For Immediate Release
Wednesday, Oct. 19th, 2022
Contact: Josselyn Berry, Jberry@azdem.org
Anderson Cooper Rips Into Kari Lake’s Endless Election Lies and Attacks on Fellow Journalists
“Snide Remarks to Reporters” and “No Actual Qualifications”
Phoenix– Kari Lake’s strategy of attacking the press to distract from her extreme stances on every issue made it to Anderson Cooper 360 this week, where Anderson Cooper and a Washington Post reporter ripped into Lake’s tactics of pushing election lies. Throughout her entire campaign Lake has insulted and largely ignored legitimate media, instead choosing to overwhelmingly appear on friendly MAGA outlets like OANN and Sebastian Gorka’s show. Even when she has press events, she often refuses to answer questions from real reporters, repeatedly referring to the Arizona Republic as the “Repugnant” and insulting local reporters like Brahm Resnick.
“Kari Lake isn’t interested in answering basic questions from legitimate press about her out-of-touch ideas, like criminalizing abortion and putting cameras in childrens’ classrooms,” said Josselyn Berry, spokesperson for the Arizona Democratic Party. “Lake is interested in outrageous lies, creating spectacle and attacking reporters in a weak effort to distract from her complete lack of interest or ability in addressing the critical issues facing our state.”
The Best Takeaways from Anderson Cooper 360:
- “She’s wearing a microphone at all times, even when not on television, in order to catch any questions from a reporter that she will then use against the reporter, and then put it online.”
- “…The purpose of that, in her words, is to catch the media, what she calls the fake news media when they’re being — when they’re misrepresenting her campaign. It is an opportunity for her to sort of tee off on reporters and frankly try embarrassing them.”
- “She seems to like to look for opportunities, to have snide remarks to reporters that she can turn and say, look, I’m owning the fake news media. Attacking somebody’s ratings, which is a classic Trump move, attacking the local stations ratings.”
- See How Lake Has Refused to Answer Tough Questions Throughout The Campaign :
- Lake threw a fit when PBS announced it would interview Katie Hobbs, threatening the outlet and causing it to receive death threats, and canceling her own PBS interview.
- The Arizona Republic reported, “Lake, whose campaign has not answered questions from the Arizona Republic for weeks.”
- Chuck Todd on this week’s Meet The Press said that Lake also wiggled her way out giving an interview. Katie Hobbs however did give an interview.
- “Lake declined to answer a question from The Arizona Republic seeking clarity on her comments during a forum opposing ‘”terrorists in the environmental movement trying to control our businesses.’”
- When asked for comment on how she criticized student loan forgiveness while having her own PPP loan forgiven, Lake snubbed the Phoenix New Times which said, “The Lake campaign did not respond to numerous New Times requests seeking comment.”
- Lake has repeatedly targeted 12 News reporter Brahm Resnick, including running an ad directly smearing him.
- Lake stormed off the set of an interview with 60 minutes Australia after she was asked if she agreed with Trump that January 6th defendants should get pardoned.