- A prominent Republican senator who is not like the others.

This week on "Firing Line".

- It was something that political history said was impossible.

For all intents and purposes, I was political roadkill.

- [Margaret] Alaska Senator, Lisa Murkowski, is serving her fourth full term, but conventional political wisdom says her career should have ended in 2010 when she lost a Republican primary to a challenger from the far right.

- And I announced today that I will be a write-in candidate in November.

- [Margaret] She wasn't on the ballot, so Alaska voters had to write her name in and spell it correctly.

And they did.

- We made history.

(crowd applauding and cheering) Alaskans made history.

- [Margaret] Usually just a threat of a primary challenge is enough to keep legislators in line.

- Any Republican that doesn't act on Democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out.

Out!

(crowd cheering) - [Margaret] But Murkowski is the exception to that rule.

She writes about the freedom that gives her in the US Senate in her new book.

- My place in the middle is often uncomfortable, sometimes lonely, but it's where I feel I belong.

- [Margaret] With unrest in the Middle East and an upcoming Senate vote on Trump's big, beautiful bill, what does Senator Lisa Murkowski say now?

- [Narrator] "Firing Line" with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, the Tepper Foundation, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, the Fairweather Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, Pritzker Military Foundation, Cliff and Laurel Asness, the Meadowlark Foundation, the Beth and Ravenel Curry Foundation.

And by the following.

Corporate funding is provided by Stevens Inc. - Senator Lisa Murkowski, welcome back to "Firing Line".

- So good to be with you, Margaret.

It's been a while, but thank you.

- Too long.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- In response to President Trump's announcement to the nation this last weekend, that three key nuclear facilities in Iran were struck, you issued a statement saying, quote, "I am encouraged by the administration's assurance "that these strikes were deliberately limited in scope."

Your statement also stressed Congress's role as the sole constitutional entity in the Declaration of War.

- Yep.

- At what point does the administration need to consult Congress over this conflict?

- Well, I think if you go to the specifics of the War Powers Act, it requires a notification period to Congress, then a specific time period within which Congress acts.

It is important that the Commander-in-Chief have the ability, the flexibility in an emergency when the security of the country is at risk to be able to move quickly.

And I think this is what we saw with these precise strikes to go after Iran's nuclear capabilities.

We will have the important conversation in the Senate about whether or not we move forward with War Powers Act.

Should it become clear that this is moving to a more expansive or more expanded scope.

If you're talking about literally boots on the ground, the role then I think of Congress and in declaring war, I think becomes much more clear.

So, at this moment in time, I think there is, in fairness, much more information that we all need to have.

- So boots on the ground is the demarcation line for a declaration of war?

- No.

- For consultation of Congress.

- It is not.

It is one example of.

- Uh-huh, got it.

Okay.

- Yeah.

- So less than 24 hours after these precise precision and limited strikes, President Trump posted on his social media platform, quote, "If the current Iranian regime is unable "to make Iran great again, "why wouldn't there be regime change?"

Is regime change the right policy?

- I don't know if regime change is the right policy.

I believe that if Iran's nuclear capabilities are eliminated, I think the world is a safer place.

- The Senate's considering President Trump's one big beautiful bill very soon.

- Mm-hm.

- You've raised concerns about provisions of the bill.

Some estimates that it would result in almost eight million people losing their Medicaid coverage.

And 40% of Alaskan children are on Medicaid as are nearly 40% of children nationwide.

Can you support a bill that doesn't ensure their coverage is protected?

- I think it is important when we talk about how we ensure their coverage is protected.

Because you may have a situation where the benefits have not necessarily been cut to the individual, but because of, say, for instance, cost shift to the state, the state may make a decision, say, we cannot afford to carry this much of the share.

And so, they effectively are pushed off.

So if this is what we're considering, if this is the impact of what is being considered, then you have made vulnerable people even more vulnerable.

They don't necessarily get less sick or more healthy.

They may just- - If that's the case, it sounds like you couldn't support it.

- Well, what I'm trying to do and literally every day is trying to work with those in the committees and those in leadership to try to make the bill better.

- Yeah.

- And- - How is it going?

- Well, we're making incremental progress.

As of, for instance, when it comes to workforce requirements, there are certain areas of the state of Alaska where there is very, very little employable opportunities.

There just are no jobs.

