CHANDLER, Arizona – Kari Lake and the Trump campaign held a press conference on Thursday in anticipation of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s visit to the state on Friday. Lake, who is running for U.S. Senate and emceed the event, got into it with several members of the mainstream media who asked her questions, and criticized their lack of coverage of important events. Several officials joined Lake speaking, along with a Democratic couple who lost their teenage son to fentanyl.
Team Trump, Kari Lake Hold Press Conference Ahead of Kamala’s Visit to Arizona https://t.co/RRmUOFHJTG
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) August 8, 2024
Lake addressed Harris’ event Friday evening at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, her vice presidential pick. “We know that Kamala Harris is coming to Arizona again tomorrow, and again, she won’t visit the border. The border czar won’t be visiting the border. Apparently the only wall that she supports is her VP pick by the name of Walz, I guess.”
Lake criticized Harris’ replacement of Joe Biden in the presidential campaign. “Nobody’s voted for her to be on the ticket,” she said. “Not a single American voted for Kamala Harris to be on the ticket. Not a single Democrat. And my question to Democrats out there is, are you okay with that? Democracy? It sounds like it to me.”
Arizona Republican Party Chair Gina Swoboda spoke about support Republicans are picking up outside the party. “I think you will see, if you look at the data from our primary, that independents — are people that are party not designated; they haven’t chosen to affiliate with a party,” she said. “They pulled the Republican ballot two to one. So they are looking for people that represent the issues that matter to them, and what matters to them is a secure border, because our people are dying. We’re losing more people to fentanyl in this country than we have lost in many wars.”
Representative Eli Crane (R-AZ-02) emphasized how “radical” Harris and Walz are. “We’ve seen what Kamala Harris is all about,” he said. “We’ve seen what this administration is all about. The world is on fire right now. We have multiple wars. One overseas, Ukraine, Russia, and also in the Middle East.”
He added, “When I look at this VP pick, it just shows me that they’re doubling down on, working with the radical side of their party. They’re not coming towards the middle … One of the things I’m most concerned about when I look at Kamala and her VP choice is how cozy they are with socialism.”
When Lake spoke next, she was highly critical of the mainstream media. “We know Joe Biden was compromised, and the media sat silent, and now we’re watching as the governor of Minnesota, who sat for four days and watched that city burn down and didn’t do a darn thing about it, has come in is lying about his military service, and it’s crickets from a lot of people in the media,” she said. “It is time for you to stand up, push back against your corporate managers and owners, and do the right thing for our country.”
David Lara, a Republican who won his primary race for Yuma County Recorder, spoke about his border location. He said there “is a group of mothers in Colorado and San Luis, Arizona who have gathered because the cartels have picked up their sons or daughters, and they’ve disappeared, and they take it upon themselves to go out and find mass graves. So they take wrought iron with a point and they poke, and when they draw out that wrought iron, they smell it. That’s how they find them. The cartels have taken schoolchildren that cross illegally every day, and they use them as mules to transfer drugs.”
Brandon Judd, former president of the National Border Patrol Union, said he spoke with the Biden-Harris transition team, and they indicated they would listen to him first. However, “even staying within their parameters, Harris refused to implement any of the policies, programs, or operations that were given to her that would have addressed this issue,” Judd said.
“That is extremely frustrating, especially now that she is going to try to redefine herself, now that she is trying to rewrite history and say that she was never the border czar, when in fact she was charged with address[ing] the root causes of migration. She failed to do that. … It’s also clear that President Trump was able to secure more than we had ever seen in 45 years, not just once but twice in 45 years,” he added.
Lake directed much of her remarks at her Democratic opponent in the Senate race, Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ-03). “He’s trying to act like he’s a cross between Mr. Rogers and GI Joe,” she said. “It couldn’t be further from the truth. … “He’s for men participating in women’s sports. That’ll be the end of girls sports. My question is, how many of you ever took part as a woman in sports when you were growing up? It’s going to change. It’s going to be impossible for our girls to compete and get fellowships with people like Ruben Gallego in office.”
Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) addressed Arizona’s border problems and blasted the mainstream media for not adequately covering the issue. He listed several recent incidents, including removing “over 6,000 illegal aliens off the voter rolls” in Virginia and a human smuggler who “pleaded guilty in Texas to smuggling in more than 560 illegal aliens.” He pointed out that “the new vice presidential candidate has said, ‘If you build a border wall, I’m going to open up a ladder factory, so they can climb on over.’” He labeled Harris-Walz “the most radically Left ticket in American history.”
