For Immediate Release
Friday, Oct. 21st, 2022

Contact: Josselyn Berry, Jberry@azdem.org
Yes, Kari Lake Really Did Say These Things

A week of Lake’s campaign blunders results in veterans, women, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s family calling her out for her vile statements

PHOENIX — From election denialism to claiming Martin Luther King, Jr. would be a MAGA Republican to  insulting women, Kari Lake brought chaos to the campaign trail and put her dangerous campaign rhetoric on full display this week.

“It’s been another week of fracas and failures for the Kari Lake campaign,” Arizona Democratic Party spokeswoman Josselyn Berry said. “Lake continues to prove this race is a clear choice between sanity and chaos — she would only bring destruction to Arizona if elected. She must be defeated this November.”

The Daily Beast: MLK’s Daughter to Kari Lake: No, My Dad Wouldn’t Be a MAGA Republican

• Kari Lake, a Republican who’s regularly spewed election-denying nonsense in her bid to be Arizona’s next governor, was eviscerated Wednesday after she claimed Martin Luther King Jr. would be a MAGA Republican if he was alive today.
• A day after making the bizarre comment, Bernice King shot back that Lake was being dismissive of her father’s “seminal work and beliefs,” such as ending voter suppression and treating all people—including immigrants—with dignity.

Washington Post: Opinion | Black voters just love Kari Lake, says Kari Lake

• [There] were a few problems with the “Black Voices” concept: The majority of attendees were White — as were many of the people putting questions in the big goldfish bowl for Lake to answer and even some of those holding “Black Voices for Kari” posters distributed by the campaign. To overcome this awkwardness, campaign aides recruited actual Black people in the audience to stand behind Lake at a subsequent news conference — in which Lake declared her Democratic opponent racist.
• But the event was more likely aimed at reassuring some moderate White voters that Lake, and the GOP generally, haven’t gone full white nationalist. Republicans have fueled that perception with crime ads featuring Black faces in mug shots and claims that Black people commit most crime. Lake herself has flirted with “great replacement” conspiracy thoughts (she again referred to a migrant “invasion” at the event) and thinkers.
• Whatever its purpose, the majority-White “Black Voices” event was a magnificent display of phoniness. At this, the former newscaster excels. Lake is an ideal candidate for the post-truth age: She doesn’t shade the truth; she reimagines reality in bold Technicolor.
• She floated a new voting conspiracy, saying it’s “curious” that Arizona shut down polling in schools and churches during the pandemic in favor of “massive vote centers” where “it’s harder to know what’s going on.”
• And she wouldn’t commit to honoring the 2022 election results unless she judges the outcome “honest, fair and transparent” — but she claimed Democrats are the real election deniers.
• In Lake’s upside-down world, the truth is nearly impossible to discern.

Foothills News: Veteran: Lake unqualified to command troops

• Kari Lake, a woman who spent her life reading other people’s words through a teleprompter, now wants to be the commander in chief of the Arizona National Guard. That should make every guard, soldier and airman nervous. Why? Just like she did as a news anchor, she’ll govern by regurgitating other people’s conspiracy theories. She’ll be a mouthpiece for people who see the border as prime real estate for political stunts, turning our soldiers into political pawns.
• Lake, who is unlikely to understand much, but especially not guardsmen, will not treat my fellow soldiers and airmen like human beings.
• Bear in mind, she could care less about the guard. Her only constituent lives in Florida. Her only thought is for him. If she gets elected, expect to see guardsmen involuntarily activated as a stunt.

Vanity Fair: Kari Lake, GOP Candidate for Arizona Governor, Won’t Commit to Accepting November’s Election Tally

• Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake refused to commit to accepting the 2022 election results on Sunday.
• When CNN host Dana Bash asked on Sunday’s State of the Union if Lake would accept the November election results, Kari Lake said, “I’m going to win the election, and I’m going to accept that result.” When Bash pressed again, asking if she would accept the results if she lost, Lake repeated: “I’m going to win the election, and I’m going to accept that result.”
• Earlier this month, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) called Lake a threat to democracy: “If you care about our democracy and you care about the survival of our republic, then … we cannot give people power who have told us that they will not honor elections.”
• Lake is one of several Trump-backed Republican candidates who won’t commit to honoring the 2022 results.

Jezebel: Arizona Governor Candidate Kari Lake: ‘There’s No Such Thing as Toxic Masculinity’

• Kari Lake, a former local news anchor and current Republican nominee for governor in Arizona, insisted that “there’s no such thing as toxic masculinity” and that the term is a “bunch of BS” at an event called Black Voices for Kari Lake on Monday, The New Republic reported.
• Of course, despite these prime examples of some of the most visible candidates in her own party embracing the standard-bearers for toxic masculinity, it’s not as if Lake is bothered by any of this. Lake, mind you, is the same woman who’s insisted throughout the campaign trail that “God did not create us [women] to be equal to men, He didn’t create us to do what the guys do.” Other comments in the same vein from Lake include: “We conservative women love our men, we don’t want to conquer them, we don’t want to be equal to them,” last June, and, “We aren’t equal to men. Women are different than men,” last November. She re-stated all of this at a campaign event just last month.