According to the new Washington Post report per Raw Story, there is growing tension between the Trump and Kari Lake camps that she will be a detriment in a close election and that Trump has had to urge her to decamp from Mar-a-Lago and get to work winning over voters.
The Daily Beast reports: the former president reportedly cut Kari Lake from his shortlist of potential VP picks because “she didn’t win” the Arizona governor’s race in 2022. He’s also gotten fed up with her constant presence at Mar-a-Lago.
Adding to Lake’s woes is her undoing the damage of her attacking Arizona’s McCain Republicans whom she disparaged during her losing 2022 bid, as well as distrust from GOP higher-ups in her state who are still furious with her for secretly recording the former state party chair asking her to reconsider running.
From The Washington Post:
Former president Donald Trump has long had a soft spot for his acolyte Kari Lake, the expected GOP Senate nominee in Arizona, joking that Lake would pivot to his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen even if she was asked about the weather.
But since Lake jumped into the race, Trump has repeatedly expressed skepticism about her political prospects in a state he sees as key to his bid to return to the White House, and has shownannoyance with her frequent presence at his Florida resort, according to five people close to him, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe his comments. …
Trump has also asked others if she can really win in Arizona and if she might drag down his own poll numbers as he seeks the presidency again in 2024, advisers said.
Trump’s frustration with Lake has only increased over the past year, heightening the tension between the presumptive GOP presidential nominee and one of his most prominent followers — casting doubt on whether Republicans can present a sufficiently united front to win a key U.S. Senate contest and a presidential battleground state.
Trump has now all but ruled out Lake as a vice-presidential pick, remarking to multiple advisers that he would not choose her as vice president because she lost the 2022 gubernatorial race in Arizona, which he believed was winnable. “She didn’t win,” he told one political ally over dinner at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year.