MAGA ally Kari Lake is playing the blame game after she was rushed out of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner alongside other attendees when a gunman opened fire at the event.
Lake, the senior advisor to the United States Agency for Global Media, says she did not waste a minute in confronting CNN anchor Jake Tapper for “spreading lies” about President Donald Trump in the middle of their evacuation Saturday night from the Washington Hilton.
“I walked out right next to Jake Tapper and looked him in the eye,” Lake, 56, said on Newsmax hours after the shooting. “And I said, ‘How dare you? You have caused so much division in this country pushing lies. We’re not going to call it gaslighting anymore — you’ve lied to the people. How dare you do that?”
She wrote, in part, on X: “These reporters have spent a decade spreading absolute lies about President Trump. They share some of the blame for what happened tonight. As a mother, I’m exhausted by it. I couldn’t stay silent and walk out pretending someone like Jake Tapper is one of the good guys.”
Tapper did not return The Independent’s request for comment about Lake’s remarks.
In addition to blaming Tapper and the mainstream media for the shooting scare, which left one Secret Service agent with noncritical injuries, Lake joined other WHCD attendees in calling out the venue’s lack of security ahead of the incident.
“I can’t believe how lax the security was at the White House correspondents dinner tonight,” she posted on X. “Upon entering, nobody asked to visibly INSPECT my ticket nor asked for my photo identification. All one had to do was flash what appeared to be a ticket and they were fine with that.”
She went on to say: “When you consider you are entering a roomful of fake news media —90% of whom hate the President you would think they would have better security…On the way out, I called-out a bunch of the disgusting Media who have been pushing hatred toward President Trump for years. They are a big part of the discord in this country.”
Authorities named the suspected shooter as Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old resident of Torrance, California. He is in custody and set to be arraigned on Monday after being tackled to the ground while allegedly firing one of his weapons.
Lake has long criticized the mainstream media and accused outlets of bias against Trump. Last year, she attempted to fire more than 500 employees as the newly appointed head of the Voice of America news organization, in what was seen as a dismantling of the agency. However, a federal judge ruled her appointment as illegal last month and reversed the layoffs.
