EXCLUSIVE: Interview With Arizona’s Frontrunner Kari Lake on Run for Governor; Talks Border Security, Homelessness, China, Top Priorities

WEST PALM BEACH, FL – Kari Lake is a former television news journalist turned politician and a Republican candidate in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election. After working at Phoenix television station KSAZ-TV for 22 years, she stepped down from her anchor role in March 2021 and announced her run, having never held public office before.

Lake is politically aligned with Donald Trump, who has endorsed her – along with Arizona congressman Paul Gosar, and former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn – and as she continues to gain ground in Arizona’s race for governor, she sat down last week for an exclusive interview with The Published Reporters’ Nick Lulli.

Lake at first elaborated on her reason for leaving her long career in journalism and embarking on her political career, saying it was directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic and what she claimed was “propaganda” about the virus being pushed by the media.

“I just realized I had to get out of the media because it was very apparent to me, especially during COVID, that the media was absolutely pushing propaganda,” she said. “Very little interest in covering early treatments, ways that people could get healthy…it was only a steady drum beat of ‘worst case scenario, stay inside, quarantine, shut your business down’ and I realized that journalism had ceased to exist the way I knew it when I started. And more importantly it went from being just biased to unethical and immoral so I walked away from that.”

Lake said that, after making her reasons for leaving her job known to the public, she found herself approached “dozens of times” by people encouraging her to run for office.

“I started getting emails and messages and people stopping me on the street saying thank you for being an honest journalist, we trusted you we understand why you’re leaving,” she said. “’[I was asked] would you consider running for office? We need people with integrity who understand this state.’ I thought maybe this is God’s way of letting me know what my next step should be, so I talked to a few people who I do trust in the political world.”

Since announcing her run, Lake said that she has enjoyed a great deal of support from like-minded conservatives and Republicans, but she also claims to have found herself under assault from the very media she used to be a part of.

“We have been going gangbusters…we have a true movement on our hands, people in the political world tell me they’ve never seen anything like this in the entire history of Arizona,” she said. “I know it’s special because the media is attacking me relentlessly like they did President Trump. They’re writing hit pieces…daily hit pieces, absolute untruths, they’re trying to call me all kinds of names, they’re lying about everything.”

Lake also spoke on her admiration for former President Donald Trump.

“President Trump came on the scene at like a bull in a China store and he woke us up to the fact that there’s still that Reagan-type Republican out there there’s still an America First Republican out there,” she said. “He reignited patriotism in this country and that was so inspiring to me and that’s when I realized, wow, why is everybody in the media trying to bring this guy down He’s trying to do something good. I ran as a Trump Republican and a conservative.”

If elected, Lake said that her top priority will be securing Arizona from the ongoing crisis at the nation’s southern border with Mexico, with record-breaking numbers of undocumented migrants illegally entering the United States each month.

“We have a true invasion on our border. Joe Biden walked away. President Trump had that border more secure than I’d ever seen in the 27 years I’ve covered this state and covered border issues, and Joe Biden on day one ripped that amazing policy away from us and opened it up.”

“So my border policy is very strong, and it talks about basically using our state war powers, and we’re going to start with declaring an invasion at our border,” Lake continued. “We’re going to work to set up interstate contacts with other like-minded states. We will work to secure the border by putting our Arizona National Guard on the border. We’re going to set up border courts to quickly deal with the people coming across. We’re going to arrest them for trespassing, process them through the border courts, and we’re going to send them right back.”

When asked about President Biden’s response to the current tensions between Russia and Ukraine, Lake called it “asinine” that Biden appears more concerned about that situation and not our own U.S. border.

Lake also expressed extreme ire with China, claiming that “leftist policies” are “dragging this country down” and “selling out our working class” to the Asian country, and vowed to cut all financial ties the state of Arizona may have with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) if elected.

“I will rip up tear up every agreement and contract made by any former politician of our state or lobbyist with the CCP,” she said. “It is not only reprehensible that we would even consider dealing with these people, it’s immoral.”