MSNBC reporter Vaughn Hillyard confronted Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake over her baseless claim she had detected "some stealing" ahead of this year's midterm elections.
Lake said “we’re already detecting some stealing going on” and she’s “not gonna let them steal an election." Her unsupported claims received pushback from Hillyard, who noted despite her claims she has not "even laid out any fraud or irregularities."
She went on to accuse Hillyard of working for "MSDNC" after saying he is the "last person on the planet Earth I would tell about what we discovered."
A visibly annoyed Hillyard challenged her further, noting despite her claim she had discovered a crime, she had no interest in "reporting it to the authorities."
You can watch their exchange in the video below.
Hillyard later took to Twitter to note that though Lake "has been contending for weeks" that "their [sic] is fraud and irregularities" in the primary," she has been altogether unable to present specific evidence to support her claims that the election is rife with fraud and abuse.
Hillyard also pointed out that election officials in Arizona have not yet received "any concerns or allegations from Lake or her campaign."
Lake has been criticized after footage of her encounter with Hillyard went viral.
Lake has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, whose falsehoods about the integrity of the 2020 general election she has continued to parrot. She has called for imprisoning Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs on baseless and unspecified allegations of criminality related to the 2020 election.
Earlier this year, Lake described herself as a "Trump candidate," aligning herself with him and his lies to further her own candidacy. She has long backed the insurrectionists who attacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 on the false premise the election had been stolen.
Lake has attracted support from right-wing extremists, appearing with a Nazi sympathizer and QAnon-linked activists at campaign events.
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