Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, a former longtime top news anchor in Phoenix, told Newsmax Saturday she changed her career because her eyes were opened to how biased the mainstream media was when former President Donald Trump took office, and how that hit a "whole new level" when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
"We went to a different stratosphere of craziness in the media, and that's when I believe the media became not just unethical and biased the media became immoral, pushing an agenda of fear and division in this country," Lake told Newsmax's "Saturday Agenda."
"I, as a journalist, realized at that moment I can't do this anymore. I can't lend my voice. My reputation, my mind, and heart to a career that has gone so far off the skids. I didn't think it was possible to bring it back."
Lake left her job at Fox 10 in Phoenix earlier this year after having worked at the station for 22 years.
She told Newsmax Saturday that a month or two after she left her job, people started reaching out to her about running for either the Senate or for governor, and she decided on the state leadership race because "we are in serious trouble here in Arizona."
"We are on the verge of becoming a big, sprawling suburb of California," she said. "We are at risk of seeing California's policies flooding into Arizona and we need to preserve our western culture, our American west culture that makes Arizona so special."
She added that most Arizonans have come there from other states and regions because they love the state, and they don't want to see it change "and we don't want to be on the run looking for another conservative state to move to."
She also said she is spending the July 4th weekend working on her campaign, and she'll be meeting in Flagstaff with state residents to discuss how she sees the future of the state.
"I'm just going to spend the weekend with Arizona celebrating our freedom and talking about ways that we can ensure we remain free here in Arizona, and our liberties aren't stomped on like they have been over the last year with some of this draconian, mandates that came with our COVID policy, which was really off the wall," Lake concluded.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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