Lake, who was defeated by her Democratic opponent Katie Hobbs, and is continuing to challenge her election loss in the November midterms, made the comments during an appearance on Mike Huckabee’s TBN show Huckabee on Saturday.
Huckabee, who served as Arkansas’ governor for more than a decade, praised Lake—a former television anchor—as a “phenomenal candidate.”
“I thought you were the most articulate, forceful candidate that I saw in the entire election cycle. You were a phenomenal candidate,” he told Lake. “The way that you dealt with the press was so impressive. You weren’t hateful. But you were as good as my daughter in handling the press.”
Sanders, Huckabee’s daughter, was sworn in on Tuesday as Arkansas’ 47th governor. She also served as a White House press secretary in former President Donald Trump’s administration.
“Well, I’m going to be honest, I learned a thing or two from Sarah Huckabee, okay?” Lake said. “She really knew how to handle it.”
The press “can be so nasty,” Lake added, telling Huckabee that she “used to get so upset watching them handle your daughter.”
“Just rude people,” she said. “And because I worked 30 years in the media, I know their tricks. And one thing I started doing early on in the campaign, I thought, you know what, I’m going to put the camera on them.”
Lake continued: “And so we would do an interview with them and we would put the camera and the microphone, they would ask a stupid question, they would ask a nasty question, and we would put that out all over the internet and embarrass them.”
Lake shared a clip of her interview with the former governor to Twitter on Saturday evening, prompting criticism from some users.
“You’re both pathological liars,” one user said of Lake and Sanders.
Another user tweeted: “Well, Kari and Sarah are equally prolific liars, so in that sense, they handle press.”
Some agreed with Huckabee, with one Twitter user writing: “I agree , but I give the edge to Kari and I love both #TruthWarriors.”
Newsweek reported last week that Sanders appears ready to adopt the playbook of other Republican governors by stoking culture wars while in office.
Sanders signed several executive orders on her first day, including banning the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in schools, and the use of the word “Latinx” from all government documents.
“As long as I am governor, our schools will focus on the skills our children need to get ahead in the modern world—not brainwashing our children with a left-wing political agenda,” she said in her inaugural address.
Newsweek has contacted Lake and Sanders for further comment.
