MAGA politician Kari Lake has demanded Donald Trump’s political rivals should be in “effing handcuffs” and called for them to be “locked up… behind bars for the rest of their lives.”
The 56-year-old former Fox TV anchor—now tasked with dismantling the Voice of America as CEO of its parent body, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM)—delivered the tirade on Newsmax while complaining that “there’s not a damn person in handcuffs” for what she called corruption inside the federal bureaucracy.
Lake, who has built her national profile as one of Donald Trump’s fiercest media attack dogs, contrasted the lack of arrests she wants with law enforcement actions taken against Trumpworld figures.
“They dragged Roger Stone out of his house,” she said, before adding: “They raided Mar-a-Lago. They attacked President Trump.”
Lake’s comments came during an appearance on Newsmax host David J. Harris Jr.’s show The Pulse.
The onetime local news star has reinvented herself as a hardline culture warrior who embraced Trump’s false 2020 election claims and parlayed that loyalty into higher-profile roles after losing two statewide bids in Arizona.
A year ago, Trump tapped Lake to lead VOA after she lost the 2024 Senate race and a 2022 gubernatorial race, which she refused to concede.
Inside government, Lake has pushed to gut the broadcasters she now oversees—and has faced blowback even from Republicans.
The Government Accountability Office has been investigating allegations that her management decisions may have violated federal spending rules, by using funds to sideline certain employees.
