Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for governor of Arizona, falsely claimed on a Fox Business Netowrk programme Monday that fellow Republican Lee Zeldin had been stabbed at a campaign event.
Mr Zeldin, who is running for governor in New York, was not stabbed. Ms Lake may have been misrepresenting an event that happened in July, when a would-be assailant rushed the stage at an event Mr Zeldin while brandishing a keychain ring with several sharp edges. The person was tackled to the ground and Mr Zeldin was unharmed.
But on Maria Bartiromo’s show on Monday, Ms Lake told a different version of the story while arguing that Republicans are facing more political violence than Democrats in the aftermath of the brutal, politically motivated assault on Paul Pelosi in San Francisco on 28 October.
“Lee Zeldin got stabbed while he was speaking to a crowd of people not all that long ago, and it barely got any coverage, so the panic is only coming from the left and they’re only covering any attacks or situations that affect people who are Democrats,” Ms Lake said. “They’re failing to recognise that the Republicans running, I think, are being attacked even more.”
Ms Bartiromo did not correct Ms Lake when she claimed that Mr Zeldin had been stabbed.
Ms Lake’s comments come after someone allegedly mailed an envelope containing a “suspicious white powder” to her campaign headquarters over the weekend. According to the Lake campaign, a staffer who opened the envelope is “under medical supervision.”
During the segement, Bartiromo also showed a clip of a supporter of Mr Zeldin’s being choked at a rally for Democratic Gov Kathy Hochul.
“Are things getting desperate, here?” Bartiromo asked Ms Lake.
“I do think the left is desperate right now,” Ms Lake replied. She later blamed the media for not covering assaults on Republicans and trying to “keep people at each other’s throats.”
Political violence in the United States has been on the rise in recent years, with politicians in both parties targeted. Data from the Anti-Defamation League, however, suggests that the far right has been responsible for significantly more political violence than the far left, while prominent Republican leaders have made incitements to violence in ways that Democratic leaders have not.
Ms Lake, a far right former television reporter who has embraced election denialism and celebrated the likes of Steve Bannon during her campaign, is a slight favourite to win the governor’s race in Arizona over the state attorney general Katie Hobbs.
Mr Zeldin, whose New York campaign has focused extensively on public safety and crime, is an underdog against Ms Hochul.