Lake introduced Vanessa and Gustavo, a couple who lost their 17-year-old son to fentanyl. Lake said they were registered Democrats who no longer plan to vote for Democrats. Vanessa said her son “excelled in AP classes,” but when he bought a pill from a friend, it took his life. “Arizona is making national headlines and not for the right reasons,” she said.
Lake followed up with remarks after the couple, “It’s imperative that we educate people, educate a young generation about the dangers of fentanyl, and educate people about what Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have done. They have put the priority on helping the cartels make money by trafficking drugs into our country, and they are responsible, in my opinion, for hundreds of thousands of deaths because of their terrible policies of young people, a young generation that we don’t get back.”
A young black woman named Jade Gillum spoke next. “I am a former Democrat,” she said. “Unlike Kamala Harris, I’m an actual, real life black woman. And I’m a former Democrat who is currently registered Republican. I’m tired of the Democrats using the generational trauma of my people to garner votes. They invoke fear. They tell me I’m oppressed. They tell me I’m less than they tell me I’m not good enough, and they tell me that my white brothers and sisters in Christ are my enemy. They are not.”
Gillum added, “I’m doing worse under this administration than under Donald Trump’s administration, but I’m told to be afraid of a man who made my life better. During COVID, I knew more of my white guy friends that lost their jobs than me and my black girlfriends.”
She contiued, “Let’s honor our ancestors by doing better, and honor them because they’re rolling over in their graves hearing the fact that Kamala Harris is having Megan the Stallion twerk, and showing our bodies as like, just vessels of lust.”
Lake chimed in afterwards about the bad economy affecting everyone, including seniors.
“Now at 80, they’re looking to maybe get a part-time job. I don’t think you should have to go get a job at 80,” she said.
A young Hispanic male named Devin Cordova said he voted for Biden in 2020 but wasn’t going to vote Democrat this year. “As I grew up older and wiser, I realized my voting choices had been influenced by social media and the media,” he said.
Lake took questions from the media at the end. A reporter from ABC-15 asked about her “somewhat close” primary race against Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb. Lake blasted the reporter, pointing out that she won by 16 points, a “landslide victory.” The crowd loudly booed the reporter. Lake said she “didn’t spend a penny” in the primary race due to there being no contest.
An Arizona Republic reporter asked Lake about her previous opponent in the gubernatorial primary, moderate Republican Karrin Taylor Robson. Lake retorted that the newspaper is her “least favorite publication.” Referencing Taylor Robson’s recent endorsement of her after the Senate primary, Lake said, “it’s never enough for The Republic, though, it’s never enough. It’s like a 16-point win isn’t enough. You win in the landslide, and they say it wasn’t a big enough landslide. You raise money. I raised $5.2 million, and they said it wasn’t enough. You know, get endorsements from people, and they say it wasn’t enough of the endorsement or that it wasn’t a big enough endorsement. I don’t know what I can do to please The Arizona Republic, but I’m not trying to please The Arizona Republic, so I’m happy with where we are.
Another reporter asked Lake what she planned to do to increase her polling numbers, stating that Trump is doing better than she is in Arizona. Lake responded and said she doesn’t trust those polls. She relies on internal polling, which shows her with close to 90 percent of Republicans backing her, barely behind Trump with 90 percent.
Halee Dobbins, the RNC’s communications director for Arizona, sent The Arizona Sun Times this statement following the event, “Border Czar Kamala Harris’ Vice-Presidential pick is just as dangerously liberal as she is. It is no wonder he is eager to join a radical California liberal because he is too. Walz has refused to acknowledge the crisis at our border, repeatedly supported tax hikes, and has imposed woke policies on students in schools throughout his state. His track record of supporting dangerous policies would be disastrous for Arizonans who have already experienced historic inflation, a border invasion, and an unprecedented fentanyl crisis thanks to Kamala Harris. Instead of stopping in Phoenix, Kamala Harris should be visiting our southern border and seeing the firsthand results of her border bloodbath. The only way to stop a dangerously liberal Harris-Walz agenda is to vote for President Trump and JD Vance this November 5.”
Lake and the Trump campaign, Republican National Committee, and the Arizona Republican Party hosted the grand opening of the Trump Force 47 office in north Phoenix on August 5. Dobbins told The Sun Times that there are eight Trump Force 47 regional field offices in Arizona, with more on the way.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Kari Lake” by Kari Lake.