And so, even under current Snap workforce requirements, we have a waiver for most of the rural areas in the state of Alaska.

- Sounds like you're on the fence still?

- Well, it's more comprehensive than just getting one waiver- - Work requirement.

- Waiver flexibility.

And so, this is not new.

I've been trying to educate people on Alaska for the full time that I've been in the Senate.

- Yeah.

- And I think we're making some headway, but it's still hard.

It's still challenging.

- Your new book, "Far From Home" traces your career in politics and what you've learned from it.

You write that one of your goals was to bridge a gap in understanding between Washington and Alaska.

And I wonder what was it about this moment now that made you feel the need to explain that gap in understanding?

- I wrote a book, not because I'm looking to do something next, but there was a story that really began with the 2010 write-in campaign.

And I realized it was not just about that, that moment in political history, if you will, but it was also about what has allowed me to stay in office since then.

Why didn't I accept the will of those who participated in that primary and just be done, ended that career?

And so, there was a story there.

And so, we just started writing the story.

It took a lot longer.

It took five years.

This has been a five-year effort.

So you said my new book, it's gonna be my only book, Margaret, 'cause this is too hard.

- A tea party, Republican Tea Party challenger challenged you in a closed, partisan primary in Alaska and beat you.

- Mm-hm.

- The thing that is common for Republican incumbents who are beat in a primary election, closed partisan primary election, is for them to step aside, endorse the person who beat them.

- Mm-hm, Republicans and Democrats.

- By the way, yeah, this is a standard operating procedure in American politics.

And then the party rallies behind the new, insurgent nominee.

- Mm-hm.

- You chose not to do that.

You explain in great detail in the book, each step of your deliberation and vacillation and decision finally to run an historic write-in campaign in Alaska and in the United States where the state of Alaska required you to spell your name correctly.

- Correctly.

- And fill in a bubble.

- Right.

- And any ballot that didn't have both of those two things was then eliminated.

- Yup, yup.

Yup.

- And yet you won.

That, you say, sent you back to Washington with a new sense of freedom.

Why?

- So as you read that chapter carefully, what you pick up is that this was not necessarily my decision.

Alaskans after that primary loss, they weren't done.

They're like, "Wait a minute, I didn't have a chance "to participate in that closed primary."

What then happened was kind of this- - Ground swell.

- Ground swell.

- You write about a ground swell.

- Saying, you know, you need to give us the opportunity to vote for you.

And so, what we were seeing was this very, it is not Lisa Murkowski, "I think I'm so good.

"I'm going to defy the primary."

It was Alaskan voters who said, "We want that opportunity to support you."

And so, they challenged me to do something that political history said was impossible, right?

- And the Washington, by the way, was not in favor?

I mean, your colleagues were not- - No, no, no.

- This did not make you the popular girl on campus.

- Well, and it was not just my colleagues, it was, as for all intents and purposes, I was political roadkill.

I had lost.

And so, any political consultant who I had had or pollster or just kind of the whole network that goes into a campaign, as soon as I lost that primary, I was abandoned and left on my own.

And so, I told Alaskans, "Look, we're not gonna have the help."

And they said, "That's fine."

We're gonna make this happen with you.

And that was what you saw.

When I think about campaigns where voters are proactive in what they're doing, there was no apathy there.

When you are looking at a ballot and it says, write in and a blank line, and you have to say Lisa Murkowski and spell it right, that is proactive voting.

This is not the lesser of two evils.

This is really saying what you want.

- You returned to Washington victorious and with a new sense of freedom that, as I read the book, seemed to me like it allowed you to be the senator you wanted to be because you were not in any way in need of being accountable to anybody in the Republican party establishment who had not supported you.

- It wasn't I didn't have to be accountable to the party establishment.

It was I had been challenged to look around at the people who were supporting me.

If you go back to any pictures of that rally, when I am announcing that I'm gonna run this write-in campaign, it is Democrats.

It's Republicans.

It's labor leaders.

It is teachers.

It is slope workers up north, the number of seniors and young people, it was such a beautiful mix of Alaska.

And so, I'm not lining up to be a party regular, if you will.

I am in line to represent Alaskans first and foremost.

And that's been kind of my north star throughout.

- I just wanna bring the story forward a little bit to 2022.

- Mm-hm.

- [Margaret] In the intervening years, Alaska reformed its political primary process.

