
Kari Lake reportedly can't be bought.
A recording from March of 2023 being reported by The Daily Mail appears to capture an Arizona GOP official dangling sums to gauge what it would take for Kari Lake to put a pause on the race for Senate.
Lake launched a bid for the U.S. Senate campaign after a failed campaign for Arizona governor which she refused to concede.
"There are very powerful people who want to keep you out," Jeff DeWit, Arizona Republican Party chair, as named by the publication, posed to Lake, a 54-year-old populist and MAGA darling who serves as a surrogate to former President Donald Trump, to offer what it would take for her to take a two-year hiatus from politics.
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Raw Story cannot independently verify the authenticity of the recording.
"I know that they do," she is heard replying.
DeWit responds: "What they're willing to do is put their money where their mouth is in a big way..."
Lake chimes in calling this effort futile because she's a "great candidate" and saying the people behind the message are "corrupt."
DeWit tries to explain. "It's about being on the team. They want you to be on their team."
"So what, what do they want me to do," she asks him.
He tells her they, without naming who "they" are other than they're from "back east" (meaning D.C.), want her to "stay out" of the race for two years.
Then he alludes to an offer to enter the private sector.
"Is there any companies out there or something that could just put her on the payroll to keep her out," he said, repeating the question.
Lake returns: "This is about the final deathblow to Trump."
DeWit tells her, "I love Trump. I love Trump."
She then explains how she "doesn't want to make a deal with this kinds of people."
"Or you don't go away, you pause," he suggests.
She then warns him, "I'm running and I'm going to be the biggest f----g pains in their a---s... they're gonna have to kill me to stop me."
And then toward the end when she tells him the meeting is over, he tries to get a figure to get her out of the race for two years.
"Just to say, is there a number--"
Lake interrupts laughing, "That I can be bought?"
She then tells him she wouldn't quit for $10 million, $20 million, $30 million, or even $1 billion.
"This is not about money, this is about our country," she tells him. "You should tell them to get behind me."