National political reporter Neil W. McCabe joined Thursday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss the latest developments in the leaked audio recording story where now-former Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP) Chairman Jeff DeWit offered Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake money in return of her staying out of politics for two years.
In the audio recording released on Tuesday, DeWit tried to convince Lake to stay out of politics for two years by suggesting he could find her a well-paying nonpolitical job in the private sector. During the call to Lake, DeWit said “very powerful people” “Back East” were behind the offer.
On Wednesday, DeWit resigned from his post at the AZGOP.
In the meantime, a source knowledgeable of the situation told The Arizona Sun Times that the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) was behind DeWit’s message to Lake.
When The Sun Times reached out for a confirmation or denial of the report, the NRSC did not respond.
NRSC Chairman U.S. Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) did, however, comment on the situation to NBC News, claiming no knowledge of the leaked audio.
During Thursday’s interview with Leahy, McCabe suspected there was “deception” in Daines’ comment to NBC.
“You know, when law enforcement is deciding whether or not a statement is truthful or not truthful, they will not, law enforcement people…say, “is this statement reliable or not reliable? And is there deception or an attempted deception and not deception?” And there are different ways of doing that that I won’t go into here, but one of the ways when law enforcement decides whether a statement is unreliable is when the person answers a question they were not asked,” McCabe explained. “Daines answered a question he was not asked. And so that tells me that there is deception, because what an honest man says is – and this is like, considered 95 percent reliable – “Did you rob the bank? I did not rob the bank.,” when an honest man says, “I did not do it.””
“They asked Trump,’did you work with the Russians?’ He said, ‘I did not work with the Russians.’ Ninety-five percent reliable,” McCabe added as an example.
Leahy noted McCabe’s insight “helps honest people decode the treacherous, deceptive statements that come out from various leaders in the country.”
McCabe went on to theorize the message sent to Lake “basically came from” U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who McCabe noted is “trying to desperately hold on to things.”
“I have very high confidence that McConnell will not be the Republican leader in the next session,” McCabe said. “I think the Republicans have an easy pickup of three seats and one of them’s already in the bank with West Virginia. And I think there’s a possibility of at least three more. So you have a six seat pickup in the Senate and those people are not going to be supporting McConnell. And McConnell’s desperately trying to sort of manage the election as he’s more concerned about being the Republican leader than he is about being in the majority. We saw that in 2022 when he kneecapped Republican candidates for Senate, like Blake Masters. You know, he could have helped them, but didn’t.”
Regarding Lake’s case, McCabe added, “You don’t have to bribe somebody to get out of the race if you think they’re going to lose.”
– – –
Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Steve Daines” by Steve Daines. Photo “Kari Lake” The Kari Lake.