- Right.

- To a top four, open primary, and then in combination with rank choice voting for the general.

And because of these reforms, not only did you win, but you write in your book that you won with a much broader and deeper coalition.

- Yeah.

- Than you might have previously, and you lament that seven states had an opportunity to make these reforms that would potentially change the composition of the Senate and have maybe even returned some of your colleagues to the Senate.

How could these reforms impact the Senate?

- Well, I think what we've seen with the opening of the primaries in Alaska and then rank choice voting, we have seen candidates come forward that perhaps would have been more hesitant to do so because they hadn't been a quote, "party regular".

And this, again, this is on both sides of the aisle.

I think you saw campaigns that were a little more civil because not only am I asking you to support me, but I might want the number two vote getter.

I might want them to like me too, so that I can be their number two selection.

- And it changes the tenor of the race.

- Well, it changes the tenor of the race and what we have seen in those states where the effort was advanced and perhaps was not successful, who's opposing it?

- Who is opposing it?

- The party regulars, the parties themselves.

- Because they'll lose power?

- Because they feel threatened, because they will lose power and we've seen this play out in Alaska.

Right now, we have coalitions in our state legislature.

Think about what that means.

That means you've got strong Democrats sitting with strong Republicans trying to work through hard issues for the benefit of all Alaskans.

I think it's better governance.

And will it work everywhere?

Alaska's perhaps a little bit different.

Some 60% of Alaskans choose not to affiliate themselves with either party.

And so, we've got an advantage.

But I think we're instructive.

I think that we can be something to look at as a way to perhaps get some of the very harsh partisan rhetoric that we're seeing, get that dialed down a bit.

- In 1973, William F. Buckley Jr., who was the original host of "Firing Line", as you know, hosted a discussion about reforming the primary election system in Texas.

- Okay.

- And one of his guests was a journalist, Ronnie Dugger.

He made the case for rethinking the two-party system entirely.

Take a look.

- I'm not inclined to fixate on a two-party system.

I don't think it's anything like a cure-all.

I think maybe the incumbent office holders often have a vested interest in telling us this is the sacred way to proceed in the United States because they're incumbent office holders.

But I don't think it's so.

- There was that chapter in your book called Voters Prove We Don't Need Parties.

And you write, "The two parties, deeply ingrained "in every state are threatened by changes "and have the machines to fight back."

Sounds like you're saying the political parties are undermining real democracy.

- I think they're holding onto what they have.

It's substantial power.

And I think we're seeing that be built out, even more when those who would kind of dare to cross the line, whether it's in the middle or explore something different, get shut down pretty quick.

- Would you have that perspective and would you be able to think about it and advocate this way had you not been sort of liberated the way you write about?

- Ah.

- From the experience of your own open primaries in your independent write-in campaign?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, 'cause I think we have a tendency to just kind of get sucked into what we know and we fail to think about what else might even be possible.

- Yeah.

- And I have thought about what might be possible.

- Yeah.

- My- - And you've experienced it.

- Well, and my place in the middle is often uncomfortable, sometimes lonely.

But it's where I feel I belong, as odd as that is, I belong in a place that's uncomfortable and lonely.

What does that say about me?

- What does it say about our political system that the way you can represent the majority of Alaskans is totally at odds with the way we've set up our political primaries?

- Well, you mentioned one of the chapters in my books, one of the other chapters in my books is kind of the family motto.

"If there's a harder way, we'll find it."

And sometimes I feel like I'm living that out in my political life as well.

- Well, you are a Republican senator who supports public broadcasting and- - Yes.

- Public media.

- Yes.

- As a Republican on PBS to a Republican senator who supports PBS, I wanna ask you about this rescission package that has been sent up to the hill.

This, of course, is a bill that would, if passed, take back over $9 billion, about one billion approximately, which has been already allocated to public broadcasting.

I find that when I talk to people about PBS, many don't realize that of those federal dollars, about 70% go to local stations, including rural stations like in your state, to pay for emergency broadcasting and childhood education.

Especially important in a state like Alaska where 60% of three and four-year-olds don't go to preschool.

And that early childhood education comes from public broadcasting.

Do you find that other Republicans are sympathetic to this message or even understand it?

- I think certainly those that are from rural states or have significant rural populations get it.

