AP Photo/Julio Cortez
President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly considering Kari Lake as his ambassador to Mexico, Semafor reported on Monday.
Lake, a former television news anchor in Arizona, came to political prominence when she grabbed the 2022 Republican gubernatorial nomination in the state and was narrowly defeated by Katie Hobbs. Trump endorsed Lake’s bid for the governorship and her unsuccessful 2024 Senate run in which she lost to Rep. Ruben Gallego in the general election.
“Kari Lake is a leading contender for the nomination as Donald Trump’s ambassador to Mexico, two people familiar with the situation told Semafor,” the outlet reported.
She made the southern border and immigration broadly a key focus of her campaigns, advocating the erection of a border wall running the length of the U.S. border with Mexico. Moreover, she supports the “Remain in Mexico” policy, whereby asylum-seekers stay in that country until their cases are reviewed and decided. Additionally, she backs Trump’s plan for mass deportations of immigrants who are in the country illegally.
Last month, Mediaite reported that Lake was in “active negotiations” to join the right-wing cable network Newsmax. She also recently settled a defamation suit brought by former Maricopa County elections official Stephen Richer, who sued her in June 2023, claiming that Lake falsely accused him of “intentionally sabotaging the election” in her gubernatorial race in 2022.
Richer stated that “both sides are satisfied with the result.”
