Both of Alaska's U.S. senators voted Tuesday in favor of a budget reconciliation bill that includes many of President Donald Trump's domestic priorities, including extending tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy and cutting Medicaid and food assistance for millions of Americans.

Most Republican senators — including Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan — were long expected to vote in favor of the bill amid pressure from Trump. But Sen. Lisa Murkowski was one of a handful whose position on the legislation was not solidified until Tuesday morning.

Shortly after voting for the bill, Murkowski said it was "an accumulation of different initiatives" that persuaded her.

"I have been really focused on making sure that the most vulnerable in our communities are not made more vulnerable by the provisions in the bill," she said in a brief interview with Alaska reporters.

In the hours after the vote, Murkowski faced fierce criticism for her vote from opponents of the bill, including some members of Congress, who accused her of seeking Alaska-specific changes in exchange for approving an overall package that would harm the rest of the country.

Responding to that criticism, Murkowski told an NBC News reporter she will "make no excuses" for advocating for Alaska's interests.

"Do I like this bill? No. I tried to take care of Alaska's interests, but I know — I know that in many parts of the country there are Americans who are not going to be advantaged by this bill. I don't like that," she said in on-camera remarks.

Murkowski said in a statement the vote on the bill was "one of the hardest votes" she had taken during her more than 22 years in the Senate.

Still, Alaska's senior senator celebrated some portions of the bill, pointing to the extension of tax cuts that were first adopted in 2017.

"It was important to continue the tax cuts from 2017 to avoid really a significant tax hike to everybody," she said.

Expiration of those tax credits would have raised tax bills for middle-class Americans by hundreds of dollars per year. But the majority of tax benefits would go to the highest earners, and efforts to reduce tax benefits for the country's wealthiest were opposed by the GOP.

Murkowski criticized her GOP colleagues for adhering to a self-imposed July 4 deadline that led to a rushed effort and a marathon session of voting that left her sleepless as she worked through two consecutive nights of negotiations.

"I am not happy with the process. In fact, I am really very disappointed in the process," she said. Still, she said she thought that she "did well by the state in terms of trying to get these accommodations."

Among the Alaska-specific provisions added to the bill are tax benefits for whalers and Western Alaska fishermen. But a provision that would have increased federal Medicaid funding for Alaska by hundreds of millions of dollars annually was found to violate chamber rules and removed from the bill.

Murkowski said she had attempted rewriting the provision several times, to no avail. Eventually, Republican lawmakers settled on creating a $50 billion rural hospitals fund that will benefit all states, in an effort to mitigate the impacts of $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts.

"What Alaska will receive from that program is quite considerable," Murkowski said.

Sullivan, who received far less attention for his decision to stick with most of his Republican colleagues in supporting the bill, took to social media over the weekend to blame Democrats for attempting to block the Alaska-specific increase in federal Medicaid spending.

Democrats in Congress uniformly opposed the bill and accused Republicans of seeking to take health and food benefits from the poor in order to partially subsidize tax cuts for the wealthy.

Health care groups have warned that Medicaid work requirements and tighter eligibility checks included in the legislation could cause thousands of Alaskans to lose their coverage — particularly as staffing cuts in the state Division of Public Assistance have led to persistent backlogs in benefit processing. Alaskans already often wait several months for benefits that they should receive in a matter of days.

The Division of Public Assistance also oversees eligibility checks for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Under the Republican bill, states with high error rates will be forced to shoulder a portion of SNAP costs. Alaska in 2023 had the highest error rate in the nation — by a wide margin.

In Alaska, that could cost the state tens of millions of dollars annually. Murkowski said she successfully negotiated a delay of the implementation of that requirement until at least 2028.

"My hope is that it's not just delaying a bad price tag, but that we will be able to really get our numbers down, so we're not paying the penalties," she said.

Murkowski blamed Gov. Mike Dunleavy for challenges in the Division of Public Assistance and called on him and lawmakers to take steps to reduce the error rate. Dunleavy in 2021 vetoed funding for more than 100 eligibility processing specialists. Since then, the state has struggled with repeat backlogs that have led to lawsuits in state and federal courts, along with federal fines.

"I think that there were some decisions made with staffing by the governor that really kind of knocked us behind, and we're paying for that now with a very high error rate, and it's causing penalties," said Murkowski.

Across the country, the bill is expected to increase the number of uninsured by more than 11 million. In Alaska, an increase in the number of uninsured could drive up insurance premiums — already among the highest in the nation — for those with private coverage, according to health care providers.

The bill prohibits federal funding going to health care services provided by Planned Parenthood. That means that two clinics in Alaska — in Anchorage and Fairbanks — could close, reducing access to birth control, cancer screenings and other preventive services.

The bill is also expected to rapidly sunset clean energy tax credits that were set to galvanize energy projects across the state.

Murkowski said tax credits for solar and wind projects passed under former President Joe Biden were "significant" for Alaska.

"I was very concerned about doing any backsliding on these investments," she said.

Initially, GOP leaders had sought the immediate termination of those tax credits. Murkowski said she negotiated for the credits to be terminated a year after the passage of the bill, potentially salvaging some Alaska projects.

"I worked my butt off to make sure that Alaskans were not going to be penalized, and we're not going to be harmed," said Murkowski.

The legislation has several provisions that Alaska leaders have celebrated, including mandates for new oil and gas leases, and funding for a Coast Guard icebreaker to be home-ported in Juneau.

The bill must now return to the House for another vote. There, Alaska's lone member — Republican U.S. Rep. Nick Begich — has said he would vote for it and has not called for any Alaska-specific or broad changes.

But Murkowski said there is "more work to do" on the bill and called on the House to take that up, and for Trump to abandon his self-imposed July 4 deadline for the passage of the bill.

"I think there's more work that can be done jointly between the House and the Senate, and I would welcome that," said Murkowski.

Begich, who railed against the national deficit during his 2024 campaign, has not acknowledged a nonpartisan estimate from the Congressional Budget Office that predicts the bill will add $3.3 trillion to the national deficit in the coming decade.

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