In her quest to win an election, the Arizona Republican US Senate candidate Kari Lake is trying to win back the voters she alienated in her last run, when she lost the 2022 gubernatorial race to a Democrat.
And Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late Arizona senator John McCain, whose name is near-synonymous with the state’s political history, is not letting Lake off the hook.
Lake’s attempt to win back voters includes reaching out to the family and allies of John McCain, who held the Senate seat in Arizona for decades and left an indelible mark on the state’s politics.
When Lake ran for governor, she said her win in the Republican primary in 2022 had driven a “stake through the heart of the McCain machine” – a nod to the political apparatus McCain built up over his time in office.
She also condemned the more moderate branch of the party, the McCain Republicans, and told them to “get the hell out”. She walked back the comment during a radio interview on Monday, where she said she was joking and that John McCain “would have laughed” about it.
McCain’s daughter, Meghan McCain, hit back hard at Lake after the interview, calling out the attempt to walk back the attack.
“Guess she realized she can’t become a Senator without us,” Meghan McCain wrote on X. “No peace, bitch. We see you for who you are – and are repulsed by it.”
Lake then came back to Meghan McCain with a long entreaty, calling to mind her own father’s death from cancer and the fact that the two women are both mothers.
“Our movement to save Arizona & America is growing, and it’s Mama Bears like us who are leading the charge – ALL Moms want the same thing: to leave our children a better America than the one we had,” Lake wrote to Meghan McCain on X.
Lake invited Meghan McCain for a beer, coffee or lunch so that she could “pick [her] brain about how we can work together to strengthen our state” and said her team would be reaching out with Lake’s contact information. “If you’re willing to meet, it would mean a lot to me,” Lake concluded.
“NO PEACE, BITCH!” Meghan McCain reiterated in a response to Lake’s offer to meet.
The online spat speaks to a larger problem Lake faces in her return to the campaign trail: she swung too far right for the state’s purpling electorate, and she now is attempting to look more moderate.
A Lake campaign account responded to the brush-off with a note that “All Kari can do is extend the olive branch” and that the Republican candidate would keep trying. “If you refuse to take it, that’s your call,” the Lake war room account wrote. “This kind of blind anger is not conducive to bringing Arizona together.”
“I breathe fire for my family and never forgive those who have trashed any of us – particularly my Dad in death,” Meghan McCain wrote in a follow-up post on X. “Never.”
