Arizona Senate Candidate Kari Lake Lashes Out At Reporter After Being Pressed On Her Claims That 2020 Election Was Stolen

GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake chastised British journalist Emily Maitlis after she was pressed on her assertions that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen.

Lake was pressed on these claims during an interview on Maitlis’ podcast, The News Agents.

“You falsely claimed that the former president won in 2020, and you called for the imprisonment of those who accepted his defeat, including your own opponent in Arizona, Katie Hobbs. Why did you do that?” the British reporter asked.

Lake replied that she was “not going to sit here and – and go through all the evidence of what happened.”

“Do you believe the president won 81 million votes,” Lake asked Maitlis. “Do you think he’s more popular? A guy who can’t string two sentences together? You believe he’s more popular than Barack Obama? I’m asking you, do you believe that he is the most popular president in history? You have to have – have – you got to have brain cells.”

“Okay, so you don’t believe that the president won the election in 2020,” the reporter asked.

“I believe the election was run fraudulently,” the Arizona GOP Senate candidate claimed in response. 

Maitlis noted that Lake “refused to concede in 2022 as well.”

“Well, obviously, you’re sitting across the pond, and you don’t understand what’s happened,” Lake said.

“You were sued for defamation,” the reporter noted, alluding to a lawsuit brought by Arizona election worker Stephen Richer, for which Lake refused to defend herself.

“Yeah, because this is how corrupt the system is,” the candidate claimed. “I – I pointed out how they worked our elections.”

“You lied about a top Arizona election official, you defamed him, you falsely accused him of injecting 30,000 illegal votes into machines, intentionally misprinting ballots,” Maitlis recounted. “Do you stand by those claims?”

“Yes,” Lake replied. “It happened.”

She also told the journalist that she is “in the middle of a lawsuit” and will not “talk about it.”

“When you’re in the middle of a lawsuit, you don’t want to talk about it, okay,” she stated. “We talk about it in court. That’s where we talk about it. I feel confident that I’ve spoken the truth.”

As the interview continued, Maitlis asked Lake if she accepted “the part you played in inflaming the political rhetoric in this country.”

“You are just part of the fake news, and you’re lying,” Lake claimed. “You don’t know a damn thing about Arizona. You don’t know one thing about our election. And you sit there with a smirk on your face. You’re sitting over in England, in the UK, in – in a country that’s being destroyed.”

“I guess I’m just asking what it says about the Republican Party that they need to lie, to intimidate, to threaten – because you don’t believe you can win at the ballot box,” Maitlis then asked. “Why would you need to do that?”

“You are just a sad case of a human being, and I’m so sorry for you,” Lake told her. “I’m sorry that you bought into the propaganda. I hope that you’ll look in the mirror and see that you’ve been – you’ve been following propaganda, and you don’t understand what’s happening.”

“So I’m guessing if you don’t win in November, you won’t concede,” the reporter wondered. “That’s the rule that you’re playing by now?”

“I actually think you need your head examined,” Lake stated.

In late May, Lake delivered a speech while also standing before a Confederate flag.

She was seen addressing supporters at a campaign event who gathered in a Show Low, Arizona store with the flag draped on the wall behind her.

A photo on the store’s website shows her mugging with a supporter with the flag hanging on the wall.