--:-- Noel King: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Noel King.
--:-- Noel King: Will you accept the results of your election in November? I'm going to win the election and I will accept that result. If you lose, will you accept that? I'm going to win the election and I will accept that result.
--:-- Noel King: It's midterms week, people. The stakes are very high this year, in part because some Republican candidates have been cagey about whether they'll accept the results of the election. That includes Carrie Lake, who's running for governor of Arizona, and who you heard there artfully dodge a question about whether she'll accept a loss.
--:-- Noel King: Over the weekend, someone mailed a package containing an unidentified white powder to Carrie Lake's campaign headquarters, and the FBI is investigating.
--:-- Noel King: In response, Lake, who is both admired and feared for her powers of oratory, managed to sum up both her specific situation and the next and final weeks of 2022.
--:-- Noel King: We're in dangerous times. We're in dangerous times.
--:-- Noel King: Coming up on Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from BetterHelp. Let me tell you a true story. Last weekend, I got an email from a listener who wanted to discuss their problems with me. And I said, look, I don't think that this is about me personally. At least I hope it's not.
--:-- Noel King: Why don't you try betterhelp.com slash explained? Absolute truth.
--:-- Noel King: As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp. The one is not me, guys.
--:-- Noel King: Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash explained. That's betterhelp.com slash explained.
--:-- Noel King: Support for this show comes from Macy's. Layering is an art form all it takes is a bit of intention style and of course the perfect cold weather staples so find the perfect look for you with the help of Macy's Fall Fashion Guide your one stop shop for fall's latest trends and must haves curated by their experts from leather to denim to cozy knits find everything you need to piece together your new fall look explore the Macy's Fall Guide for yourself and shop in store or online at Macy's.com Today, explain.
--:-- Noel King: My name is Stacey Bartschinger. I am a state politics reporter at the Arizona Republic in Phoenix, and my life is covering the gubernatorial race.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Carrie Lake is 53 years old. She's a mother of two, known here in Arizona for her career for 22 years as a television news anchor here in Phoenix on Fox 10.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: You're watching the best. Fox 10 News at 9. And thanks for joining us tonight.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: We begin with a Fox 10 News alert. The body of a missing six-year-old girl has been found.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: That's how people knew her. And then ultimately in March of 2021, she published a video saying that she didn't believe in the journalism that she was doing anymore, that it wasn't accurately capturing Arizonans.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And she publicly resigned her position.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Sadly, journalism has changed a lot since I first stepped into a newsroom. And I'll be honest, I don't like the direction it's going.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: One of the things that makes Carrie Lake so unique is she has turned on her former profession and done it, frankly, very well in a way that really speaks to voters.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: I found myself reading news copy that I didn't believe was fully truthful or only told part of the story.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And I began to feel that I was contributing to the fear and division in this country by continuing on in this profession.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: It's just one of the things that makes her such a fascinating candidate, frankly.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Another thing that makes her fascinating is the fact that Carrie Lake was a registered Democrat once upon a time.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: She said in the past she voted for Barack Obama's presidency because of his promise to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And then something obviously changed.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: When did you all in Arizona start to see that?
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Yeah, I mean, I think there is a perception out there that she has become conservative just in the campaign.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And I actually don't think that's true.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: If you look at her final few years at Fox 10, you know, she was making some comments that generated headlines themselves.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: You know, there was a big push in Arizona for public school funding. And she made a claim that it was actually like this covert operation to legalize marijuana, which it was not.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And I made an incorrect conclusion in my tweet. And for that, I'm sorry.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: I've talked to some of her former colleagues. You know, they all talk about this being a just truly genuine shift to Republican ideology.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Several of her friends we spoke to say she found Trump to be funny and defended his crassness.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: She began spreading Internet conspiracy theories.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: You can take the hydro hydroxychloroquine as a preventative.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And then she refused to acknowledge Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And then, of course, she resigns her job in March 2021.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Three months later, I'm Carrie Lake. I'm running for governor and Arizona. I'm asking for your support announces she's running for governor of Arizona.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: She gets former President Donald Trump's endorsement, and it is undeniable that the two of them have a sort of special charisma.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: He speaks about her in very laudatory language.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Carrie Lake, your next governor. She's an incredible woman, incredible person.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Along the campaign trail, she has sort of had this say-anything style that I think really a lot of people identify as something that Trump sort of championed.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: I think it comes down, frankly, to one sentence. We want to replace the woke garbage with common sense. It's pretty simple.
--:-- Noel King: Stacey, let me ask you about a strategy we saw in this midterm campaign. The Democrats meddled in at least a dozen Republican primaries by giving their support in the form of ad dollars to the most outrageous far-right candidates, with the idea that those candidates would win primaries and then they would lose the general election.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Carrie Lake is outrageous.
