On the Tuesday morning of election day, “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski zeroed in on the especially contentious governors race in Arizona between Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Katie Hobbs, dragging Lake for stoking stolen election fear without providing any evidence.
“Maybe that’s good acting in local news,” Scarborough teased after showing a clip of Lake’s Monday night rally.
“That was the worst acting I’ve ever seen. It was terrible. It was brutal,” Brzezinski interrupted.
In the clip, Lake riled her crowd up by referring to the media as “bastards” and saying that the Democrats are going to try to steal the gubernatorial win from her.
“We’re so ready for fair elections, aren’t we? And yet, I know, like many of you, and especially me, I’m worried about tomorrow,” Lake said. “These bastards back there don’t want us talking about stolen elections. Well, it doesn’t matter what they attempt tomorrow, because we’re gonna show up like our lives depended on it. And there’s not a darn thing that Katie Hobbs can screw up tomorrow to make our win any less significant, because we’re gonna win tomorrow, we’re gonna vote tomorrow, and we are gonna take Arizona back.”
Scarborough, after spending several minutes mocking Lake and riling up the “Morning Joe” studio panelists himself, made the implications of Lake’s stance clear in his response: “If she doesn’t win, then she’s going to try to take democracy down with her in the state of Arizona and challenge the elections.”
Later in the segment, Scarborough added that while he doesn’t always agree with the Democrats’ platform of “democracy being on the ballot,” he agreed that “Arizona is one of those races, a handful of races, where there is a lot on the line.”
“We have somebody openly saying she will not respect the will of the voter. She will not respect Madisonian democracy if she does not win. That is a danger for the people of Arizona,” he said, adding: “It ultimately becomes a danger for the people of the United States of America if she is a governor when we’re counting votes in 2024 and there may be an outcome Kari doesn’t like.”
Watch the full “Morning Joe” segment in the video above.
