Sen. Lisa Murkowski delivered a scorching rebuke Saturday of President Donald Trump’s explosive exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a rare voice of Republican dissent as party members lined up in support of the president’s increasingly combative relationship with Ukraine.
“I am sick to my stomach as the administration appears to be walking away from our allies and embracing Putin, a threat to democracy and U.S. values around the world,” the Alaskan wrote in a Saturday afternoon post to X.
Her admonishment came after a disastrous Friday bilateral meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy, which saw Trump publicly berate the Ukrainian leader. In the hours after the exchange, most Republicans were quick to support Trump’s “America First” approach to realigning America’s role on the world stage.
“This week started with administration officials refusing to acknowledge that Russia started the war in Ukraine,” Murkowski said. “It ends with a tense, shocking conversation in the Oval Office and whispers from the White House that they may try to end all U.S. support for Ukraine.”
Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s dressing down of Zelenskyy in Washington on Friday marked a notable turn in American foreign policy. For weeks, the administration has indicated that aligning with longtime allies in Europe was no longer America’s priority, with Vance chastising them on their doorstep in Munich in February in a speech that sent shockwaves across the globe.
And Trump has increasingly signaled one of his main goals was normalizing relations with the Kremlin — and not protecting a beleaguered western nation in Ukraine — seeking to upend the global security order he has long derided.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Murkowski’s criticism.
While many in the GOP rallied around their leader, Democrats joined a flood of European voices offering their full support for the embattled nation.
Earlier on Saturday, Zelenskyy visited staunch ally British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who gave a public show of support for the Ukrainian president.
While Starmer kept quiet on the Oval Office exchange, he made sure to highlight the U.K.’s “unwavering determination” to support Ukraine, saying the country has “full backing across the United Kingdom,” after greeting him with a warm embrace on the steps of 10 Downing Street in London.
Before leaving for London Friday night, Zelenskyy addressed the state of his relationship with Trump and the U.S. on Fox News’ “Special Report” hosted by Bret Baier, emphasizing his gratitude for the U.S.’s continued support and issuing a plea for America to stay “on our side” and “not with Russians.”
The dramatic exchange earlier in the day was “not good,” the Ukrainian president said, but he maintained that the dynamic between two presidents would not wholly dictate the relationship between their countries.
Zelenskyy also reiterated his call to strike a deal with Trump that would see the U.S. benefiting from rare earth mineral deposits in Ukraine, emphasizing his desire for security guarantees for a lasting peace. The two presidents had been set to sign the deal, which Trump has touted for days, during Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington, but Trump announced that there would be no agreement between the two leaders on Friday after the blow up.
The Oval Office meltdown drew few criticisms from Republicans, who have broadly embraced Trump’s shift away from an American-led global order.
Even Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a longtime internationalist who had previously encouraged Trump to strike the mineral deal, told reporters outside the White House after the exchange that he thought the Ukrainian president should resign, adding “I don’t know if we can ever do business with Zelenskyy again.”
Other Republicans showed their support for Trump on X, boosting videos of the heated exchange and lauding Trump’s treatment of, as Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) put it, “that Ukrainian weasel.”
But Murkowski was not alone. Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) both voiced disappointment with the turn the meeting took.
“Diplomacy and statesmanship seem to have been checked at the door of the Oval Office today,” Curtis wrote on X on Friday, before expressing hope that the U.S. and Ukraine can “get back to the table and advance the prospects of a just and lasting peace.”
Both he and Bacon highlighted Ukraine’s desire to align itself with Western values, with the Nebraskan calling the Friday debacle “a bad day for America’s foreign policy” and saying that Ukraine “wants to be part of the West,” while Russia “hates us and our Western values.”
“We should be clear that we stand for freedom,” Bacon added, shying away from directly chastising the president.
