Lake Spars with PBS Arizona's Ted Simons After Gallego Declines to Debate

Kari Lake

Arizona Senate candidates Kari Lake (R) and Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) were set to debate Thursday night on PBS Arizona—however, Rep. Gallego declined to appear. Instead, Lake and the debate moderator, Ted Simons, clashed for thirty minutes on election integrity, the border crisis, abortion, and the state of the economy.

Lake posted the complete interview to X (formerly Twitter), which she described as "Ruben refused to debate, but sent his Liberal PBS "Moderator" to fill his shoes..." She then asked followers what they thought about it.

Simons began the discussion by asking Lake why she thought herself qualified to replace Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ). To which she answered, "I think we need to get more citizens involved in politics and fewer politicians, and we have seen some of the lifelong politicians, people who have made a career out of being in politics, and we have seen that they have continually made terrible votes to hurt us."

The discussion turned to the 2022 gubernatorial election against Governor Katie Hobbs (D-AZ), which Lake has claimed was fraudulent. Simons asked if she maintained the belief she was the rightful winner of the election.

"We had a lot of problems in the '22 race," Lake replied, "And we are fighting to have election integrity. It was not run properly; it was not run lawfully."

Regarding the border and her calls for deporting every illegal alien who entered the country under the Biden-Harris Administration, Lake said, "We will work through the details of it," but assured viewers, "This is not impossible."

About halfway in, Lake seemingly tired of Simons' repeated disputing of her statements, prompting her to say, "I have a great idea for you: When you retire here, you should go work for Kamala Harris because you have been a great spokesperson for her policies. Her policies are disastrous. The people out in Arizona know it. This is almost comical watching you stand up and push for these policies that are crushing the American family."

Grayson Bakich

Florida born and raised, Grayson Bakich is a recent recipient of a Master’s Degree in Political Science at the University of Central Florida. His thesis examined recent trends in political polarization and how this leads into justification of violence.