The NFL has blackmailed Arizona over powder keg issues before, but it won’t happen again, says the Republican candidate for governor. Kari Lake, the former Fox 10 television news anchor, said rich, woke NFL owners will not dictate border policy to her if she’s elected next month.
Lake made that pronouncement during an interview with an Arizona television station. It was her response to a question about declaring an invasion at the southern border even if the NFL threatened to withdraw the 2023 Super Bowl from the Grand Canyon State. Lake promised she won’t tolerate any attempt by the NFL to get her to stand down on border protection:
I don’t answer to the @NFL.
I answer to the people of Arizona. If the NFL wants to play chicken over the 2023 Super Bowl, I can promise you that I win that game.
Throughout Lake’s campaign for Arizona’s top office, she has frequently stated the new governor must be a person who will stand up to Mexican drug cartels. She promises to do that:
Do you want to tell me that a bunch of football teams owned by billionaires are okay with fentanyl pouring across our border at a record level, killing our young people? The number one killer right now is fentanyl. 18 to 45. It’s killing a generation of people. If the NFL is okay with that, then they gotta do some soul-searching. I don’t think the NFL is that stupid. I really don’t.
We want to make sure that we’re stopping the cartels. The people of Arizona is who I work for, and that’s why I’m here with you today.
In 2014, then GOP Gov. Jan Brewer buckled when the NFL threatened Arizona with the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in Super Bowl revenue if she signed a religious freedom bill into law. She vetoed SB 1062, a bill passed by the legislature’s conservative majority to protect people opposed to the LGBT mafia’s attempt to crush religious liberty.
The media took its marching orders from the alphabet crowd and badly misrepresented that bill. Sports Illustrated reported the NFL was beginning to look at alternative sites for the 2015 Super Bowl. Gov. Brewer went wobbly, caved in and snubbed her nose at her Republican base – over a lie.
That weakness will not be found in a Gov. Lake administration, the Donald Trump-endorsed candidate promises.
Katie Hobbs, the Democrat gubernatorial candidate, was supposed to debate Lake this week, but she has refused to participate in any debates at all. Nor has she promised to stand up to the cartels and the NFL.
