Kari Lake’s back on the air, this time talking far-right topics on online show

Not long before Kari Lake launched her long-expected U.S. Senate run, the conservative firebrand and former newscaster took up another project: hosting an online talk show for a company started by a former Fountain Hills evangelical who has said Christians need to be “capable of extreme violence.”

"The Kari Lake Show,” as it is called, has offered reminders of Lake’s far-right rhetoric in a Senate race where some have suggested she is now trying to moderate or focus her political messaging.

So far, her show for America First News has provided interviews with conservative figures that often dwelled on election denialism, fealty to former President Donald Trump and corruption allegations involving President Joe Biden and his son. She also raised her political differences with the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., whose allies Lake has approached in hopes of support.

The interviews further burnish her credentials with the far right even as GOP leaders have hoped she would focus her campaign on issues more likely to resonate with the broader public in Arizona.

Top Republicans in Washington are wary of her political viability after she lost last year’s gubernatorial contest and have since the spring privately urged her to move past election denialism, a central issue for other statewide candidates rejected by Arizona voters in 2022.

Lake’s press secretary, Alex Nicoll, didn’t address the topics raised in her show and said everyone can move past their differences.

“AFN has shared Kari’s interviews — so have thousands of others. She is a journalist at heart and will continue to share interviews she feels are worthy of watching,” he said.

“Kari appreciates the love and support she receives from millions of Americans — all of whom have their own individual experiences, opinions that make them unique. We don’t have to agree on everything to come together and work as Americans to make our country better.”

Lake conducts interviews with MAGA figures

Lake is seeking the Republican nomination in the race for the seat held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz. She is widely viewed as the favorite for her party’s nod over Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, but would face a more uncertain fate in a rare three-way general election.

Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., is the only prominent Democrat in the race. Sinema has not officially announced whether she will seek a second six-year term, but her campaign spending throughout the year quietly suggests she is running.

In Lake’s first episode, taped in August and released Sept. 14, she talked to Garrett Ziegler, a former aide to Trump’s former trade czar Peter Navarro. Ziegler has posted emails, photos and other material apparently taken from a computer owned by President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

The younger Biden, who has been indicted on tax and fraud charges stemming from a gun purchase, has sued Ziegler, claiming his computer was hacked and Ziegler’s actions are an invasion of his privacy.

In an episode published in October, Lake interviewed Roseanne Barr, the former sitcom star whose career imploded after social media posts denying a Florida school massacre and joking that a multiracial former Obama administration official was the child of terrorists and “Planet of the Apes.”

She began an interview with Eric Trump published in October by pronouncing him “one of my favorite Trumps,” and declaring “none of the stuff that’s been written about the Trump family is true.” The September interview was taped at one of Donald Trump’s golf courses.

In an interview with Roger Stone published in November, she called him “a personal hero.” Stone is a former Trump political adviser convicted of lying under oath and threatening a witness. Trump commuted Stone’s prison sentence before it began.

Feuerstein a polarizing pastor

AFN was founded by Joshua Feuerstein, who burst onto the national scene in 2015 protesting generic holiday cups from Starbucks. Since then, he has notably disparaged Islam, gay marriage, abortion rights and is now running for a seat in the Texas Legislature.

Lake’s new media partner is known as “A Family Network,” or AFN, and America First News is part of that company. AFN did not respond to a request for comment.

In working with AFN, Lake has aligned herself with Feuerstein, a far-right evangelical pastor who advised against COVID-19 vaccines in 2021 and told Newsweek then that Muhammad, the founder of Islam, “was a pedophile, not a prophet.”

“You have a sound mind. You don’t have to wear the mask, you got Jesus. You don’t need the vaccine. You got Jesus,” Feuerstein said in a video of his preaching posted by the London Independent.

Before creating an uproar over Starbucks’ seasonal cups, Feuerstein drew attention for other skirmishes in the war against what he views as an ungodly culture.

He rejects evolution. A Florida bakery received death threats after Feuerstein posted a video of the shop’s owner refusing his request for a cake labeled “We do not support gay marriage.”

He said the “Christian Holocaust has begun” after a Kentucky clerk was jailed for refusing to sign the marriage license for a same-sex couple.

Trump noticed the Starbucks flap and publicly mused about boycotting the company over it. Feuerstein later showed his support for Trump as well.

The day before the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, Feuerstein spoke at a rally between the White House and the Capitol urging action, if not violence. Feuerstein figured prominently in a documentary-style video of that period posted by Business Insider.

“It is time for war! Let us stop the steal!” he thundered as he banged his hand on a lectern with a U.S. flag draped around his neck, the video shows.

The next day, after then-Vice President Mike Pence refused to derail congressional certification of the 2020 election results, Feuerstein promised a takeover of the GOP:

“No matter what happens in the coming days, I can promise you this: There is no longer a Republican Party. It’s MAGA vs. everybody. It’s patriots vs. everybody. We are not voting Republican any longer. It is our party now.”

