OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake used an appearance on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast to address a report that she had accepted a position with conservative news network Newsmax.
“That reporting yesterday was absolutely fake news,” Lake told Bannon on Friday. “Think about how bad the media is. You cannot hate them enough, Steve.”
Lake detailed the sequence of events that led to the false report, saying both she and Newsmax denied the claims before the story was published. “They reached out to me, asked if I was negotiating with Newsmax. I said, no, you know, get better sources. You’re wrong. Apparently, they reached out to Newsmax. Newsmax said it’s false, and they run the story anyway,” Lake explained.
Calling out what she sees as a failing media industry, Lake, who spent decades working as a Phoenix-area newscaster, didn’t hold back. “We cannot possibly have enough ire toward the absolute fake news that we already have. Thankfully, it’s starting to collapse. They’ll just run any fake hit piece for clicks to try to disparage me, and I’m used to it,” she told Bannon.
Kari Lake compared her experiences with the press to the intense scrutiny endured by President-elect Donald Trump. She expressed support for Trump’s proposal to revoke broadcasting licenses from media outlets accused of spreading misinformation and sowing division, highlighting FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr as a key figure in efforts to reform media accountability.
Regarding her future, Lake stated she is taking time to recharge after leading a grassroots movement in Arizona for over three years. However, she emphasized that she has no plans to exit the political arena.
“I will tell the people listening to this, especially if you’ve got some of the leftists who despise our movement, I’m not going away,” Lake said. “As much as they want me to go away, I am not going away. And so they can’t get rid of me. They can write as many nasty stories about me, filled with lies as they want. We are not going away.”
Lake narrowly lost her race to Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, who will take retiring Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s place in Washington alongside Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, as Arizona has shifted from solid red to solid purple over the last couple of election cycles. The state’s governor, attorney general, and secretary of state are all Democrats as well, but a majority of Arizona’s House delegation is Republican, and the GOP dominates the state legislature.
Gallego announced his challenge to Sinema before she made it clear that she would not seek another term, putting Senate Democrats in a temporarily awkward position of potentially having to choose which Democrat to support.
The Arizona Democrat emphasized his background as the son of a single mother with family roots in Mexico and Colombia, along with his service in the Marines, The Hill reported.
His victory provides a small but significant boost for Democrats, who had a largely disappointing election cycle this year. While they successfully defended their Senate seats in battleground states like Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona, they also lost seats in Ohio, Montana, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
Lake spent over two decades as an anchor at Phoenix’s Fox 10 television station. After leaving the station, she became one of the most vocal allies of Donald Trump and later ran for governor of Arizona in 2022. She lost to now-Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who refused to debate the former newscaster ahead of the election.
Lake spent months challenging the results in portions of the state after a series of irregularities and complaints at polling stations but ultimately was unsuccessful. A local election official, whom she had blamed for her loss, filed a defamation lawsuit over her false claims. The case was recently settled for an undisclosed amount, Mediaite noted.
