Trump pressed Arizona GOP Senate candidate to keep pushing ‘big lie’, Tucker Carlson documentary reveals

In a call, former president urges Blake Masters to be more like Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake

A clip from new Tucker Carlson documentary on Arizona GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters’ campaign shows former President Donald Trump urging Mr Masters to more forcefully peddle the myth that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Mr Masters appears to be in the backyard of his house when he fields a telephone call from Mr Trump in a clip from the documentary, which Carlson previewed on his Fox News show on Monday night. Mr Masters fields the call and quickly puts Mr Trump on speaker phone; Mr Trump immediately criticises him for an answer he gave in a recent debate about the legitimacy of the election.

“I heard you did great at the debate, but a bad election answer,” Mr Trump says. “You’ve got a lot of support, you’ve got to stand with those people.”

Later in the call, Mr Trump returns to the theme of Mr Masters’ evaluation of the 2020 election.

“You want to get across the line, you’ve got to go stronger on that one thing, because that was the one thing [there were] a lot of complaints about,” Mr Trump says. “Look at [GOP gubernatorial nominee] Kari [Lake]. Kari’s winning with very little money, and if they say, ‘How is your family,’ she says, ‘The election was rigged and stolen.’ You’ll lose if you go soft, you’re going to lose that base.”

“I’m not going soft,” Mr Masters says in response.

Mr Trump’s unhappiness with that particular aspect of Mr Masters’ debate performance may stem from Mr Masters agreeing at a debate with his Democratic opponent, Senator Mark Kelly, on October 6 that there was no evidence that the vote counting or election results themselves were rigged.

Mr Masters has, however, said that he supported Sen Ted Cruz and Sen Josh Hawley’s objection to the certification of the 2020 results and complained about the role that major tech companies and the FBI played in the election.

“I didn’t think I went soft,” Mr Masters says again to the camera with a rueful smile after he and Mr Trump hang up.

Mr Masters appears to be delighted to receive a call from the twice-impeached former president, who rallied with Mr Masters and Ms Lake in Mesa on October 9. He said that he believed that his race against Mr Kelly was tied, despite his trailing in a majority of polls, and that he had momentum in the critical Senate contest.

Mr Trump was interested in whether the billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel, who backed Mr Masters’ primary bid, was contributing significant sums of money to his general election campaign. Mr Masters said that Mr Thiel was doing more “behind the scenes,” amid reports that Mr Thiel and the GOP’s Senate Leadership Fund were at odds over how to fund Mr Masters’ campaign.

Though the race has tightened in recent weeks as Republicans across the nation have gained on their Democratic opponents, Mr Kelly has still routinely led Mr Masters in polls of the Arizona race. The elections forecaster FiveThirtyEight considers Mr Kelly a favourite to retain his seat in November.