Cataclysmic rhetoric isn’t new for Feuerstein.

In October 2019, he spoke at a pro-Trump rally at the Trump National Doral Miami Resort, calling the coming presidential election war even then.

“I need you to know that 2020 is a civil war that will change the face of America forever,” he said, according to a 2019 account of his remarks posted by the liberal People for the American Way’s “Right Wing Watch.”

More recently, in July he posted this message on Facebook: “In order to be peaceful, you must first be capable of extreme violence. Otherwise, you’re just weak. Be dangerous, but peaceful.”

AFN targets conservative audience

Earlier this year, Feuerstein told AFN viewers he considers himself in a business partnership with God. He said he invested money he would have otherwise left to his children to help create a network intended to give conservatives the alternative they want.

“This is probably one of the greatest times for conservative Christian entrepreneurs because there is a split down the middle of America and conservatives are saying, ‘We want to buy from conservatives. We’re tired of giving our money to people that hate us, that don’t represent our values.’”

Feuerstein created America First News Corporation a year ago in Plano, Texas, records show. He named himself and his New York lawyer, William DeCandido, as the new organization’s corporate directors.

Feuerstein founded AFN with Rylee Meek and Scott Thomas, both of whom are top executives with a company that sells can’t-miss training tips for salespeople.

Their sales course is “created to take any salesperson, no matter their experience, from wherever they’re at in selling to getting them to consistently hit their revenue goals.”

Though the company formed a year ago, it only began creating online content months ago.

Feuerstein broke the news of Lake’s affiliation with AFN in a Facebook post.

“OK, a bit of personal news y’all will be hearing about shortly .. we are launching a huge network called A Family Network or AFN. It’s like Netflix .. but it’s FREE .. and has ZERO woke content. I wanted my friends to know first … we have signed Kari Lake to a show!”

The programming, Feuerstein wrote, will be “jaw-dropping and pull no punches.”

The company praised Lake for her “hard hitting, no nonsense approach to journalism” and it shared her emphasis on election denialism.

“They may have stolen Kari Lake’s election … but they haven’t stolen her voice!” the company wrote.

Lake’s show indulged denialism, conspiracy theories

Lake’s contempt for “the media” figured prominently in her first four shows. She sometimes advanced conspiracy theories or let others do it unchallenged.

Election denialism has come up at least 27 times.

Lake’s willingness to rehash claims of stolen elections were published as a key Republican has signaled he wants prospective candidates to discuss other things.

In October, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., told CNN: “I think one thing we’ve learned from 2022 is voters do not want to hear about grievances from the past.”

In a statement Wednesday, the NRSC sidestepped the election denialism issue on Lake’s shows and focused more on themes raised since she formally entered the race in October.

“We have a great working relationship with Kari Lake and her team. Since launching her candidacy, Kari has spent her time holding the radical left accountable for their failed agenda that’s led to higher prices and an open southern border,” said Tate Mitchell, an NRSC spokesperson.

“Speaking of accountability, will Ruben Gallego be held to account for denying the 2016 election and calling (former President Donald) Trump ‘illegitimate?’”

People familiar with the NRSC’s dealings with Lake have told The Arizona Republic that the organization urged her team directly months before she entered the race to focus on the future. Ahead of her formal Senate run, one told The Republic her campaign had improved its standing with the NRSC after a second round of meetings earlier this year that suggested a more serious operation, including downplaying election denialism.

Lake’s show suggests she was slow to let the subject go completely.

“The election was stolen, I believe, in my opinion,” she said moments into her first show, “because Biden and many people in Washington are so compromised they could not afford to get President Trump in there and have all these stones unturned with all the corruption.”

“This started out very, very small,” Ziegler said at one point. “You know what brought us together? … We knew that Nov. 3, 2020, was a sham.”

“It was a sham and it was a crime,” Lake responded. “It was a crime against the people of this country.”

She told Barr that almost no one actually views her as an extremist.

“I’ve been all over the country since our victory was stolen, and I’ve spoken to hundreds of thousands of people, probably had conversations with thousands, and I’ve only had three people from all over the country say anything mean. It was like, ‘You lost.’ Three out of all that. So, the people are seeing what’s happening.”

She told Eric Trump that questioning elections is not off limits.

“I’m involved in many cases, and I’ve had many people tell me, don’t fight the elections. That’s taboo,” she said. “It’s not taboo to go talk to your children about changing gender, and an adult can talk to a child about their sex life. But it’s taboo to question your government when there’s problems, when there’s corruption?”

Stone outlined his theory that John F. Kennedy Jr.’s fatal 1999 plane crash was part of a murderous plot involving then-President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Clinton.

“The eyewitnesses I interviewed saw an explosion in the sky, which I believe was based on explosives in the tail of the plane,” Stone said. “I think the Clintons played a role in his murder.”

