Sullivan's silence on Trump's divisiveness goes unexamined in Alaska
Alaska news organizations are unable to cover everything, but they need to start paying attention to the campaign between Sen. Dan Sullivan and Dr. Al Gross. It should be a priority, given the national implications.
With the narrow split in the U.S. Senate, Sullivan’s performance and his relationship with President Trump deserves an examination in his home state.
The Anchorage Daily News, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, the Arctic Sounder and the Bristol Bay Times & Dutch Harbor Fisherman recently printed an extended Sullivan press release, printed as an opinion column, in which he purported to address the national turmoil about racism and police tactics, without really doing so.
There has been little reporting in Alaska about Sullivan’s role in the national debate, as he controls the flow of information. What “news” that appears largely consists of reworked Sullivan press releases, pronouncements on getting more federal money in the budget for Alaska and other safe topics.
Outside news accounts demonstrate that Sullivan has gone to great lengths to avoid saying anything critical of Trump. Sullivan has received Trump’s endorsement and wants to keep it that way. In May, Trump’s son did a video for Sullivan asking for money.
“Hey guys, Don Jr. here,” Trump Jr. said. “Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan needs your help. He’s worked with my father to get great things done for Alaska and the country.”
If Sullivan were to echo even the mild remarks of Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Sen. Mitt Romney, he would fall out of favor with Sr. and Jr.
And so we have a 1,300-word press release printed by Alaska newspapers that never mentions Trump and steers the political discussion away from the real questions that Sullivan has ducked since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“I applaud those in Alaska and across the nation who have peacefully taken to the streets to protest against racism, and I also applaud the brave and honorable police officers and National Guardsmen who are protecting those who need protecting and reaching out to constructively engage with peaceful protestors,” Sullivan said in his press release, based on a 20-minute speech he gave in Washington on June 10. “It is important to remember that the vast, vast majority of these law enforcement officers are honorable and risk their lives for us daily.”
Everybody and his brother applauds peaceful protesters and honorable law enforcement officers.
I would applaud any news organization that would point out all that was left out of the Sullivan press release—details that have gone largely unreported in Alaska.
Floyd was killed by police on May 25, leading to protests in Minneapolis and many other cities, most of them peaceful, but some violent.
On June 1, Trump denounced protesters and told the nation’s governors in an unhinged phone call, "We're going to clamp down very, very strong.”
"The word is 'dominate.' If you don't dominate your city and your state, they're gonna walk away with you. And we're doing it in Washington, in DC, we're going to do something that people haven't seen before . . . But we're going to have total domination."
Later that day, federal authorities violently forced peaceful protesters to move out of Lafayette Park near the White House so Trump could dominate and get his picture taken holding a bible outside a church, accompanied by military leaders.
On June 2, an NBC reporter asked Sullivan and many other GOP senators headed for their weekly lunch for a comment on Trump’s words and actions the previous day. Sullivan walked by without responding.
When asked by the same NBC reporter for a comment on the violence that preceded Trump’s bible stunt, Murkowski said, "I did not think that what we saw last night was the America I know.”
It was only after the lunch on June 2, eight days after Floyd’s killing, that Sullivan made his first statement: “The killing of George Floyd was a shocking and sickening act. Those involved must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Racism in America unfortunately continues to exist. It is real, it is evil and it should never be tolerated.”
Sullivan, who never criticizes Trump, didn’t say anything about Trump’s divisiveness or erratic behavior. He didn’t commend the president, praise his leadership or call for the nation to fall in line behind Trump. He didn’t say anything about Trump.
While Sullivan stayed silent, former Defense Secretary James Mattis saw Trump’s behavior as an abuse of executive authority : "Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us," Mattis wrote in The Atlantic on June 3.
Mattis said that the upheaval was the result of "three years without mature leadership” and that Trump was a threat to the Constitution.
“I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled,” Mattis wrote. “The words ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers.”
On June 4, Murkowski said she was thankful for what Mattis said. “I thought General Mattis’s words were true and honest and necessary and overdue.” Murkowski said she was struggling in her mind about whether she could support Trump in November.
That night Trump attacked Murkowski and said he would come to Alaska in 2022 and support anyone with a pulse who ran against her. “Get any candidate ready, good or bad, I don’t care, I’m endorsing. If you have a pulse, I’m with you!”
In addition, Trump called Mattis, “the world’s most overrated general.”
When Mattis announced his resignation in late 2018, Sullivan put out a press release saying he was a “once-in-a-generation Secretary of Defense,” adding “Semper Fidelis, Mr. Secretary.” After Trump attacked Mattis and his lack of leadership, Sullivan did not say Semper Fidelis or anything else.
Sullivan also did not defend Murkowski against Trump’s childish rant.
“In response to questions from the Daily News, the offices of Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, and U.S. Don Young, R-Alaska, put out written statements Thursday, urging a ‘unifying’ tone and message by the president, but stopping short of any criticism,” the Daily News said June 4.
Democratic strategist James Carville claims that Murkowski “tied a political anvil” to Sullivan’s ankle with her comment that she is struggling over whether she will back Trump. I’m not sure if that anvil is a big one, but the Murkowski/Sullivan split on Trump will be a factor in the election.
The division between the two reappeared after Trump claimed on June 9 that 75-year-old Buffalo protester Martin Gugino “could be an ANTFA provocateur” and part of an anti-police setup. Gugino suffered a fractured skull after he was knocked to the pavement.
Sullivan was among the GOP senators who refused to say anything about Trump’s bogus claim.
“CNN printed out a copy of the President's tweet and tried to read it to Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, who said he hadn't seen it, and then said: "I don't want to comment right now. I'm on my way to a meeting. I'll see it when I see it,’” CNN reported.
Murkowski, on the other hand, didn’t pretend to have no reaction. “Oh lord, Ugh,” she said.
“It just makes no sense that we’re fanning the flames right at this time, this is not good,” she said.
The next day, June 10, Sullivan gave his damage-control speech in the Senate, one in which he didn’t mention Trump. He decried racism and praised the confirmation the day before of Gen. Charles Q. Brown to be the first African-American chief of a military service branch.
“For a whole host of reasons, I was probably more involved in his confirmation than any other senator,” he said in his speech, a line he left out of his press release.
He said it had taken too long to have an African-American named to lead a branch of the U.S. military and he promised to work on improving the track record.
What Sullivan didn’t say in his speech or in his press release is that Sullivan himself had delayed the vote on Brown’s nomination since May for parochial reasons.
On June 3, Defense News reported that Sullivan had placed a secret hold on the nomination because he wanted to pressure Brown to pledge to base KC-46 refueling tankers at Eielson Air Force Base.
Sullivan’s hold on the nomination or his reversal has not been covered by most Alaska news organizations or explained in detail.
Yet the press release from his office printed by Alaska newspapers makes it appear that Sullivan was the most fervent supporter of Brown, saying, “I highlighted General Brown’s exceptional qualifications in a speech on the Senate floor prior to our vote.”
In the days since, Sullivan has not seen fit to comment on the damaging revelations in John Bolton’s book or on Trump’s laughable theory that the way to reduce COVID-19 cases is to reduce testing.
As a senator, Sullivan controls the flow of information from his office. The issues listed above and other critical matters are not going to be examined in Alaska unless news organizations stop treating Sullivan’s silence as the deciding factor in what gets covered or ignored.