Kari Lake, the failed GOP candidate for Arizona governor, has claimed that an overwhelming majority of Americans are dyed-in-the-wool Donald Trump supporters willing to put themselves in harm's way following the ex-president's federal indictment.
Trump, who was indicted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on 37 felony counts last week, is set to be arraigned in a Miami, Florida, courthouse on Tuesday. During an event in Georgia on Friday, Lake said that federal prosecutors would "have to go through me and 75 million Americans just like me" to get to Trump. She added that "most" Trump supporters were "card-carrying members" of the National Rifle Association, while insisting that her statement was a "public service announcement" rather than a threat.
Lake doubled down on the sentiment during a Monday appearance on ex-Trump adviser Steven Bannon's War Room podcast. She absurdly raised the number of supposed Trump supporters willing to sacrifice themselves for the ex-president to "300 million." The current total population of the country is just under 335 million, with around 22 percent of the total being under age 18, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
"If they think they are going to hurt, lay a finger, on our president—[former] President Trump—they're going to have to come through me," said Lake. "And I made a mistake, I said 75 million others just like me. I think it's more like 300 million others just like me."
Lake also claimed that the 300 million largely armed Trump supporters supposedly willing to take on the federal government over the indictment—which concerns charges related to Trump's post-presidency handling of classified documents—were firm believers in the false conspiracy theory that President Joe Biden only won the 2020 election as the result of massive voter fraud.
Earlier this month, Lake released a song based on the discredited theory, titled "81 Million Votes, My A**." The 2020 election ended with a final popular vote count of around 81.2 million votes for Biden and 74.2 million for Trump. No credible evidence of massive fraud has been uncovered in the more than 2 1/2 years since the contest ended.
"The people in this country who support [former] President Trump, who know what's up, who know that that botched election was an attempt to prevent him from getting in office and cleaning up the corruption in our country ... we just support our president," Lake said.
"We're not going to let this witch hunt hurt [former] President Trump," she continued. "And we are going to get him in office. They're trying to interfere in yet another election, Steve. And the people aren't going to stand for it anymore."
Lake went on to say that Trump supporters would be "peaceful in everything we do," while urging others to join her in Miami to protest Trump's arraignment. She said that the "fraudulent" Biden administration was "fully corrupt" and had "turned our government on we the people."
The Arizona Republican concluded her appearance on Bannon's show by saying that she would be protesting the "bogus" indictment in person to show Trump that "he's got the support of America." She claimed that "all of America is praying" for him to prevail over the DOJ.
Trump, who is also facing 34 state felony charges in New York, has denied any criminal wrongdoing and says that the charges are politically motivated and part of "the greatest witch hunt of all time."
However, a significant number of legal experts, including Trump's former Attorney General William Barr and his ex-lawyer Tim Parlatore, have argued that the federal case against the former president is strong.
Newsweek has reached out to Lake via email for comment.