--:-- Noel King: What was the Democrat strategy with her in this race in Arizona?
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: The GOP primary here was four candidates, Carrie Lake, and then a more establishment candidate, Karen Taylor Robeson.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: She's a developer, a lobbyist, closely aligned with Governor Doug Ducey, sort of that more traditional wing of the Republican Party.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Carrie and Karen were really the two frontrunners in that race.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And in July, the state Democratic Party put out a sort of tongue-in-cheek email thanking Karen Taylor Robeson for her support of the Democratic Party.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And what this actually was, was they had pointed to a few thousand dollars of donations that Taylor Robeson had made to Democratic candidates in Congress and in Phoenix municipal races to kind of highlight, you know, this contradiction and raise questions, I think, about her, you know, GOP history.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: I would put my record of donating to Republican candidates and conservative causes up against anybody running for office today.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: The thing is, Karen Taylor Robeson self-funded her campaign and put in $22 million.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: So a few thousand dollars to Democrats really doesn't compare with the money that she spent supporting Republicans throughout her career here in Arizona.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: You know, the Democrats are coming after me now because they know I'm the nominee that they're going to have trouble beating in November.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: They want Carrie Lake to win because they know they can defeat her.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: That's like really low-key meddling.
--:-- Noel King: We're going to tell you about Karen's low-level financial support for a couple of Democrats, thereby casting Republican suspicions on Karen and making Carrie look like the better choice for Republicans.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And we're Democrats. But, you know, also, Carrie Lake used to be a Democrat.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: She voted for Obama, made donations to Obama.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: She found God guns in the GOP about a day and a half before she decided to run for governor.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: I mean, it is just a fake. She is an opportunist.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And so there's plenty of questions to raise about both candidates in the primary and their records there.
--:-- Noel King: Carrie Lake is probably most widely known for her stance on the 2020 election.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: She has said she believed that Trump won Arizona, although he didn't.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Anybody who was involved in that corrupt, shady, shoddy election of 2020, lock them up.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: She continues to make claims that election procedures here in Arizona were not followed, that, you know, ballots were received late or raising concerns about chain of custody problems that have all been debunked.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Beyond elections, she has made some claims that have really turned some people off.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: She was at an event where she sort of made light on the attack on Paul Pelosi saying it is not impossible to protect our kids at school they act like it is Nancy Pelosi well she's got protection when she's in DC apparently her house doesn't have a lot of protection but that was well received by the crowd that she was in front of but certainly has generated some controversy since then about just making light of a terrible attack right and that's how she gets reputation of being the candidate who, as you put it, will say anything.
--:-- Noel King: That has made her distinctive, even in 2022, when it seems like anyone will say anything.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Tell me about this event that happened over the summer.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: In August, she was at a rally here with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and both of them certainly considered rising stars in Republican politics with potential future aspirations.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: But there was this moment where Carrie was talking about his sort of style, and she referenced this phrase. I'll tell you what he's got. I don't know if you heard of this, but he's got BDE.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Anybody know what that means? I hope listeners can fill in the blank there.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: They can. But she makes this reference, tells people to ask your kids about it later, and then tries to couch it as big DeSantis energy.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: He's got the same kind of BDE that President Trump has.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And it really is certainly not something I've ever heard said by a politician.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And I mean, she hasn't said it since.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: So how it played, I think that's telling.
--:-- Noel King: Where is Carrie Lake on the issues that people in Arizona really care about, on the issues that they're voting on?
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: When it comes to the economy, which we know people are really feeling it in their wallets right now, she has a plan to work with the legislature to prevent municipalities from charging grocery and rent taxes.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: We're going to reduce and get rid of the grocery tax and the rental tax.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: So if you pay rent, you won't have to pay tax on that.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: She is making border security the forefront of her campaign.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Kerry has said that she will secure the border.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And in September, she was at an event talking about border cartels that traffic people and drugs and what she's going to do.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And just directly quoted Donald Trump's controversial words.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: She cited the former president and then says, They are bringing drugs. They are bringing crime and they are rapists and that's who's coming across our border. That's a fact.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: You know, really casting all migrants in this broad negative light.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: She wants to use an unproven and potentially problematic legal idea of declaring an invasion at the border to use state law enforcement resources as deportation officers
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: I will issue a declaration of invasion and we will work to stop these narco terrorists from human trafficking and drug trafficking into Arizona
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: The campaign is pitching this as the big idea that she is going to do to defend the state.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Even if it means a lawsuit, it will at least test, you know, what else states can be doing when, you know, as they portray the Biden administration just failing at the border, not really doing anything.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Our federal government has allowed this border to be wide open, allow criminals to come in, allow drugs to pour in, and they've done nothing about it.
