Kari Lake condemned for claiming MLK would be ‘America first Republican’ today

Controversial candidate is favoured by GOP for her rebuttals of questions about election denialism

Former reporter Kari Lake has wandered into another controversy as she runs for governor of Arizona.

The Republican candidate is now facing heat online after her latest outrageous suggestion — that Dr Martin Luther King Jr would be a so-called “America First Republican”, or a Maga acolyte, were he alive today.

She made the bizarre claim during a campaign event in Arizona alongside Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman who has made a name for herself since leaving Congress by turning away from the left and embracing the “Maga” mantle.

“If MLK, Rev Martin Luther King Jr were alive today, if [former President John F Kennedy] were alive today, if our Founding Fathers were alive today, they’d be America First Republicans,” she said as Ms Gabbard smiled and nodded.

The claim resulted in immediate backlash on Twitter.

“This is a [baby-brained] thing to say,” John Iadarola of The Young Turks wrote with emojis.

“Hey dumb ass @KariLake, MLK campaign[ed] AGAINST Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater. You are truly an idiot,” wrote Roland Martin, the journalist, pointing out that Dr King had indeed campaigned against and opposed conservative Republicans in life.

Democratic strategist Paul Begala, meanwhile, cut directly to the chase.

“Not sure she’s right about that. What do you think, @BerniceKing?” he wrote, tagging the late civil rights champion’s youngest daughter in a tweet.

She quickly responded, rebuking Ms Lake: “Dear @KariLake: What you share here is false and dismissive of Daddy’s seminal work and beliefs, including: Ending/preventing voter suppression, [and] treating all, including immigrants, with dignity. I invite you to study my father via http://thekingcenterinstitute.org.”

It’s the latest self-made controversy for Ms Lake, a close ally of Donald Trump who polls show is within the margin of error for polling of the Arizona gubernatorial race. She’s poised as a result to take over one of America’s most important swing states and would therefore be the only governor of such a state to be fully supportive of Donald Trump’s conspiracies about his 2020 defeat.

The ex-reporter has continually lashed out at the media in recent weeks for what she calls an unfair focus on those conspiracies, which she embraced during the GOP primary as she sought Donald Trump’s endorsement.