Sullivan takes umbrage when Dunbar asks if he would ever say no to Trump
Sen. Forrest Dunbar again asked Sen. Dan Sullivan a good question, one of the six questions allowed before the legislative discussion was cut off, leaving 17 questions unaddressed Wednesday.
“You’ve said yes to Trump many times. I’m wondering if you’re willing to say no?” Dunbar asked.
“For example, if we saw a deployment of federal forces to Alaska, like we’ve seen in Minnesota? Or if the federal government demands that we purge our voter rolls? Will you say no to Trump? Thank you.”
This was at the conclusion of a speech in which Sullivan railed against former President Biden, Congressional Democrats and the Democratic Party. He praised President Trump.
Sullivan began his non-response by haranguing Dunbar for asking a question last year that Sullivan didn’t like about whether Sullivan would oppose cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.
(Sullivan voted for a $1 trillion cut to Medicaid last summer. He never acknowledges that cut, however, and always replies that Alaska will not have cuts. He also says that Democrats voted to cut Medicaid for Alaska. I’ll try in a future blog post to cut through his fog machine.)
In his entire time in the Senate, Sullivan has directly pushed back against Trump only once, right before the 2016 election when he said the “reprehensible revelations” on the Access Hollywood tape demonstrated that Trump wasn’t fit to be president.
After the 2016 election, Sullivan fell into line and became a Trump loyalist, never criticizing Trump. He sometimes claims that he does criticize Trump, but it is always the impersonal sort of comment that bothers no one, including Trump. Sullivan has been timid and tongue-tied about Trump’s incendiary and offensive behavior.
Running for reelection in 2020, Sullivan pointed to one of his own 2017 Tweets as proof that he was willing to push back against Trump for failing to denounce white supremacists: “Anything less than complete & unambiguous condemnation of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK by the @POTUS is unacceptable. Period,” Sullivan said on August 17, 2017.
Sullivan claimed in 2020 that his three-year-old Tweet was probably one of the “strongest condemnations” of Trump that anyone made regarding Trump’s “very fine people on both sides” remark about Charlottesville.
But there never was a complete and unambiguous condemnation from Trump. Or a complete and unambiguous statement from Sullivan holding Trump accountable. Period.
In a speech to the Alaska Legislature in 2018, Sullivan referred obliquely to Trump by mentioning "an intemperate tweet or two or three or four," but Sullivan has not risked offending the president on anything from “shithole” nations to attacks on NATO and his acceptance of the Qatari jumbo jet as a gift.
When I wrote about this pattern in 2018, a former employee of Sullivan’s claimed that Sullivan criticized Trump on his tariff war with China, citing this statement as evidence.
But it was not criticism of Trump. It was criticism of an administration policy. “The current proposal advantages Chinese and Russian fishermen over American fishermen and I am sure that was not the administration’s intent,” Sullivan said.
For years, Sullivan’s office sent form letters to Alaskans in which he tried to excuse whatever
Trump was doing by saying, “As you know, President Trump is an unconventional president, who communicates in unconventional ways. However, the communication coming from the White House must remain factual and accurate.”
As to Dunbar’s question about ever saying no to Trump, Sullivan tried to give the impression that he is ripping Trump and Co. new ones in private.
“When they do things that I don’t like, there’s times that I will beat them up in public,” he claimed. “Go look at some of the armed services hearings, some of the commerce committee hearings, where we take them to task. When they’re doing other things I will engage with them whether it’s on Greenland or ICE in Minneapolis,” he said.
Let’s look at his “pushback” on those two issues.
On Greenland, Sullivan says that “Greenland is nice, but Alaska is better.”
On ICE, he said “all sides need to focus on de-escalation and lower the temperature so the violence in Minneapolis dissipates.” Both sides did not shoot and kill Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
“I push back publicly and in private on all kinds of things with always the north star for me, how to be effective for all of you, for the people I represent and for my country. And I will say that when it comes to resource development in Alaska, you’re damn right I criticized Joe Biden because he deserved it. Damn right I highlighted Schumer in this speech because he deserved it. And people in Alaska need to know who’s trying to help them and who’s trying to hurt our state. And in my view it’s very, very clear. Very clear, as I mentioned.”
In January, Sullivan was at the White House when Trump repeatedly asked Sullivan if he was going to get Murkowski to vote for the health care bill he claims he will produce.
“Are you going to get her to vote for the Great Big, Beautiful Health Care Bill that we're doing?” Trump asked.
Sullivan might have said that Murkowski will make her own decision. Instead, Sullivan said, “We'll work on it, sir. Um -- we'll work on it.” Sullivan laughed, as did the audience of Trump flatterers and Dr. Oz, who reached over and patted Sullivan on the arm.
Speaking to the Legislature Wednesday, Sullivan never answered Dunbar’s question.
But he didn’t really have to, because the past decade has shown that the answer is very clear. Sullivan is unwilling to say no to Trump.
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