Kari Lake, the GOP frontrunner for Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Independent Kyrsten Sinema, speaks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 16, 2024. (Photo by Hudson French/News21)
MILWAUKEE – In the days after a would-be assassin tried to kill former President Donald Trump, Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake shrugged aside calls for politicians to soften their rhetoric and refrain from stoking divisions.
The political climate is actually “good,” she said at one point during a whirlwind week at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee at which she lashed out at the news media and reiterated claims that she actually won the 2022 election for Arizona governor, which the courts have repeatedly tossed out.
“I don’t welcome everyone in this room,” she said during her prime time speech on the second night of the convention. “Frankly, you guys up there in the fake news have worn out your welcome.”
She gestured to the journalists around the arena. The crowd took the cue and booed.
The conservative National Review called it a “blistering attack.” It was a familiar posture to anyone in Arizona who’s followed Lake’s transformation from TV news anchor to MAGA-world star.
Mesa resident Tyler Bowyer, a leader of the right-wing advocacy group Turning Point Action, called the speech “super boring for Kari Lake. … She’s toned down her campaign a lot.”
Lake is heavily favored to best Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb in Tuesday’s GOP Senate primary. The winner will face Rep. Ruben Gallego of Phoenix, who is uncontested in the Democratic primary for the seat being vacated by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an independent.
Lake kept a high profile in Milwaukee, courting support well beyond the Arizona delegation.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama posted a photo of Lake rubbing elbows with him and Senate hopefuls Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Sam Brown of Nevada.
“Good to see some of my future colleagues,” Tuberville wrote on X.
We have to take back the Senate.
Good to see some of my future colleagues @KariLake @berniemoreno @CaptainSamBrown. pic.twitter.com/1IvzPTsLZX
— Tommy Tuberville (@TTuberville) July 18, 2024
Lake held a book signing, and some delegates were spotted toting the book she published last year, “Unafraid.” She spoke to the Maryland delegation, though like the Arizona GOP, that group turned away news media from all of its events.
Her reputation as an outspoken Trump defender with a similar penchant for election denialism preceded her.
Lake first drew national attention in the months after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, when she resigned from the local Fox affiliate in Phoenix and began amplifying Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen.
She jumped into the governor’s race with Trump’s support but lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, then secretary of state, by about 17,000 votes out of 2.5 million. Trump had lost the state to Biden by about 10,000 votes two years earlier.
She has yet to concede defeat in the gubernatorial race despite the courts having rejected her multiple legal challenges.
She asserted without evidence that Maricopa County election officials had counted reams of fraudulent ballots.
Earlier this month, Lake challenged the 2022 results again, asking the Arizona Supreme Court to “set aside the election” or “proportionally strike 275,000 ballots.” The case is pending.
“These people are crooks, they need to be locked up,” she said weeks after her defeat.
The elected Maricopa County recorder, fellow Republican Stephen Richer, sued her last year for defamation, accusing her of spreading lies that led to death threats.
Kari Lake, the former GOP nominee for Arizona governor now seeking a seat in the U.S. Senate, speaks during Day 2 of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 16, 2024. (Photo by Hudson French/News21)
“Rather than accept political defeat, rather than get a new job, she has sought to undermine confidence in our elections and has mobilized millions of her followers against me,” he wrote in an op-ed in the Arizona Republic in June 2023. “Her defamatory allegations have unleashed violent vitriol and other dire consequences.”
In March, Lake declined to offer a defense in the defamation case, asking the court to jump to determining how much she owes Richer in damages.
In April, the U.S. Supreme Court opted not to take up Lake’s case aiming to stop Arizona from using machines to count millions of ballots.
On the final day of the convention, Lake shared a stage with Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, newly nominated as Trump’s running mate.
At the Faith and Freedom Coalition Prayer Breakfast, she recounted a moment during the COVID-19 pandemic when she decided to quit her highly paid TV job after spotting a Bible passage that she took as a sign from God that ‘I’ve got a bigger plan for you.’”
“I’m looking forward to being Christian soldiers with you as we go into this next four years,” she told the prayer breakfast.
Lake pushed the idea throughout the week that Trump’s election to a second term is part of “God’s plan,” as is her own bid for the Senate.
“If you’re not being indicted, lawfared to death, canceled, … if things feel really easy for you right now, you’re not doing enough,” she told delegates in her speech.
Lake campaign aides scheduled three interviews with Cronkite News during and after the convention and canceled each.
She made other media appearances through the week, though, and some were highly contentious.
That was especially true of a sit-down with journalist Emily Maitlis – whose interview for the BBC with Prince Andrew brought to light his friendship with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and is the subject of a recent Netflix film, “Scoop.”
“You are just a part of the fake news, and you’re lying,” Lake said when Maitlis suggested that her incendiary language was not in keeping with Trump’s call for civility after the assassination attempt.
The tone spiraled downward as Maitlis asked if Lake would ever concede her own defeat.
“You are just a sad case of a human being, and I’m so sorry for you,” Lake said. “You need your head examined.”
Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known for his harsh treatment of inmates and tough stance on immigrants, called it a mistake for Lake to attack the media and deny election results.
“You don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” Arpaio said in an interview in a VIP suite at the Fiserv Forum, adding that it’s unproductive to blame a loss on cheating. “You know what I do? I quit complaining and I just run again.” Arpaio is running for Fountain Hills mayor again after a failed bid in 2022.
Kari Lake speaks with news media after her speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 16, 2024. The former journalist and frequent critic of the media called out the press during her speech: “Frankly, you guys up there in the fake news have worn out your welcome. … You have spent the last eight years lying about President Donald Trump and his amazing patriotic supporters.” (Photo by Hudson French/News21)
Lake also lashed out during an interview with 12News (KPNX), her former employer, after her speech. A former colleague questioned her debunked narrative about stolen elections.
“I’m glad to know that you don’t care about election integrity,” she said.
“People are waking up and realizing how disgusting and fake the news is,” she said at one point. “Why do you hate President Trump so badly?
Lake made the rounds with friendly media outlets, too, during the convention.
On The Victory Channel, a Christian TV outlet backed by Kenneth Copeland Ministries, she lauded Trump’s choice of Vance, calling the GOP’s new vice presidential nominee “really intelligent.”
“He’s great. … He’s a MAGA senator … and he’s loyal to President Trump,” Lake said. “He is truly America first.”
As for her own contest, she called it tight but said her near-total name recognition in Arizona gives her an edge, predicting that voters will shun Gallego as they learn more about him.
“This Ruben Gallego guy is open borders. He … calls the wall dumb and stupid,” she said, asserting that Democrats “need a constant flow of people coming in. I think they want to destabilize our country.”
Democrats reject those allegations, countering that Republicans have repeatedly quashed any meaningful policy reforms that would stem the flow of illegal migration, though Biden and others have conceded in recent months that security at the U.S.-Mexico border needs to be tightened.