Aiexpress – Meghan McCain, John McCain’s daughter, refused Kari Lake’s offer to meet one-on-one on Wednesday after Lake claimed that harsh remarks she made about the late senator during her failed governor campaign in 2022 were “said in jest.”
Kari Lake, a former TV reporter who has become a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump, triumphantly declared her victory in the Republican nomination for Arizona’s governor in 2022. She proudly proclaimed that she had dealt a decisive blow to the McCain machine, referencing the McCain family’s longstanding influence in the state.
But now, as she campaigns to represent Arizona in the United States Senate, Lake’s tone and strategy are changing, which she says is in the interest of getting things done.
“I’d love nothing more than to buy you a beer, coffee, or lunch and pick your brain about how we can work together to strengthen our state,” she wrote in a 225-word public message to Meghan McCain on Wednesday. “My team is sending you my contact information; if you’re willing to meet, it would mean a lot to me.”
Lake’s appeal comes after she told Arizona’s KTAR on Monday that her previous remarks regarding John McCain, such as asking McCain fans to “get the hell out” of a December 2021 event, were intended as a joke.
“I think that if John McCain, who had a great sense of humor, had heard it, he would have laughed,” Lake told guests Barry Markson and Bruce St. James.
She also stated that Republicans “need to get a little bit thicker skin because we’re going through some tough stuff right now, and we need to be able to take a joke,” before the hosts begged her to unblock them on X.
Meghan McCain, a former co-host on ABC’s “The View,” dismissed Lake’s response.
“Kari Lake is trying to walk back her continued attacks on my dad (and family) and all of his loyal supporters after telling them to ‘get the hell out,'” McCain said in a social media post on Tuesday. “Guess she realized she couldn’t become a senator without us.”
“We see you for who you are and are repulsed by it,” she went on to say.
Lake’s lengthy essay, in turn, attempted to appeal to Meghan McCain by highlighting that they are both mothers who lost their fathers to cancer.
“Our movement to save Arizona & America is growing, and it’s Mama Bears like us who are leading the charge — ALL Moms want the same thing: to leave our children a better America than the one we had. It’s as simple as that,” she wrote.
“I want to make Senator McCain and Larry Lake proud,” she continued — before Meghan McCain bluntly dismissed her offer to meet.
“NO PEACE, B—-!” she wrote, in a post that was shared by Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison.
Meghan McCain later posted: “I breathe fire for my family and will never forgive anyone who has destroyed any of us, especially my father in death. Never.”
Markson, a KTAR host who interviewed Lake, questioned why the likely Republican Senate contender “won’t just admit she was wrong and apologize.”
“Kari was a friend of the McCains, a close friend of the family, yet she had no problem attacking John McCain over and over, and she even attacked Cindy McCain in her recent book,” Markson wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
During an interview in July 2022, Lake made accusations against Cindy McCain, the widow of John McCain, claiming that she was involved in promoting a “globalist” agenda through a scheme.
“This is the Republican Party’s Cindy McCain branch.” They are not Republicans. At the time, Lake said, “I think they want to end America.”
She is now reaching out to Meghan McCain. This is part of a bigger trend where she is trying to fix relationships with so-called “establishment Republicans” that she hurt during her failed run for governor.
On KTAR, Lake was asked if she had won back any of those Republicans. She said she is having talks “that would shock you.”
