Lisa Murkowski reassures Trump in call: ‘I don’t hate you’

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has revealed that she recently phoned President Trump to clarify that she doesn’t hate him.

Mrs. Murkowski, a moderate Republican whose votes will be watched closely in the president’s impeachment trial, told the Anchorage Daily News that she learned before the holidays Mr. Trump reportedly told a group of people that he believed she hated him.

“He was just kind of off the cuff and he said, ’I don’t know, I think Lisa Murkowski hates me. I kind of like her,’ ” she said of the president’s comments.

She told her home-state newspaper, “And I read that and I was like ’Oh gosh, I don’t hate him.’”

So she phoned the president.

“And I just said, ’Hey, sir, you know, there’s all this stuff out there that you think I hate you,” Mrs. Murkowski said. “’I don’t hate you. I don’t hate anybody, but I don’t hate you.’”

She told Mr. Trump that she was willing to speak out about their disagreements but it didn’t mean she hated him.

“He was so sweet, he says: ’Oh, that’s so nice,” Mrs. Murkowski said.

She said that she told the president she didn’t want him going to bed on a Friday night thinking that she hated him.

The phone call lasted about 10 minutes, she said.

“I think it’s important to recognize that you can have policy disagreements,” Mr. Murkowski told the paper. “You can not like the way somebody has said something. But these are people that we work with. And relationships do matter.”