Kari Lake's Three-Minute Confrontation With Democrat Challenger Goes Viral

A clip of former Arizona Republican gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake arguing with a Democratic challenger for the state's U.S. Senate seat has gone viral on social media.

Lake, who recently filed paperwork for a run for the Arizona seat currently held by Senator Kyrsten Sinema, posted a clip on X, formerly Twitter, of the heated debate with Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

The spat came after Gallego wrote on X that he and Lake were on the same flight and to "come back from first class to coach and we can chat."

The post was in response to Lake sharing a news article about the Biden administration waiving dozens of federal laws in Texas to allow border wall construction in a bid to try to control high levels of illegal migrant crossings.

Lake had tagged Gallego in the post while asking him: "Do you still believe that a border wall is racist? I'm asking on behalf of 7 million Arizonans who are tired of you facilitating an invasion and want their neighborhoods to be safe again."

The debate then continued once the pair disembarked from the plane and met in person at the airport. Footage of the encounter was shared by the conservative news site The Daily Caller, where it has had more than 500,000 views on X.

The three-minute clip was also shared online by Lake, where it has had a further 200,000 views, along with the caption: "Twitter troll Congressman Ruben Gallego spotted me on the same plane and trolled me to come back and talk to him So when I got off the plane I did just that."

The back and forth between Lake and Gallego also touched on issues such as fentanyl and homelessness in Arizona.

Early on in the clip, Gallego says that he looks "forward to working together" with Lake to help address the issues affecting the people of Arizona and that the pair can have a "civil conversation."

"Civil, absolutely," Lake responds. "But you know what's not civil? People dying on the streets. In your district, you have the fastest-growing homeless population in the country."

When the discussion veers towards border security, Lake suggests that "we have to finish the wall," which Gallego said is not a complete solution to the issue of illegal crossings.

"There's a lot of things we can do, we should do some border wall, we should add some more ports on entry…there's a lot of things, but just one thing does not answer that," he said.

At one point, a passerby waves to Lake and shakes hands with Gallego. Lake tells the man that the Democratic congressman "wants to destroy our country. He really does."

The conversation then switches to how former President Donald Trump failed in his 2016 campaign promise to have Mexico pay entirely for the wall across the entire U.S./Mexico border. As the pair begin talking over the top of each other, Lake asks Gallego: "May I finish? Or do you just like to interrupt?"

When Gallego again suggested that the pair can "work together" to solve the issues they discussed, Lake said: "I'm not working together with you. I'm going to beat you. We're going to save Arizona."

Hannah Goss, Gallego's campaign spokesperson, told Newsweek: "Arizonans don't care about Kari Lake's airport ambush. They want to know why she supports dangerous abortion bans that would risk the lives of countless women."

According to FiveThirtyEight, Gallego is the favorite to win the 2024 Arizona Senate seat in virtually all polls released this year.

A Noble Predictive Insights released in August showed that Gallego held a 10-point lead in a hypothetical face-off against just Lake.

In a potential three-way race between Gallego, Lake, and Sinema, a Democrat-turned-independent incumbent who has not confirmed whether she will run for re-election in 2024, Gallego again came out on top with 34 percent, with Sinema second on 26 percent and Lake third on 25 percent.

Update 10/06/23, 12:14 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Gallego's campaign spokesperson, Hannah Goss.