[ad_1]
LAKE HAVASU CITY, Ariz. — Arizona GOP Senate hopeful Kari Lake told supporters they can “strap on a Glock” to be prepared for the intensity of the 2024 campaign and urged military and law enforcement veterans to be “ready,” as her race heats up in a key battleground state.
“We need to send people to Washington, D.C., that the swamp does not want there,” Lake said toward the end of a Sunday speech to a crowd of Arizonans in Mohave County. “And I can think of a couple people they don’t want there. First on that list is Donald J. Trump; second is Kari Lake.”
She described standing up to the “swamp” in Washington, saying: “They can’t bribe me, they can blackmail me. That’s what they don’t want me in Washington, D.C. And that’s exactly what President Trump wants me they’re fighting with him.”
“He’s willing to sacrifice everything I am. That’s why they’re coming after us with lawfare, they’re going to come after us with everything. That’s why the next six months is going to be intense. And we need to strap on our — let’s see. What do we want to strap on?” Lake asked as some in the crowd chuckled. “We’re going to strap on our, our seat belt. We’re going to put on our helmet or your Kari Lake ball cap. We are going to put on the armor of God. And maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us just in case.”
“We’re not going to be the victims of crime,” Lake continued. “We’re not going to have our Second Amendment taken away. We’re certainly not going to have our First Amendment taken away by these tyrants.”
Earlier in the roughly 30-minute remarks, Lake gave another warning about the period between now and Election Day.
“The next six months are going to be difficult. If you are not ready for action, and I have a feeling with as many veterans and former law enforcement, active law enforcement” — Lake paused to ask for a show of hands — “… you guys are ready for it,” Lake said to her supporters. “It’s going to be a crazy run, the next six months. This is the moment we have to save our country.”
Lake’s campaign declined to comment when asked to clarify the point of her remarks and whether she was implying there might be political violence in the next six months.
While Lake didn’t explicitly warn of political violence, that’s how one of her supporters took her rhetoric.
“They’re gonna do everything they can to disrupt the election, whether it’s another pandemic, whether it’s going to be inciting the civil war,” said Geenee Roe, 63, when asked about Lake’s speech afterward. The event included a raffle of an AR-15-style rifle.
NBC News asked the Lake Havasu City resident, who plans to vote for Trump and Lake in 2024, if she believed another American civil war is a concrete possibility.
“The signs are all there,” said Roe, who believes the political left is trying to push the MAGA movement into trouble. “Saying the MAGA people are bad, that we incite riots — and the whole J6 thing that happened, that was all a setup for sure,” said Roe, referencing the debunked conspiracy theory that the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was a ploy to frame Trump and his supporters.
Lake’s comments came in Arizona’s northwest Mohave County, which broke for Trump with 75% of the vote in the 2020 presidential election. The Senate hopeful is setting her sights on an even larger margin in 2024.
“If Mohave County shows up 100% or close to it, they can’t cheat their way out of this in Maricopa County, no matter what they do,” Lake said, leaning on a signature talking point.
Lake has continually rejected the 2020 election results, which saw President Joe Biden narrowly defeat Trump in Arizona, and the 2022 election results, which saw her bid for governor fail by a slightly wider margin. Court cases and other reviews of the results have not found evidence of fraud or malfeasance affecting the election results. And in March, Lake decided not to contest her liability in a defamation suit brought by a Republican election official in Maricopa County.
Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County recorder, who plays a key role in election administration, filed a defamation claim against Lake in June alleging that she “repeatedly and falsely accused” him of causing her electoral defeat in the race for governor won by Democrat Katie Hobbs. Lake’s legal team recently filed a default judgment motion that indicated she was not challenging her culpability. She instead will argue against damages in the case.
She continued questioning the integrity of Maricopa County’s election results on Sunday.
“You all know what goes on in Maricopa County. I mean, you know that you know, the garbage that they’re pushing down there,” Lake said of Arizona’s most populous county, where Richer and the Republican-controlled board of supervisors run local elections.
“We’re gonna need all these counties outside of Maricopa County to show up, and I’m counting on Mohave County to lead the way,” Lake said.
[ad_2]
Source link