'I certainly can't get behind Donald Trump': Lisa Murkowski declines to say whether she'll leave the GOP

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska's Republican senator for over two decades, criticized the Republican Party's direction and former President Donald Trump's GOP control, not ruling out leaving the party.

Murkowski told CNN she thinks she is "very independent minded," indirectly answering a question about whether she would exit the GOP to become an independent lawmaker.

“I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump," Murkowski added.

The Alaska senator said she would "absolutely" not vote for the former president in this year's race for the White House.

“I wish that as Republicans, we had … a nominee that I could get behind,” Murkowski told CNN. “I certainly can’t get behind Donald Trump.”

Murkowski was one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump in the final days of his term for allegedly inciting the violent Capitol riot. She has long criticized the former president and regularly broken with her party.

A veteran conservative lawmaker, Murkowski separated herself from the GOP in voting against Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination in 2018, and later for Ketanji Brown Jackson's 2022 nomination. She went against many Republicans in Congress by backing Trump's longest-running 2024 Republican presidential opponent, Nikki Haley, before the former South Carolina governor dropped out of the race.

Murkowski in her interview with CNN avoided saying whether she would remain with the party that has come to center more and more around Trump.

“I am navigating my way through some very interesting political times," she said. "Let’s just leave it at that.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lisa Murkowski addresses Donald Trump, leaving the Republican Party