As the presidential jostling for 2024 gets underway, there seems to be no shortage of bad blood in MAGA-world.
Election-denying former news anchor Kari Lake, who once fawned over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for having the “BDE [Big Dick Energy] that we want all of our leaders to have,” is now spreading conspiracy theories about the Republican darling.
Lake, who can’t accept that she lost Arizona’s gubernatorial election last year, posted an article from the right-wing media site Gateway Pundit misleadingly alleging that liberal megadonor and Republican bugaboo George Soros had “endorsed” DeSantis for president.
“The Kiss of Death – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Endorsed by George Soros,” the headline read.
In reality, Soros only said DeSantis is “likely to be the Republican nominee,” calling him “shrewd, ruthless, and ambitious.”
The attack on DeSantis, who once spoke at one of Lake’s campaign events, comes on the heels of a scorched-earth smear campaign by Donald Trump, who many believe will face a tough challenge from DeSantis.
Lake seems to have taken her cues from Trump after losing her gubernatorial bid to Democrat Katie Hobbs by 0.6 percentage points. She was one of a nationwide group of Trump-endorsed, election-denying candidates who lost winnable races in swing states from Arizona to Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Arizona’s previous Republican governor, Doug Ducey, won his 2018 election by 18.2 percentage points in a year that saw heavy Democratic gains.
Lake has kept up a steady drumbeat of denialism and misinformation since the election, calling it one of the “most dishonest elections in the history of Arizona” in a post on Trump’s Twitter clone Truth Social.
An appeals court on Thursday upheld a ruling dismissing Lake’s attempt to challenge the results of the election.
