Noted shock-jock Howard Stern harshly criticized Kari Lake—an election denier who is the Republican nominee in Arizona's gubernatorial election—after she vowed to be the media's "worst freaking nightmare" if she's elected.
Stern issued his remarks after Lake told reporters on election night she and her supporters "are going to make you guys into journalists again" and—speaking as if her victory is a foregone conclusion—said it's "gonna be a fun eight years."
You can hear what Lake said in the video below.
Stern, for his part, suggested a Lake victory would be detrimental to a free press and called her supporters “crazy people” and “nut jobs.”
He said:
“We have a free press. We like the press. We want people looking into you. We wanna know if there’s corruption. We like Watergate, we like reporters who tell us what’s going on."
“When did this country become so f**king backwards?”
Mocking Lake, Stern went on to say her criticism toward reporters is simply her way of saying she doesn't want to be held accountable for her actions.
And on the subject of her supporters, he was even more direct:
“These are not Americans. These are traitors. They don’t believe in the American way."
"They wanna lock up the reporter. They’re gonna be the worst nightmare to the reporters. I mean, who votes for this woman?"
"How did she get three votes?"
The race between Lake and Democrat Katie Hobbs—the Arizona Secretary of State whom she's threatened with imprisonment on baseless and unspecified allegations of criminality related to the 2020 election—is currently too close to call.
Stern said it's “sad” and “a shame” the race is this close because it means there are people out there who want her to be "the worst enemy of the press."
Many concurred with Stern's assessment and have offered their own criticisms of Lake.
Earlier this year, Lake described herself as a "Trump candidate," aligning herself with him and his lies to further her own candidacy. She has long backed the insurrectionists who attacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 on the false premise the election had been stolen.
Lake has attracted support from right-wing extremists, appearing with a Nazi sympathizer and QAnon-linked activists at campaign events.
Before entering politics, Lake worked at Phoenix television station KSAZ-TV for 22 years, a role from which she stepped down last year ahead of her gubernatorial run. During her time as the network's evening anchor, she interviewed Obama in 2016 and Trump in 2020, around the time he was insisting to his followers that that year's general election would be rife with fraud and abuse.
Lake has been accused of running a political campaign for the sole purpose of grifting her supporters, behavior for which Trump—who openly violated the Constitution's Emoluments Clause while in office—has continued to face criticism as he continues to solicit his supporters for donations so he can pay his mounting legal fees.
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