LAKE HAVASU CITY, Ariz. – Arizona Republican 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.
“We need to send people to Washington, D.C., who don’t want the swamp there,” Lake said near the end of a Sunday speech to a crowd of Arizonans in Mohave County. “And I can think of a few people who wouldn’t want them there. First on that list is Donald J. Trump; the second is Lake Kari.”
Describing how she stood up to the “swamp” in Washington, she said: “They can’t bribe me, they can blackmail me. That’s what they don’t want me in Washington, DC. And that’s exactly what President Trump wants me to do, to fight him.
‘He is willing to sacrifice everything that I am. That’s why they come after us with legal matters, they come after us with everything. Therefore, the next six months will be intense. And we need to get our… let’s see. What do we want to tie up? Lake asked as some in the crowd chuckled. “We’re going to put on our seat belts. 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 a Glock to our side, just in case.”
“We’re not going to be victims of a crime,” Lake continued. “We will not let our Second Amendment be taken away. Our First Amendment will certainly not be taken away by these tyrants.”
Earlier in the roughly 30-minute remarks, Lake offered another warning about the period between now and Election Day.
“The next six months will be difficult. If you guys are not ready for action, and I feel like there are just as many veterans and former law enforcement officers, active law enforcement officers.” – Lake paused to ask for a show of hands – “…you guys are ready,” Lake told her supporters. “It’s going to be a crazy run over the next six months. This is the time when we must save our country.”
Lake’s campaign declined to comment when asked to clarify the scope of her comments and whether she suggested there might be political violence in the next six months.
Although Lake did not explicitly warn against political violence, one of her supporters interpreted her rhetoric that way.
“They will do everything they can to disrupt the election, whether it will be another pandemic, whether it will incite a civil war,” said Geenee Roe, 63, when asked afterward about Lake’s speech . The event included a raffle for 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 trouble the MAGA movement. “Saying that the MAGA people are bad, that we’re inciting riots — and the whole J6 thing that happened, that was all a set-up,” Roe said, referring to the debunked conspiracy theory that the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was a trick was to set a trap. Trump and his supporters.
Lake’s comments came in Arizona’s northwest Mohave County, which went for Trump with 75% of the vote in the 2020 presidential election. The Senate hopeful is setting its sights on an even bigger margin in 2024.
“If Mohave County gets to 100% or close to it, they can’t get out of here in Maricopa County no matter what they do,” Lake said, leaning into a signature talking point.
Lake has consistently dismissed the 2020 election results, in which President Joe Biden narrowly defeated Trump in Arizona, and the 2022 election results, in which her bid for governor failed by a slightly larger margin. Lawsuits and other investigations into the results have found no evidence of fraud or malfeasance that affected 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.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, who plays a key role in the election board, filed a defamation suit against Lake in June, claiming 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 motion for default judgment showing that she does not dispute her guilt. Instead, she will argue against damages in the case.
She continued to question the integrity of Maricopa County’s election results on Sunday.
“You all know what’s happening in Maricopa County. I mean, you know you know the trash 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 need all these counties outside of Maricopa County to show up, and I’m counting on Mohave County to lead the way,” Lake said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
