Kari Lake is back to claiming election fraud, and one of her longtime Republican foes isn’t having it.
Lake now leads the U.S. Agency for Global Media in the Trump administration. On Wednesday she replied to a post from Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, a Republican, who had written after Tuesday’s GOP midterm losses: “No time for infighting, 2028 started yesterday.”
“Warren, we MUST inspect this election,” Lake wrote. “The numbers make NO sense in AZ, Texas, Kansas, Mississippi and many other places. We can’t keep ignoring this election fraud or we will lose our republic. Don’t you agree??”
She offered no evidence for her claim. Her post had drawn more than 524,000 views as of Saturday morning.
Stephen Richer, the Republican former Maricopa County recorder, responded the next day.
“Oh. My. God. This is just sad. She’s not a healthy person,” Richer wrote. “Somebody who likes her should intervene and get her help.”
Richer and Lake have a long history. After her 2022 loss in the Arizona governor’s race, which she refused to concede, Lake spent years pushing claims that the election in Maricopa County was rigged. Richer was the county’s top election official at the time, and he sued her for defamation over her attacks on him.
When a commenter brought up Lake’s pre-MAGA past, Richer wrote that it was “when Kari had different politics, a different religion, a different personality, a different social set.”
“Basically ... Before the aliens abducted her,” he added.
Another user asked whether he felt “justified to call out someone’s religion.” Richer replied: “Because she’s just somebody who grabs onto whatever is next. Like a weird hippy from the 60s.”
He also pushed back on Lake’s defenders in the replies. When one user called him “a communist dressed up as a RINO,” Richer answered: “Was it because I had government to take ownership in private companies, or cozy up to a Russian dictator, or use pardons to bail out donors, or massively enrich my family? Yeah. That’s communist-esque alright.”
Another user told him “the DOJ and ODNI are already on it. Report forthcoming.”
“Lol. So I’ve heard,” Richer wrote. “For 6 years.”
To a user who simply wrote “She is right,” he replied: “Seek help.”
Oh. My. God. This is just sad. She’s not a healthy person. Somebody who likes her should intervene and get her help.
— Stephen Richer (@stephen_richer) November 6, 2026