Donald Trump’s Lisa Murkowski problem just got even uglier for him

| 11:45 pm EDT June 8, 2020
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Feel free to give Lisa Murkowski no credit for finally sorta kinda standing up to Donald Trump last week by saying she agrees with General Mattis and she might not support him in the 2020 election. Too little, too late, whatever. This isn’t about whether she’s good or bad. It’s about Trump – and how this is becoming a problem for him at a time when he can’t afford more problems.

After Murkowski said what she said, Trump went on a lengthy Twitter tirade, vowing to travel to Alaska and personally campaign for any Republican willing to run against her when she’s up for reelection in 2022. Trump was clearly hoping she would get scared and back down. Instead, she doubled down on her comments to CNN on Monday, adding that she doesn’t care about retribution because “I cannot live in fear of a tweet.”

The wording here is important. Lisa Murkowski is betting that by the time she has to run in 2022, Donald Trump will be long gone from office, facing criminal charges, and irrelevant to politics. More to the point, she’s calling out the fact that all he can do is tweet about her; he doesn’t have any real way of punishing her.

Murkowski isn’t afraid of Donald Trump. At least she’s not that afraid of him. If Trump can’t make an example out of Murkowski for her remarks, or Mitt Romney for his impeachment vote, then he has no leverage for keeping the other Republican Senators in line. Some of them will stick with him no matter what. But if Trump’s numbers continue to tank, some of them are going to be selfishly thinking more about their own careers than about his.