‘Doesn’t Know Sh*t’: Arizona’s Top Election Official Rips ‘Grifter’ Charlie Kirk For ‘Stirring the Pot’ for ‘Profit’
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) spoke to Wired’s William Turton this week for a lengthy, headline-grabbing interview published on Thursday.
Turton and Fontes covered a range of topics related to the current political climate in the country and followed the Wired reporter’s attendance at pro-Trump student group Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest over the weekend.
Turton asked Fontest at one point about Turning Point’s founder, conspiracy theorist, and prominent MAGA podcaster Charline Kirk. Kirk “said onstage that elections in Arizona had become less secure. I’m wondering what you’d say to that?”
Fontes, a Democrat elected in 2022 amid rampant, baseless allegations of voter fraud from the likes of Kari Lake and Blake Masters, pulled no punches in his response:
Charlie Kirk doesn’t know shit about Arizona’s election. So I don’t know what he’s talking about. Our elections are far more secure than they even were in 2020, which were the most secure elections that we’ve had. I’d like to hear why he thinks that. Where does he get his information from? What facts does he have to support that statement? Who has he actually spoken to in the election administration world? And why does he think that by increasing our security profile, working more closely with federal, state, and local law enforcement and technology officials, how that all makes our elections less secure?
Charlie Kirk is a grifter, who only stirs the pot for his own profit. And what he’s doing is eroding the trust that Americans have in one another. That’s his MO and he’s free to do that under the First Amendment. But he’s not paying any of the price and the consequences. He personally is shielded in his privilege, from the erosion of our democracy, from the lack of trust, and the fact that we’ve lost a lot of people because of the threats that his rhetoric brings to bear. So I think he should reconsider. Maybe potentially just supporting his assertions with some facts, that might be a good start.
Turton followed up by asking Fontes to weigh in generally on the prevalence of conspiracy theories in U.S. politics today, “Can you explain why Arizona in particular attracted so many election conspiracy theories?”
“One of the things that is important [to] realize about Arizona is that we are historically a place where, I will kindly say, free thinking is kind of a normal thing. You know, we don’t have generations-long institutions that have really locked themselves into power for long periods of time,” Fontes began, noting the diversity in his state.
“American democracy requires a diversity of thought. And it’s our intellectual freedom that is one of our biggest strengths,” he added, concluding:
Now, we still have to agree on the outcomes of elections. That’s the golden thread that holds the entire fabric of our society together. And that’s the one piece of our civic culture that is now being attacked. That’s different than what we’ve seen in the past and the conflicts that we’ve seen issue by issue, whether it’s immigration, or abortion, or the economy or gas prices, or whatever.
Read the full interview with Wired here.