He said it was a five-year effort he planned to turn into a book that ended when the FBI confiscated his materials in a raid of his house as part of the criminal probe of him.

“Do you think the FBI could have known you were writing this?” Lake asked him.

Lake said former President John F. Kennedy would be part of the Trump coalition if he were alive today, showing an approval of someone who still figures into contemporary conspiracy theories.

“The Democrat Party of yesteryear is gone. I believe if JFK were here, he would be probably much like his nephew, R.F.K. Jr., more of a Make America Great Again Democrat,” she said.

In 2021, hundreds gathered at the location in Dallas where John F. Kennedy was assassinated in hopes that his son, John Kennedy Jr., would reappear in a first step to becoming Trump’s running mate in 2024.

During a complaint about the media, Lake invoked McCain, reiterating her political split with the man who won six terms in the Senate and as Lake looks to broaden her appeal.

While talking to Eric Trump, Lake ranted against the media, saying “we have no skeletons, they’ll make up the skeletons.”

“I worked 30 years in broadcasting and I thought, well surely I worked in broadcasting, I know these people. They’re friends of mine. They’ll treat me better, or they’ll treat me fairly,” she said. “I didn’t have any opposition research. I had one page of opposition research that I had voted for a Democrat before because I got so fed up with the uniparty and I didn’t want to vote for McCain, so I voted against McCain really. And they made stuff up.”

Lake repeatedly praises Donald Trump in her shows. She asked Eric Trump whether Donald Trump is a doting grandfather.

“We have this vision of your dad and he’s such a fighter, and he’s a patriot and, I believe, the greatest president in our country’s history. And I’ve gone even further — and I mean this — I believe he will go down as one of the greatest leaders in all of human history.”

Other AFN programs share right-wing bent

AFN provides its audience a torrent of conspiracy theories and hatred for Democrats.

On Sept. 7, a week before Lake’s new role with AFN was announced, one of the company’s hosts, Mike Crispi, gave credence to Larry Sinclair’s claims that he was former President Barack Obama’s “gay lover” in the late 1990s.

Sinclair has multiple fraud convictions and reportedly served prison sentences in Arizona, Colorado and Florida.

The day before Crispi revisited Sinclair’s widely discredited allegations, Crispi theorized Biden walked out of a White House Medal of Honor event “because he soiled his diaper. There’s no other explanation. It’s either that or he hates the troops, and he has no respect for the Medal of Honor.”

The White House said Biden cut short his time at the event because first lady Jill Biden had tested positive for COVID-19 and he wanted to minimize potential exposure to others.

Crispi was formerly with Right Side Broadcasting Network, another organization noted for its unswerving loyalty to Trump. He also tried his hand in politics.

Last year Crispi ran for Congress in New Jersey. He hired Stone as a political adviser and sought, but did not receive, Trump’s endorsement. Crispi finished 21 percentage points behind incumbent U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J.

AFN operates alongside Endtime Ministries

AFN is based at the same address as Endtime Ministries in Plano, records show.

Endtime Ministries has for decades sold magazines, books and videos discussing the coming apocalypse as interpreted and predicted by its founder, Irvin Lee Baxter Jr.

Baxter was a Pentecostal minister who hosted radio and TV shows for 30 years, wrote a book outlining the case for the Bible prophesying the United States and other modern countries. Later, he opened the Jerusalem Prophecy College in Israel, which offers online classes that purport to show how contemporary events are linked to biblical predictions.

Baxter died in November 2020 from COVID-19, a disease he said in a broadcast four months earlier could be God’s vengeance.

“I am not asserting that the coronavirus is the judgment of God, but I am not saying that it’s not either,” Baxter said. He went on to note reasons for God’s displeasure over society’s sins. The Bible lists those excluded from heaven, he said, including adulterers, homosexuals and drunkards.

“We have gotten to the point where we protect what God hates,” he said.

Kari Lake’s sponsor popular with anti-vaxxers

Lake’s show has a sponsor in the Wellness Company, an organization that sells supplements and vaccine exemption letters. It tells listeners it was formed “by a team of doctors who lost their jobs for speaking up about the vaccines.”

Its medical emergency kit includes prescription drugs intended to treat conditions ranging from COVID-19 to syphilis. Among the drugs it sells is ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug that some claimed as treatment for COVID. A clinical trial last year showed it to have no sign of a useful benefit against COVID.

Peter McCullough is the company’s “chief scientific officer.” The Daily Beast wrote that he was a cardiologist who became “a hero in anti-vaxx circles.” He claimed government-approved COVID vaccines killed thousands of Americans and advocated the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to treat the disease.

The Food and Drug Administration has warned against ivermectin as a COVID treatment and said hydroxychloroquine should only be taken in a hospital setting.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'Kari Lake Show' launched on America First News ahead of Senate run