RINO Murkowski Can’t Bring Herself To SAVE America

At a rally earlier this month in Anchorage, President Donald Trump said what a lot of conservatives believe: Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, “is worse than a Democrat.”

Trump was right. And Murkowski just proved him right again.

The Senate’s leading RINO over the weekend announced that she remains opposed to the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act. She did so in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal so that a wider audience could read her purported reasons and to magnify just how much she despises Donald Trump.

In the self-serving piece, Murkowski claims she supports the bill’s “core tenets” but still opposes the bill.

“Why? Because it would have serious negative effects in Alaska, and the current text doesn’t allow for the time and resources needed for proper implementation,” wrote the four-term senator with designs on a fifth in 2028.

Helpless, Hypothetical Voters

The SAVE America Act’s core provisions would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and a photo ID to vote in U.S. elections. That’s much too onerous for Alaska voters, Murkowski opined. Some Alaskans in the more remote parts of the state would have to pay hundreds of dollars to travel by plane to the nearest election site. There are just six, she said, in a state double the size of Texas.

Think of the poor 18-year-old living in Savoonga, on a remote island in the Bering Sea, Murkowski muses. Or the Unalaska fisherman, out on the Aleutian Islands. The flight to Anchorage, the closest election office, located about 800 miles away, would cost that fisherman about $1,500 round-trip, the senator estimates.

Then there’s the helpless, hypothetical 85-year-old elder born on tribal land 18 years before statehood. How does she go about obtaining the proper identification to prove she’s eligible to vote?

Murkowski definitely has gotten the Democrat rhetoric down, insisting that some class of voter — women, “Native people,” hermits in the Alaskan outback — are too helpless and locked out to prove they are U.S. citizens, and that they are who they say they are.

Of course these same stranded people already have to travel great distances to apply in person for identification cards at DMV offices. They need the IDs to board flights in the first place, like everyone else. They needed to obtain that ID to purchase a pack of smokes or a bottle of booze.  Alaskans who apply for Medicaid or other taxpayer-funded welfare programs must provide an Alaska driver’s license, state ID, birth certificate, or U.S. passport.

There are most likely Alaskans who don’t have appropriate proof of citizenship and must travel a great distance to obtain it. But has Murkowski ever tried to negotiate funding for satellite voter registration sites to provide greater access to register? After all, Murkowski claims she’s fine with the “core tenets” of the SAVE America Act — “ensuring that only American citizens vote and requiring identification when voting.”

Murkowski could insist on access provisions in exchange for her support. She has never been shy about asking for other people’s money. She has held up plenty of bills in pursuit of pork for Alaska. Last year, the money-grabbing senator was the subject “of an intense whip effort by GOP leaders” to induce her to vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill, Politico reported. She asked for, and received, a lot of sweeteners in trade. It was agonizing, she lamented.

‘Total Creature of the Swamp’

Murkowski’s media blitz opposition to the SAVE America Act, however, isn’t really about the SAVE America Act, election integrity, or protecting her constituents’ right to vote. It’s about sticking it to Trump, who has endorsed Murkowski’s Republican challenger and has long called her out for the swamp creature she is.

Murkowski would rather compromise integrity and confidence in U.S. elections than vote for the president’s No. 1 domestic policy priority. A bill that would do what its name advertises. A bill that the vast majority of U.S. voters support, including nearly 90 percent of her fellow Alaska Republicans and nearly half of the state’s Democrats.

“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 during his recent Anchorage stump speech.

As Trump noted, Murkowski voted against the confirmation of conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and for far-left Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. She’s stood with the gun control lobby and against the Second Amendment.

Her cozying up with the left should surprise no conservative by now. Sicken, yes. Surprise, no.

‘Stay in Session’

Of course, Murkowski couldn’t do it alone.

Weak-willed Senate Republican leadership has shown itself as worse than Democrats on the SAVE America Act. At least you know upfront that leftists recoil at talk of election integrity the way the undead flee from sunlight. Republicans, led by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, have talked about how much they love the SAVE America Act, only to ghost it.

The South Dakota Republican has done little to force Democrats to explain to the American people why they hate this popular election integrity bill. Thune repeatedly has said it’s just a matter of math. He doesn’t have the numbers in his caucus to force a “talking filibuster,” which would make Democrats have to hold the floor in continuous debate to keep the bill from coming up for a vote.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who has ardently fought the good fight on the SAVE America Act, on Monday posted on X that the Senate should “stay in session continuously until the SAVE America Act is passed.”

But that battle would be costly for work-averse Senators, who most likely would have to miss part or even all of their long summer vacation coming up. As Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., noted on X, this week marks the final week that the Republican-controlled Senate will be in session until September 14, if the august body sticks to its schedule.

Thune could never be so cruel. You know who was? Harry Reid, the late Senate Majority leader and Nevada Democrat who kept senators in session a record 25 days until they passed funding for Obamacare — one of the more disastrous bills in U.S. history.

Thune has enough courage in him to lead an overnight marathon vote. He did so with the Big Beautiful Bill. That was for tax cuts. Saving the republic is too much of an ask apparently.

The House, meanwhile, is feverishly trying to move through a budget reconciliation package that would include elements of the SAVE Act, a gambit aimed at getting around Senate Democrats and to a simple majority vote.

“I am asking all House Republicans to VOTE YES this week on the Budget Resolution, which is an important first step towards getting a Budget Bill. House Republicans must UNIFY, and fight for THE SAVE AMERICA ACT!” Trump posted Monday on Truth Social.

Murkowski and Thune are both up for re-election in 2028. They both have much to lose. Failure to pass a bill with 80 percent support could prove very costly to their campaigns. They should remember that conservative Republicans never forget — especially when Republican politicians act like Democrats.

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.