time versus Trump-backed Harriet Hageman in the Wyoming GOP primary.