--:-- Noel King: What is she saying to voters about voting itself? You know very well that this has been a big issue in Arizona.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: So she frequently calls Joe Biden the illegitimate president.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: You could say Biden won the presidency kind of like OJ is innocent.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: In terms of actual policy, she has joined a court case to end early mail-in voting here in Arizona, which is how the vast majority of people cast their ballots.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: She's also filed a lawsuit to get rid of electronic vote tabulation machines, which would just slow down the process, be very challenging in terms of requiring a hand count of ballots.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: She has shifted a little bit how she talks about the 2020 election.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Now she really frames it as citizens just trying to ask questions about election procedures.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: We have the right. It's protected with our First Amendment to question our government and to question elections.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Which is just a sharp contrast to her own claims just ahead of the primary that she had detected stealing going on.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Without evidence, she has not provided any.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: We're already detecting fraud.
--:-- Noel King: On abortion, she has supported a very restrictive law that's on Arizona's books that bans abortions in almost every single circumstance unless, you know, a woman's life is in jeopardy and levies prison time against any doctors that provide abortions outside of those circumstances.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: More recently, she's also expressed an openness to another law that is on the books here in Arizona that bans abortions after 15 weeks.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Even when pressed, Lake wouldn't say which law she supports.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Neither law includes exceptions for rape or incest.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: However, Lake insisted the 15-week ban does.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: The latest way that she's talking about this is she will follow the law, whatever it is, and we're waiting for courts to decide which is the prevailing law that Arizonans should follow.
--:-- Noel King: Hey, have you interviewed Carrie Lake?
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Yes, once.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: She agreed to sit down with me once before the primary for about 20 minutes to talk about her border security plan.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: I'm really prepared for another hit piece from the Republic.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: The good news is our polling is showing that every day you guys write a hit piece on me or every week and it's not sticking.
--:-- Noel King: One of the unexpected things about interviewing Carrie Lake is anytime you talk to her or you interview her, you are also on camera.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Her husband is her cameraman.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: They have this full operation, like multiple cameras, the big boom mic above your head that's like listening to everything.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: I don't understand why you are attacking my, you know, having lived here a short period of time.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: This is a state of newcomers. Lots of people are from. I'm just saying, Stacey, you don't understand what the people of Arizona want.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: You don't understand the people because you haven't had a relationship like I have.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: And the campaign will publish those videos.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: So you've gone from being a print reporter to a television reporter overnight.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: Yeah, I really was not prepared for that.
--:-- Stacey Bartschinger: But here we are.
--:-- Noel King: Support for Today Explained comes from Built Rewards. These days, it seems like everybody has a rewards program. You swipe your card and you get one cent on the hundred dollars. But with your rent, frequently, you just pay month after month. You never get anything from it other than that roof over your head. Not anymore, says Built Rewards.
--:-- Noel King: Built Rewards says it lets you earn points on your rent. By paying rent through Built, they say you can earn flexible points that can be redeemed toward hundreds of hotels and airlines, perhaps a future rent payment, your next Lyft ride, and so much more.
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--:-- Noel King: It's Today Explained. We're back with Stacey Barchinger. She's a state politics reporter at the Arizona Republic.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: So Katie Hobbs, who's running against Carrie Lake for governor.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: So Katie Hobbs is 52. She's the Democratic nominee.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: She has two children. Before running for office, she worked in social work and in the domestic violence advocacy arena.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: About 10 years ago, she ran for office, was elected to the state legislature in the House of Representatives, then quickly moved over to the state Senate where she was chosen for a leadership role In 2018
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: She ran for statewide office and was elected Arizona secretary of state
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: In that job she is our chief elections official overseeing elections.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: And that is really where we saw her come to national prominence in defending the state's 2020 election procedures and votes for Joe Biden.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: There have been no irregularities in the process. The process is open and transparent. There are observers. Everything that we're doing is following law and procedure in terms of counting the ballots.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: Her leading sort of campaign message, I think, says it all. It's a choice between sanity or chaos.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: She, of course, being the sanity in that equation.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: Katie Hobbs refused to debate Carrie Lake.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: Her stated reason for not doing the debate is that Carrie Lake is a conspiracy theorist and, you know, kind of what is the point of going up against someone that doesn't deal in the truth.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: I have no desire to be a part of the spectacle that she's looking to create.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: Carrie Lake, at every single opportunity, tries to paint Katie Hobbs as a coward for not doing the debate.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: She's, have you heard she's refusing to do debates? Not going to do debates. Somebody just said coward. Okay, I didn't say it, you did, but I agree with you, all right?
