CNN’s Jim Acosta invoked President Donald Trump as he and Democratic Strategist James Carville roasted Kari Lake’s latest effort to overturn her loss in the Arizona governor’s race.
On Sunday’s edition of CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta, the anchor hosted Carville and CNN Political Commentator S.E. Cupp to discuss Lake’s new suit asking to be declared the winner of the election she lost. There was unanimous agreement that Lake is flailing and that Trump has had an impact on this sort of behavior:
ACOSTA: James, there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on in Arizona these days. Maybe you can help us figure this out. We learned late yesterday that Kari Lake, the Republican who lost the race for governor is suing state election officials, challenging the vote count, asking the court to declare her the winner. Is this life after Trump now election losers disputing the results?CARVILLE: All right, Kari Lake is, she’s out there. She’s goofy and stupid and ignorant. Let me tell you what’s going on in Arizona. Proposition 211, which is the citizens ballot measure to tell people I spent over $5,000 a dark money in Arizona they have to disclose. That pass by 73 percent.Arizona had a ballot measure that would allow non-citizens to pay to Arizona intuition rate at Arizona colleges and universities. That’s big news. Kari Lake being goofy, right-wing
stupid is hardly big or startling news. Let me see, loss, she’s done. And by the way, New Mexico would have 70 percent had a ballot measure to guarantee daycare for all New Mexicans. They are big stories going on in the southwestern United States that don’t involve Kari Lake. And, you know, we should be very aware of these, Jim, very aware. She’ll keep doing everything, every stunt she can pull to get attention. But I don’t really think that’s the big story coming out of here.ACOSTA: Yes. S.E., what do you think of that? Because, you know, one of the things that is very interesting to contrast here is kind of notable and that when Trump was challenging the election results and peddling the big lie and so on, you know, there were a fair amount of folks on the MAGA side of the Republican Party who were totally on board with it.Kari Lake is almost kind of, you know, shouting into a void.CUPP: Yes.ACOSTA: And there’s not a whole lot of folks, you know, jumping on that bandwagon to overturn those election results in Arizona.CUPP: Listen, Trump changed a lot. 10 years ago, you know, if you had not one but several election losers, shouting about challenging the results and really just being poor sports, they would have been laughed at. Trump does it and it was normalized fora time. And he gave people permission to do it and not be embarrassed by it.But it’s been so ineffective, not just practically in that it has overturned no elections. But it’s really hurt the party and the image of the party. And for independence, which, you know, you’ll need if you’re a Republican running for office, it’s a huge turnoff the election denialism, the conspiracy theories and these never-ending phony audits and recounts and lawsuits. I think people are sick of it. And it’s now sort of — it’s not getting the attention that it did, you know, when Trump made it kind of popular.
Watch above via CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta.