Lisa Murkowski Threatens to Quit Republican Party

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of President Donald Trump’s most vocal critics in the Senate GOP, said in a podcast on Monday that there are certain situations in which she’d consider becoming an independent and caucusing with Democrats.

“There may be that possibility,” she told Galen Druke in an interview excerpt of his GD Politics podcast, scheduled to post in full on Tuesday.

Druke asked Murkowski how she’d respond if Democrats won three seats in the 2026 midterm election, “and they say, we’re gonna let you pass bills that benefit Alaskans if you caucus with us.”

“You’ve started off with the right hook here, is ‘if this would help Alaskans,’” she told Druke.

Murkowski has clashed with Trump several times since he returned to the White House, including accusing him of “walking away from our allies” after the president’s February fight with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. And in May, she criticized the administration for revoking the temporary protected status of Afghan immigrants, calling the move “a historic betrayal.”

In March, Murkowski told reporters her Republican colleagues were “afraid” of going against Trump and then-ally Elon Musk, and said the pair’s work reducing the federal workforce through the Department of Government Efficiency was “traumatizing people.”

“There is some openness to exploring something different than the status quo,” she told Druke.

But switching parties likely isn’t the answer, she said in the podcast.

“My problem with your hypothetical is that as challenged as I think we may be on the Republican side, I don’t see the Democrats being much better,” Murkowski said.

“And they’ve got not only their share of problems, but quite honestly, they’ve got some policies that I just inherently disagree with.”