Watch: Kari Lake refuses to say she will concede defeat if she loses in the US election

By Emily Maitlis

“Emily, you need your head examined.” That's what key Trump ally Kari Lake, who is being sued for repeated false claims of election interference, had to say in this exclusive interview.

I just sat down for an interview with Kari Lake - the Republican Senate candidate in Arizona - and major Trump fangirl. Here are a few things it might be helpful to know about Kari Lake - before you listen to our exchange:

- She promoted false claims that Trump had won the 2020 election - famously calling for the imprisonment of those who accepted Trump’s defeat.

- She previously ran to be governor of Arizona - in 2022. When she lost the razor tight election she refused to concede and filed several unsuccessful lawsuits to have the results overturned.

- She accused an election official of intentionally sabotaging her 2022 campaign - by manipulating the voting machines. She was sued for defamation.

- The official who brought the lawsuit against her is Stephen Richer - of Maricopa county.

- He says her claims turned his family’s lives upside down and made him the target of threats of violence and even death.

- She has not said she will concede defeat if she loses the election in November this year.

Kari Lake was a registered republican until 2006, then she registered as independent.

Then she registered as a democrat in 2008, the day after Obama won the Iowa caucus.

She then returned to being a Republican.

She has supported a return to the Arizona abortion law of 1864 - (a pre statehood, pre universal suffrage piece of legislation banning abortion from the moment of inception). She changed her mind on that in March of this year, saying it was ‘out of step with Arizonans’ - but then raised further concerns.

It is unclear where she currently stands on this piece of legislation.

Watch my full interview with her below:

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