And I have tried to relate to them that it's not just having a nice program on Saturday morning to listen to, but it is, in many instances, it's about your livelihoods.

Down in Bethel that broadcast out to 50 some odd, little river villages every morning at 8:40 during the spring, they give the ice breakup forecast so that people know where the ice may be breaking up and how it's gonna push down the river and whether or not it's gonna flood my community.

These are things that, for Alaskans, are not nice-to-haves, but really vital to have.

- The rescission package has a deadline in terms of when it has to be voted on.

- Right, right.

- But there's a lot of other business before the Senate by then.

Is it possible that the Senate will run out of time before it can consider it?

- Yes.

- Is it likely?

- It is possible that we could run out of time.

- Does that create some hope or some- - I think it- - Some hope for those who support public media?

- I think it does, I think it does.

And I am encouraging people to, again, weigh in, let us know.

I'm coming at it from not only a supporter of public broadcasting, but from the more institutional perspective.

I'm an appropriator, I'm a senator.

I know that Article One says it's our job to, it's the power of the purse, it's appropriations.

We not only authorized this, but we appropriated to it and we expect implementation.

That's what that the executive does.

They've reviewed it.

They want to have these funds clawed back.

It's a recommendation to us.

- Is this a place where Congress could really assert their authority, their constitutional authority against an encroaching power executive branch?

- I think they should.

And I think we have in the past.

- Yeah.

- We have seen before where we have rejected rescissions packages.

- You write in your book about January 6th and how scary that day was for you, because after texting your son, the truth was that you weren't sure if you would ever, you said, "I love you."

And you sent that text 'cause you didn't know if you would ever see him again.

- It sounds so melodramatic now.

But sitting in that chamber at that time when, all of a sudden, you could hear the doors slamming shut and it was like security apparated in the room, just boom.

And you have people that you've not seen before in places that they shouldn't be.

It was, I would just say it, it was scary.

It was, this was not the norm, right?

- Now, violence hasn't gotten any better since January 6th.

- Yeah.

- There was a murder of the two Minnesota lawmakers, firebombing in the Republican party headquarters in New Mexico, two assassination attempts against President Trump.

Are you ever afraid for your safety?

- I'm very aware of my safety.

I think we have to be, but I also say to people, I come from a place where we're more worried about whether a moose is gonna charge us.

But I know I can't make light of it.

I have to take my own safety into consideration.

Not something I like to do, though.

- At the end of your book, you write quote, "I'm not a Republican just to be a member of a party.

"I call myself Republican because of the values I hold.

"The Republican party could censure me and call me names, "but they could not take from me the values "deep in my core as a person.

"I bear allegiance to the constitution.

"I serve Alaskans as best I can with conscience as my guide.

"I am not giving any of that up."

Does that mean you're gonna run again in 2028?

- That is so far away.

- Oh, it's not so far.

- I'm so glad it is so far away - Here's why.

No, no, here's why I ask.

- Why?

- Because to many Republicans, you represent a kind of Republican that some say and some feel the tent isn't big enough for anymore.

- Mm-hm, yup.

- But in 2028, President Trump will be leaving office.

And if you are reelected, it will demonstrate that there is room in the tent.

And the tent is big enough for Republicans of your ilk to be a placeholder for those kind of values that actually have represented the party for a very long time, despite the recent political realignment.

Which is why I ask, are you really not giving up?

- I tell you, I don't give up on any given day and I've made a commitment to Alaskans that I'm gonna honor.

And even on the hard days, it's like, nope, this is hard, but you know what, Lisa?

You signed up for it.

Alaskans asked you to stay in the fight.

You're there and every single day you're gonna do the best that you possibly can by them.

And so, I tell my kids we don't quit.

Might get hard, but we don't quit.

- Good, I'm gonna take that as a considering yes.

(Lisa laughs) - There are no premature announcements going on.

- Exactly.

Senator Murkowski, thank you for returning to "Firing Line".

- Thank you, good to be back.

- [Narrator] Firing line with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, the Tepper Foundation, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, the Fairweather Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, Pritzker Military Foundation, Cliff and Laurel Asness, the Meadowlark Foundation, the Beth and Ravenel Curry Foundation.

And by the following.

Corporate funding is provided by Stevens Inc. (uptempo music) (uptempo music continues) (uptempo music continues) (dramatic music) (uptempo music) - [Announcer] You're watching PBS.