--:-- Noel King: Stacey, reminding ourselves that this race is a race, tell me about Katie Hobbs.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: So Katie Hobbs is 52. She's the Democratic nominee.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: She has two children. Before running for office, she worked in social work and in the domestic violence advocacy arena.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: About 10 years ago, she ran for office, was elected to the state legislature in the House of Representatives, then quickly moved over to the state Senate where she was chosen for a leadership role In 2018
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: She ran for statewide office and was elected Arizona secretary of state
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: In that job she is our chief elections official overseeing elections.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: And that is really where we saw her come to national prominence in defending the state's 2020 election procedures and votes for Joe Biden.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: There have been no irregularities in the process. The process is open and transparent. There are observers. Everything that we're doing is following law and procedure in terms of counting the ballots.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: Her leading sort of campaign message, I think, says it all. It's a choice between sanity or chaos.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: She, of course, being the sanity in that equation.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: Katie Hobbs refused to debate Carrie Lake.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: Her stated reason for not doing the debate is that Carrie Lake is a conspiracy theorist and, you know, kind of what is the point of going up against someone that doesn't deal in the truth.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: I have no desire to be a part of the spectacle that she's looking to create.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: Carrie Lake, at every single opportunity, tries to paint Katie Hobbs as a coward for not doing the debate.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: She's, have you heard she's refusing to do debates? Not going to do debates. Somebody just said coward. Okay, I didn't say it, you did, but I agree with you, all right?
--:-- Noel King: Saturday Night Live spoofed Carrie Lake. Great to be with you, Judy, on your sweet little show full of lies.
--:-- Noel King: And it was in the cold open, Cecily Strong as Carrie Lake.
--:-- Noel King: You know, she's always like camera ready. I'm just a regular hometown gal, constantly in soft focus and lit like a 90s Cinemax softcore.
--:-- Noel King: Hitting on the election denial stuff, but then also just sort of how Carrie Lake speaks to the media.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: Now, one of your main campaign issues is the denial of the 2020 election.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: Can you, media types, just get over the one thing I've made the center of my campaign for months and months?
--:-- Noel King: Historically, Arizona has been a red state. But in 2020, the state went very narrowly for Joe Biden.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: Without asking you to prognosticate too much, do the polls show this race breaking red or breaking blue?
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: It's pretty tied. The latest poll I saw was a New York Times-Siena College poll that put it exactly even.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: Certainly, it appears that Carrie Lake has some momentum over these last couple of weeks, that she is gaining ground, which, you know, I think matches what we've seen for the Republican momentum generally this cycle.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: But it's a pretty even race.
--:-- Noel King: Arizona is obviously at the center of some high-profile fights over voting, allegations of voter fraud.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: Do you think Carrie Lake will consider this a fair contest? Will she concede if she loses?
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: What has she said?
--:-- Noel King: She went on CNN a couple of weeks ago and was asked multiple times if she would concede if she loses. She refused to say that she would do so.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: Will you accept the results of your election in November? I'm going to win the election and I will accept that result. If you lose, will you accept that? I'm going to win the election and I will accept that result.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: More recently than that, in another interview, you know, she said she would accept the results of the election. If we have a fair, honest and transparent election, absolutely 100 percent.
--:-- Noel King: Neither of those are direct confirmations that, you know, yes, she would concede if she loses.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: And I think if you rewind and look back to the primary, about a week before that election, it was another very, very close race.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: And we heard Carrie Lake claim stealing was going on. Without evidence, she has not provided any.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: We're already detecting fraud.
--:-- Noel King: What I hear you saying is Arizona has a remarkably charismatic candidate who knows how to talk to voters, who knows how to use the press, who knows how to get the attention of Donald Trump.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think you're totally right.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: You know, she's been floated as a potential vice presidential pick for Donald Trump.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: He was asked about this and said, you know, let her be governor first. Let Carrie get to be governor.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: But she's going to be around a long time.
--:-- Stacey Barchinger: She's very respected and very strong.
--:-- Noel King: I think it's certain that Carrie Lake is going to be a prominent figure, whether it's in politics or, you know, in the media going forward, even after this election here in Arizona.
--:-- Noel King: All right, so this is a big week for the U.S. It could be days, it could be weeks before we know the final, final, final outcome.
--:-- Noel King: In the meantime, I want to let you know that we have some fascinating and possibly most importantly, rigorously fact-checked midterms shows coming up this week.
--:-- Noel King: Tomorrow, we ask whether the country would be better off if voting were mandatory.
--:-- Noel King: And then on Wednesday, we're going to start to break down the results from the most important races across the country.
--:-- Noel King: Today's show was an Avishay Artsy production.
--:-- Noel King: It was edited by Matthew Collette, in fact, checked rigorously by Laura Bullard.
--:-- Noel King: It was engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey.
--:-- Noel King: I'm Noelle King.
--:-- Noel King: It's Today Explained. Thank you.
