Kari Lake can't say who 'stole' her election, says criticism of McCain was meant as a joke

A defensive Kari Lake acknowledged in a radio interview Monday she couldn’t identify exactly who “stole” her gubernatorial election, said Ukraine “is lost” to Russia, and said she would not back a federal ban on all abortions.

Lake also now says her past criticism of the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that offended and alienated many of his supporters was meant in jest.

Appearing on Phoenix radio station KTAR (92.3 FM), Lake, the front-running Republican U.S. Senate candidate, fielded a barrage of policy-related questions for 20 minutes and said she was willing to do so because she wants to win everyone’s vote, even if they are not initially supportive of her.

Lake is challenging for the Senate seat held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., who hasn’t said whether she will seek a second term. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., is the only prominent Democrat in the race.

Lake sidestepped her professed support for Arizona’s territorial-era ban on nearly all abortions during her 2022 gubernatorial campaign and said Monday that she would accept 50 laws in 50 states on abortion rights.

“I support what the people of Arizona support. At the end of the day, we’re going to have 50 different laws,” she said. “I don’t believe in a federal ban. … I will not vote for that. I believe we worked hard to get it to the state level.”

As a gubernatorial candidate, Lake said she was “incredibly thrilled” about Arizona following its territorial-era law that “will prohibit abortion in Arizona except to save the life of a mother.”

Lake said Monday she doesn’t support the availability of a pill that terminates pregnancy, saying she doesn’t think women should be taking medication that carries the risk of hemorrhaging.

She said the debate over abortion rights has overlooked what she views as the cause of many abortions: people can’t afford to have a child.

“Let me tell you, in (President Joe Biden’s) economy that’s becoming more and more painfully obvious,” she said.

Lake said she supports tax incentives that reward those who have children.

Lake was asked her views about leaving NATO and standing with European allies after former President Donald Trump said last week he would support allowing Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies who haven’t met financial benchmarks for military spending.

Lake didn’t address leaving the treaty or endorse attacks on America’s allies, but she didn’t criticize Trump’s view, either.

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“I think that everyone needs to pay their fair share in NATO,” she said, adding that Trump’s history of raising the issue has led countries to spend more on military readiness.

“We can’t protect the entire world. We can’t even protect our own country right now. If you look what’s happening on our southern border, we have an invasion. … Every country has to pony up and pay for their own defense.”

Asked whether “Russia is our friend” after the death this month of dissident Alexei Navalny, Lake responded, “I think when it comes to Ukraine the people of this country are tired of pouring their hard-earned money into it. It’s very obvious when the spring offensive went nowhere in Ukraine that that war was lost. You’d have to be a fool to think it’s still salvageable.

“The only way it could be is if we want to send NATO troops on the ground into Ukraine. It’s over. It’s lost, and I will never vote, by the way, to send NATO troops into Ukraine. The only question is how many more people are going to get killed.”

Lake said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson showed he is willing to negotiate peace in Ukraine.

The interview shifted to Lake’s ongoing efforts to overturn her loss in the 2022 gubernatorial race. Lake was asked who stole the election from her and how they did it. She noted that she wasn’t the one raising the issue, then conceded she lacked the details of the “rigged” election she has widely discussed.

“I don’t want to sit and look backwards,” Lake said. “These lawsuits are meant to make sure that going forward our elections are strong.”

Pressed again on her baseless allegation of theft, Lake said the elections “are run very poorly.”

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“I don’t know who exactly stole the election, but there are a lot of people who are running elections poorly and we’ve seen the result,” Lake said. She noted that elections have featured long lines and Election Day tabulation problems.

It was an apparent reference to widespread glitches in Maricopa County in 2022 in which ballots were not properly tabulated on the spot in some places, though the ballots were counted for that election, according to election officials.

Lake was asked about her efforts at repairing relations with Republicans who opposed her in 2022, such as former Gov. Doug Ducey or former gubernatorial opponents Karrin Taylor Robson and Matt Salmon. She claimed “I have many” people who have switched to support her now, though she didn’t name any.

Lake also addressed her broadsides against McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee who died in 2018.

In November 2022, Lake lashed out during a campaign event, asking, “We don’t have any McCain Republicans in here, do we? Get the hell out!”

She said the GOP “was the party of McCain. It was bad. Arizona has delivered some losers, haven’t they?”

On Monday, she said she jokingly derided McCain a year before the 2022 election.

She said that at the time she was taking “nuclear bomb-style incoming, tens of millions of dollars in attack ads from a McCain Republican.

“It was said in jest. And I think that if John McCain, who had a great sense of humor, would have heard it, he would have laughed.”

Lake said all Republicans “need to get a little bit thicker skin because we’re going through some tough stuff right now and we need to be able to take a joke.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake news: Senate candidate talks elections, Ukraine and abortion