MAGA Senate nominee rocked on live TV as fed-up moderator torches him on election 'lies'

A Colorado debate moderator repeatedly pressed Republican Senate nominee Mark Baisley over his past embrace of 2020 election conspiracy theories, at one point asking how voters could trust him to tell the truth about anything.

9NEWS anchor Kyle Clark confronted Baisley, a state senator challenging Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper, during Wednesday’s debate at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

“Mr. Baisley, let’s talk about the truth and let’s talk about the consequences in our society when people tell lies,” he said, setting the stage for what would become a tense exchange.

Clark then noted that after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, Baisley suggested it could have been the work of Antifa. Baisley wrote on Facebook at the time that the violence matched “the signature of Antifa rioters,” 9NEWS reported. A year later, he voted for amendments questioning Joe Biden’s legitimacy and thanking some Jan. 6 marchers, though he later called the vote a mistake.

Clark asked whether Baisley supported Trump’s pardons for the rioters, “even those who brutalized police,” and their efforts to win federal payouts, a push led in part by Peter Ticktin, who also represents former Colorado clerk Tina Peters. Baisley said he wasn’t familiar with it, then turned on Clark.

“OK, so I’m not familiar with that, but let’s address this whole issue. So if you look at my statement that — oh, I appreciate your reposting because the only time that I ever got death threats was after you made statements that were not correct, that were not truthful about what I said, and you’ve spread that all over social media. And that’s when it really poured in on me, so that’s why you hold a special place in my heart and you always will,” Baisley shot back.

Clark pointed to Baisley’s appearance at an April 2022 “Election Truth Rally” on the state Capitol steps with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and Peters, who was later convicted and sentenced to prison for her role in a breach of election equipment.

“If Coloradans cannot count on Mark Baisley to tell them the truth about something as simple and basic as who won the 2020 election, how can they trust that you’ll tell them the truth about anything?” Clark demanded to know.

“I never said that it did not come out the way it was supposed to have come out. I’m fine with the way it came out,” Baisley replied, accusing Clark of “putting words in [his] mouth.”

Clark cut in, saying Baisley was “on the record voting that the election was illegitimate.”

Baisley defended his Antifa remark, saying that after months of riots in other cities, he assumed the Capitol violence was “just more of the same.”

When Clark asked a final time whether he would answer for the “election rigging lies that you stoked,” Baisley said, “You’re going to have to help me understand what you’re saying.”

“We’ll move on, thank you,” Clark said.