Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake told SiriusXM. Breitbart News Saturday The “bribe” she refused from “an Eastern strongman” to stay out of politics was a perfect example of why she should run for the Senate.
Lake, a former FOX 10 Phoenix anchor and a leading Republican Senate candidate in Arizona, appeared on a 20-minute segment on Saturday’s show with host and Breitbart News Washington bureau chief Matthew Boyle.
Boyle called on Lake to clarify the bombshell he made before announcing his candidacy. In the recording, former Arizona Republican Party Chairman Jeff DeWitt appeared to allude to offers of bribes from “powerful people” somewhere in the “back east.” DeWitt said those who “want to keep her out” are “going to spend a lot of money.”
JUST IN: Arizona Republican Party Chairman Jeff DeWitt resigned after leaked audio revealed he tried to bribe Kari Lake to keep her from running for Senate.
There should be harsher penalties other than forcing resignation.
Even though DeWitt resigned, he bizarrely blasted audio footage claiming that… pic.twitter.com/H30e40xj4S
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 24, 2024
While speaking with Boyle, Lake recalled her interactions with DeWitt over the course of nearly a year, saying that Boyle called her out of the blue that day and told her he would stop by her house to discuss things that could not be discussed over the phone. .
“It’s a really bad time. I just happened to be really busy. I was getting ready to pack for CPAC. I was finishing up reading a book and he just showed up at the door and I thought it was really weird. “I thought so,” Lake said. “So I recorded it because I thought, ‘There might be a threat here.'” He was saying a few things on the phone — we talked a little bit about the Senate race — and I said, I was like, “Look, if you’re going to stop me, I’m not going to stop it,” and I’m really leaning into doing that. “No, what I have to say to you has to be said directly.” So…my senses went crazy and I said, ‘I need to record this,’ and I actually recorded it. ”
listen:
Mr Lake flatly rejected the “bribery” in the recording, but would later stress to Mr Boyle that he considered the situation a “sign” of why he should remain in politics.
“I don’t know when…the ‘bigwigs of the East’ will try to force you out of politics, but to me it seems like a sign to stay in politics,” she said. Ta. “So I was sitting on it, not doing anything in particular and had never even listened to it until a week and a half ago, and I was sitting at the dining room table having dinner with my daughter and husband, and I was playing it. We pressed the button. We heard it and our jaws dropped to the floor. It was much worse than I remember.”
She blasted Mr. DeWitt, asserting that “someone who compromises like that, offers bribes like that, and has ethics like that” cannot be the leader of the Arizona Republican Party.
It is noteworthy that he resigned on January 24th. Upon his resignation, he said, he received an ultimatum from Lake’s team that he had to resign or another private recording would be made public. He was replaced by Gina Swoboda, whom Lake admired.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: STATEMENT FROM THE CHAIRMAN @JeffDeWitAZ
#AZGOP pic.twitter.com/qxKd2Pqlp6
— Arizona Republican Party (@AZGOP) January 24, 2024
“In my opinion, we are in the last nine or 10 months of this country, and Arizona is a very important state for good leadership in the Republican Party. Leadership focused on making sure things are done, ethical leadership, helping great candidates do what they need to do to win, and the Republican Party rather than someone trying to stay great. We’ll let them win. We’ll get rid of candidates who take bribes or try to offer bribes to people,” Lake said. “And now we have a wonderful person leading our party. Her name is Gina Swoboda, and her life’s mission is to restore fair elections.”
On Friday, Punchbowl News released the results of an internal investigation into Lake’s campaign showing that the recording improved Lake’s standing among Arizonans who heard the recording. JL Partners voting memo I got it. Of the 70 percent of respondents, “by a 2-to-1 margin, voters who had seen or heard about it said it improved their view of Lake, not worsened it.”
Lake told Boyle that the question was included in the poll because “fake news…was trying to make me the bad guy.”
“You know, just like President Trump, they don’t know how to cover me. The news in Arizona is really bad and all they do is make every story negative for me. We put that question out there just to try to change the story, and it shows that about 85% of people don’t have an opinion about me or that they haven’t changed. , or went up,” Lake said. “And he said only 15% said the opposite, who are probably hard-core Liberal Democrats who probably feel good about me deep down, but the polls show that I couldn’t say it.”
Breitbart News Saturdays airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET.
