(Video: Megyn Kelly)
Arizona Republican gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake has yet to back down from her stance that the 2020 presidential election resulted in the “illegitimate” administration of President Joe Biden and her insistence led to a tense exchange with podcaster Megyn Kelly Monday.
Lake joined SiriusXM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show” for a lengthy interview on her policy proposals should she go beyond the Aug. 2 primary contest and ultimately become the governor of Arizona. While the discussion was cordial overall, the interaction grew heated when Kelly grilled the political candidate on her beliefs about fraudulent votes.
“Can I just stop for one second before we go on to acknowledge the word illegitimate?” Kelly asked breaking from a discussion on the border crisis. “I know [President Donald] Trump believes that. I know you believe that too about Joe Biden and his election. Without re-litigating that whole thing can we just talk about – how’s that gonna play in the general election?”
Kelly pressed on the likelihood that Lake’s Democratic opponent would hammer on this issue come a potential head-to-head matchup, but the candidate remained stalwart. “I think they want it litigated, initially. We haven’t had it litigated,” she argued challenging the host’s premise that there had been trials to adjudicate whether actual fraud had taken place during the 2020 presidential election, let alone whether it would have led to a different outcome.
“We have a lot of evidence, a mountain of evidence,” Lake went on making reference to the investigations conducted by Catherine Engelbrecht’s organization True the Vote and the work they did to make a case in documentary filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza’s “2000 Mules.”
“And every time someone asks me, I’m happy to provide them that evidence. The media’s failed us on reporting on the biggest story in our lifetime, which is a stolen election, a rigged election and a corrupt election. And we’re at ground zero. So I really take issue with anybody from anywhere else in this country trying to come in here and tell us how our elections were run,” she contended specifically of the outcome in Arizona. “They were corrupt and our governor sat there and watched the election be run in a corrupt way and then he certified a corrupt election.”
Kelly made the case that forensic audits had discounted claims that there were discrepancies in the vote counts, but Lake fired back, “We had hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes that were pumped into this election, so yes if you count fraudulent votes you’re gonna get the same count when you do a hand count.”
The host later went on to add, “I hear you,” about the candidate’s desire to fix the election system but added the caveat, “even your Republican opponent says, ‘Yeah, no, it wasn’t honest. And it wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t stolen.”
However, Kelly’s claim only applied to Lake’s closest competitor, Karrin Taylor Robson who has remained second in polling ahead of the primary. At a recent debate, Lake’s other challengers agreed that it was “a corrupt, stolen election.”
Arizona gubernatorial debate is all fire, Kari Lake does NOT back down https://t.co/Wtp2vspr7w
— American Wire News (@americanwire_) June 30, 2022
Kelly went on to contend that voters were done with 2020 and they had pressing matters like inflation to deal with stating, “They don’t – they wanna move past – even Republican voters want to move past 2020.”
Before emphasizing that she wanted to discuss policy, Lake had made clear that correcting any potential for future election issues was a bipartisan matter that she would address if elected, “We want every election to be fair, where Democrats go to bed at night, Republicans go to bed, Independents, and they go, ‘well, either my guy won or my guy lost, but I can sleep. I know it was honest.’ That’s all we want. And that election was not honest. It was a disgusting mess. And we’re gonna fix it when I’m governor.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
- Illegal immigrant from Russia celebrates NYC exit: ‘They give me ticket for free to Chicago!’ - April 17, 2024
- NPR’s Uri Berliner resigns – blasts CEO who sees 1st Amendment used to defend old posts as ‘a challenge’ - April 17, 2024
- ‘Pretty scary’: Local leaders respond to chaos of San Diego area beaches being rushed by illegal migrants - April 17, 2024
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.