Kari Lake is now practically living at Mar-a-Lago – and it’s even uglier than whatever you’re probably thinking

| 9:00 pm EDT June 21, 2023
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

People Magazine reported today that Kari Lake now “practically lives” in a suite at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. The unnamed people quoted in the article are all guessing that it’s because Lake is trying to become Trump’s 2024 running mate. Most folks on social media have decided that this has to be about Trump and Lake supposedly having an affair, because people always want every story to be about sex, whether it is or not. But if you look at this story logically, it actually appears to be about something far more cynical.

For starters, Mar-a-Lago is a massive property with more than a hundred bedrooms and suites. So the fact that Kari Lake is staying there in a suite doesn’t mean anything, beyond giving her easy access to every Trump-centric social gathering that goes on there, and easy access to whichever handlers are helping Trump milk his gullible supporters for money these days. Yes, this is what it’s always about: money.

Folks on our side have spent Kari Lake’s entire time in politics writing her off as stupid and crazy. But in reality she’s neither. She’s just shameless enough to portray herself as stupid and crazy, in order to pander to the right wing loons who are stupid and crazy, so they’ll give her their money. These things are always about money. Lake is following the Ann Coulter playbook. People don’t get that someone like Coulter makes millions of dollars by playing the part. It’s the same playbook Tucker Carlson was using night after night on Fox News, making tens of millions of dollars per year, until he got caught up in it and actually became the character he’d been strategically portraying. Lake is straight out of that playbook. Like most other right wing political figures these days, she’s simply been portraying a crazed character for profit.

Kari Lake ran for Governor of Arizona but never did try to build a broad enough coalition of support to actually win. Instead she spent the entire time pandering solely to gullible right wing loons, so they’d keep donating to her. Lake lost the election, but she sure did seem to make money along the way. Then after she lost, she spent a significant amount of time “contesting” the election. She knew she couldn’t possibly win that battle. But during the course of “fighting” the results she sure did seem to make a lot of money from those same gullible right wingers.

Now Lake is sidling up to Donald Trump, a guy who’s on his way to prison and in the meantime is running a phony “campaign” for President in order to line his pockets. Lake’s entire time in politics has been about making money, win or lose – and the same can be said about Trump. So of course Lake is trying to ingratiate herself into Trump’s latest grift.

But Trump’s grift is a short term one. He has multiple criminal trials coming up before primary voting even starts, and the notion that he’s somehow going to end up being a viable 2024 candidate is sort of laughable. Trump is desperate and living minute to minute because he has no future. If Lake is trying to ingratiate herself into Trump’s imaginary 2024 campaign, it would have to be a short term play, where she makes her money and gets out. The last thing she’d want to do is get stuck being Trump’s “running mate” while he’s going through criminal trials and getting dragged off to prison.

So of course Kari Lake is spending most of her time at Mar-a-Lago right now. It’s ground zero for Trump’s final grift. He’s got people donating to an imaginary 2024 campaign under the naive belief that their money will somehow magically save him from prison and make him President. Why wouldn’t Lake want in on that? For now at least, while the money is good.

If anything, the fact that a grifter like Kari Lake has (for now) inserted herself into the daily doings of Donald Trump’s 2024 “campaign” is all the proof you need that it is indeed a phony campaign. Every storyline involving right wing politicians and right wing pundits ends up being about money. It’s always about money. The internet always wants these kinds of stories to be about something else more interesting, but in the end it’s always about money, because that’s the one thing these types care about.

Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.