Former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake bumped into MSNBC personalities and hosts of “Morning Joe” Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough Wednesday at the Palm Beach International Airport, and although the conversation started out friendly enough, it quickly turned frosty.
Lake said she introduced herself because the pair, who host the left-wing Trump-hating gabfest, “spend an awful lot of time badmouthing” her on the show.
Ran into Joe & Mika from @MSNBC at the airport. @joenbc was fairly nice, but his wife @morningmika started recording me, called me a “Liar” & said I was “Delusional”
They constantly lie & disparage me on National TV. I wonder if they’d be brave enough to have me on their show? pic.twitter.com/2HZZSG9yDM
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) April 19, 2023
She explained to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon on his “War Room” podcast that Joe was initially receptive, but Mika was anything but:
“I happened to be at the airport and … I was leaving and I happened to see Joe Scarborough,” Lake told Bannon.
She approached the former GOP congressman from Florida and the two shook hands.
“He was heading into the restroom and I said, ‘Hey, Joe!’” Lake recalled. “And he was nice. He said ‘Hey!’”
Brzezinski seemed less pleased about bumping into Lake.
She was “not very pleasant,” Lake said.
Things took a turn for the worse when Brzezinski—looking like an aggrieved schoolmarm who just smelled something foul in the photo above—whipped out her phone:
“I said, ‘Are you recording me?’” Lake recalled, adding that Scarborough told his wife, “Don’t do that.” “He was a little bit perturbed that she was recording.”
Tensions grew even higher when an aide to the married anchors erupted on Lake. “You’re a liar. You’re an election denier. You’re delusional.”
The aide was presumably referring to the former newscaster’s questioning of her state’s gubernatorial election results and her lawsuit to have them overturned. She lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs by less than one percent of the vote. In March, the Arizona Supreme Court threw out many of her charges, but as RedState‘s Susie Moore reported, not all of them. Lake continues to fight on.
“I’m in this because I’m a mom concerned about my children’s future,” Lake told Bannon. “That’s why I got into politics.”
She said she wanted to say hello to the opinionated couple because she felt they needed to actually meet the person they criticize so often:
You guys like to bash 24/7, and that’s okay. But I just wanted to introduce myself.
I just wanted to, you know, put the human being behind the face that you guys kind of go after.
Watch:
Kari Lake bumps into Morning Joe and Mika at the airport pic.twitter.com/EuLFzuYchs
— 1776 (@TheWakeninq) April 20, 2023
Lake is not backing down on her election claims, telling Bannon that she thinks there are a lot of serious issues with how we count the ballots:
I know that they [Joe, Mika and the staffer] don’t believe—or I actually do think they believe there’s election fraud—but they’re denying it. They’re denying the fraud because they don’t want the people to be aware of just how messed up our elections are, and that they’re really theater, and we don’t have a say in … in who we’re choosing.
Bannon meanwhile blasted the staffer for overstepping their bounds:
No, but I got to tell you for, for, for Joe Scarborough or for Mika, for her either body man or for the handler that was there—you can’t have a staffer jumping in principle. The world just doesn’t work like that. A staffer’s got to know their place.
You’re a producer, you’re a staffer—keep your mouth shut, and just, and just nod. Let Mika, if she’s got something to say to Kari, that she’s delusional, let her say it or let Joe Scarborough say it.
But that just shows you a lack of professionalism, of control.
Personally, I agree that the staffer was out of line, but I don’t think that Joe or Mika—as representatives of a national news network—should be calling politicians liars in airports either.
Have her on your show and debate the issue professionally—or shut up.
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