Kari Lake Confronted Over Donald Trump, Election Denial

Kari Lake was grilled by Republican political consultant and former Jeb Bush communications director Tim Miller about her election denialism and her support for debunked claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and stolen from Donald Trump.

Lake, who ran in the 2022 Arizona governor's race with Trump's backing, lost by about 17,000 votes to Democratic rival Katie Hobbs. She then refused to concede, asking a court to throw out certified election results in Maricopa County and either declare her the winner or rerun the race.

Her legal challenges were eventually thrown out, as a court found there was no evidence of misconduct in Maricopa County. Lake is now running for an Arizona Senate seat and is expected to face Democrat Ruben Gallego and incumbent Kyrsten Sinema in 2024. Sinema has not confirmed she'll run for re-election.

Miller, who since 2016 has been an outspoken critic of the former president, was interviewing Lake for The Circus, a show airing on Showtime, last week. Lake shared a video of it on social media on Sunday.

"You say you care about the fentanyl crisis and our kids. So if you care so deeply about this, couldn't you actually do something about it if you stopped the b******* about the last election?" Miller asked Lake.

"If you had just acknowledged that Trump had lost, and acknowledged that you had lost, you'd probably be in good shape to do something," he continued. "You probably would have won your governor's race. Had you just talked about these things people cared about instead of the election fraud," he added.

"So, sometimes, don't you ever think to yourself—I wish I could just stop talking about this fake thing that Donald Trump made me make up so that I could actually talk about the stuff that's important?" Miller said, adding that he agreed with Lake that the fentanyl crisis was an urgent issue.

Lake responded saying that she talked about the fentanyl crisis "all the time" during the gubernatorial campaign. "I'm sorry you weren't with me every step of the way," she told Miller. "The people of Arizona understand me and they know —and they care about me and I care about them," she added.

"And they rejected you," said Miller.

Lake repeated during the exchange: "I agree with Steve Bannon: Anyone who thinks Joe Biden won 81 million votes does not have a grip on reality." Claims that the 2020 election was rigged were disproven by independent political analysts and experts.

Lake then talked of "freeing the people who are held as political prisoners" over January 6, something that Miller said he thought was still "a little extreme."

In conclusion, Lake told Miller that she was sorry that they didn't agree on everything. "But what I'm not sorry about is that I do believe we can both agree that we love America," she added.

"Well, I know that I love America. I do think that you're OK with Donald Trump trying to end the American experiment last time. So that makes me wonder how sincere your love is," Miller said.

Newsweek contacted Lake's office for comment by email on Monday.

Lake commented on the interview on X, formerly known as Twitter, writing: "The Circus on Showtime sent out a couple of clowns to interview me. It doesn't have to be this painful for the Propagandists in the fake news."

She added: "We could have a great conversation if they would just ask honest questions about the issues that Americans are concerned about."

Miller replied, writing on X: "Apparently Kari Lake released a fishbowl camera video of our interview. Well, in addition to the seriousness of the fentanyl crisis, another thing we agree on is that this exchange is worth watching!"