Kari Lake, the Trump-backed candidate for governor of Arizona, was far from happy Monday when Fox News host Bret Baier asked her about a report linking her to drag queens.
The interview, which was quite tame at Baier’s end, began with Lake falsely claiming that the 2020 election was “fraudulent” and that President Joe Biden was “illegitimate.” Baier responded by playing a tape of Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers testifying before the Jan. 6 committee last week that the election was not “rigged” as she believed.
“He’s a Republican,” Baier said. “He is a Trump supporter. And that’s what he said.”
“He’s a RINO,” Lake replied. “And hopefully he will be defeated. He is an absolute RINO.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” Baier said later. “But as you know, there have been over 70 lawsuits where there was no evidence and not a single state legislator or governor disapproved of an election, including your own Republican Doug Ducey.”
After Lake insisted that “we now have proof” that the election was somehow fraudulent, Baier continued with a story last week in which Phoenix-based drag queen Rick Stevens claimed Lake often went to a club where he occurred. Lake, he also claimed, had hired him to perform at her home for her birthday.
“She’s friends with drag queens,” wrote Stevens, who provided photos to… Arizona Central as evidence. “She had her child in front of a drag queen. I dragged her home for her friends and family. She is not threatened by them. She would come to shows constantly. To make me the bogeyman of political gain was just too much.”
Baier asked if Lake would comment on the story.
“I really care about addressing that,” Lake said. “But I am really shocked. I’m actually appalled that Fox News would include such a defamatory story – and we’re taking legal action against this drag queen – I’m shocked you’re bringing that up if you haven’t talked about our stolen election.”
“We just had three questions about this,” Baier replied.
“I’m really disappointed in Fox,” Lake said later. “I thought you were a little better than CNN.”
Referring to Baier’s questions about the drag queen story, Lake added, “I think you want to ask them, but you don’t want to ask about 2,000 mules† †2,000 mules is the title of a film by far-right conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza who claims the election was marred by widespread fraud.)
Before Baier closed the interview, Lake had one more complaint: that when the Fox anchor spoke to her main opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson, last week, he “wasn’t asking her hard questions.” (Baier denied this.) In that interview, Robson also falsely claimed that the 2020 election was “not fair at all.”
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