Early Tuesday morning, as the marathon vote-a-rama dragged on, Senate Majority Leader John Thune was said to be focusing on one GOP holdout in particular: Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who had reservations about Medicaid and food assistance. She ultimately went along with the majority of her Republican colleagues to bring the One Bill Beautiful Bill to passage, but not without criticism from some of the GOP opponents to the measure, such as Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who voted against the reconciliation package.
NBC News reporter Ryan Nobles approached Murkowski to ask for her comment to Paul, who claimed her vote was a “bailout for Alaska at the expense of the rest of the country.”
“Oh my—” she replied, before staring at him silently for 10 seconds, prompting Nobles to remind her he was only the messenger.
"My response is I have an obligation to the people of the state of Alaska, and I live up to that every single day," Murkowski responded, adding that Paul characterizing her vote as a “bailout” was “offensive.”
"Do I like this bill? No,” she continued. “Because I tried to take care of Alaska's interests, but I know that in many parts of the country there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill. I don't like that. I don't like the fact that we moved through an artificial deadline, an artificial timeline, to produce something—to meet a deadline rather than to actually try to produce the best bill for the country.
"But when I saw the direction that this is going—you know, you can either say, 'I don't like it,' and not try to help my state, or you can roll up your sleeves,” she said.
PAUL on the Murk deal:
— Ryan Nobles (@ryanobles) July 1, 2025
"There was a time in which they had to make a decision, dealing with me and reducing the debt ceiling or giving pork and subsidies to Alaska. They chose to add more pork and subsidies for Alaska to secure that."