Kari Lake
Kari Lake (Photo: Shutterstock)

Republican, would-be candidate Kari Lake is in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention. She delivered a speech on Wednesday evening. She also sat down for an interview with British journalist Emily Maitlis.

Maitlis is one of the most well-respected reporters in the UK. Maitlis sat down for the infamous interview with Prince Andrew for the BBC in 2019. She now hosts the News Agents podcast. It was for that podcast that she sat down with Lake and gave her a grilling.

Softening the tone

Maitlis asked Lake about Donald Trump calling for unity in the wake of the assassination attempt against him. Both Trump and Biden say rhetoric must be toned down. Maitlis wondered if Lake felt prepared to tone down her comments.

“I think the tone has always been good,” said Lake, who has repeatedly claimed the 2020 election was stolen and that her own Arizona election in 2022 was rigged against her.

Lake went on to voice issues the Republican Party is prioritizing, such as “a strong economy, strong borders…”

Maitlis returns to the subject of tone. Does Lake agree that it has gotten “out of hand”?

Lake, beginning to bristle, responds, I think “The tone is really disturbing when the media is calling a man like Donald Trump ‘Hitler’.”

Maitlis points out it was JD Vance who compared Donald Trump to Hitler back in 2016.

“Like the media is doing,” asserts Lake. “JD Vance was probably, like many Americans, they listen to the media. And for eight years, the media has been tearing President Trump apart: A good man who everybody loved before he ran.”

Lake continued, “I applaud the fact people like JD Vance, Amber Rose, people are coming over, going ‘Wooah, the media was lying and I believed it’.”

Election falsehoods

Maitlis then pushed Lake about falsely claiming Trump won in 2020 and that she won her own 2020 gubernatorial run.

Lake responds, “I’m not going to sit here and go through all the evidence of what happened. [Do] you believe Joe Biden won 81 million votes?

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

Maitlis then reminds Lake she faced legal action over her stolen election claims.

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said Lake consistently lied about his actions as recorder. Lake claimed, with zero evidence, that he stuffed ballot boxes with 300,000 invalid votes during the 2022 count.

Richer says that as a result of Lake’s comments, he received death threats and harassment. He sued her for defamation.

In March, Lake’s attorneys moved to forfeit her defense in the case. They did not contest Richer’s claims. In short, they wanted the case to proceed to a decision on what level of damages would be appropriate for Richer.

Lake claimed at the time she was giving up on the case because to continue with it would give credibility to Richer.

“By participating in this lawsuit, it would only serve to legitimize this perversion of our legal system and allow bad actors to interfere in our upcoming election,” she said on X. “So I won’t be taking part.”

Maitlis said to Lake, “You lied about a top Arizona election official, you defamed him. You falsely accused him of injecting 30,000 illegal votes into machines.”

“Yep, it happened,” says Lake, possibly opening herself up to further legal action.

Potentially realizing she might get herself into trouble, Lake then moves to shut the conversation down.

“I’m in the middle of a lawsuit and I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You are just a sad case of a human being”

Maitlis again puts it to Lake that her rhetoric might be partly to blame for increasing division across society.

Lake, shaking her head, says “Emily, you are part of the fake news and you’re lying. You don’t know a damned thing about Arizona. You don’t know one thing about our election. And you’re sitting there with a smirk on your face. You’re sitting there over in England, in the UK, in a country that’s being destroyed.

“You are just a sad case of a human being. I’m sorry for you. I’m sorry you’ve bought into the propaganda. I hope you look in the mirror and see that you’ve been following propaganda.”

Watch Lake get dragged below.

JD Vance’s previous comments on Trump

Vance made his comments about Trump in a private Facebook message to someone in 2016, saying, “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole … or that he’s America’s Hitler”.

Vance, in 2022, dismissed his earlier comments as youthful stupidity.

“All of us say stupid things and I happened to say stupid things very publicly,” said Vance during a live TV debate he took part in during his Senate run.

“One thing I’d point out is that I was just north of 30 years old when I said a lot of those things. A lot has changed in my life. I re-engaged with my faith. I got baptized three years ago. I’ve had three kids since then. You know, a lot’s different. And one of the things that’s different is that I did change my mind about Donald Trump. He was a great President.”

Donald Trump announced Vance as his Vice President pick at the opening day of the RNC on Monday.

Primary and November election

Kari Lake’s primary for the Republican nomination for Senator is on July 30. Polls predict her to win. If she does, she goes up against Democrat Ruben Gallego in November. Most opinion polls have Gallego a few points ahead at the current time.

Maitlis’ interview received praise online.

It’s not the first time Maitlis has asked tough questions of Republicans. She had a headline-grabbing encounter with Marjorie Taylor Greene earlier this year.

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