Former President Donald Trump called Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters to complain that he did not adequately push false claims of a "rigged and stolen" 2020 election in a debate this month.
Masters, who is hoping to unseat incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, received the call from Trump two days after the October 6 debate, according to a Tucker Carlson Originals documentary produced for the Fox News streaming platform Fox Nation. Trump has endorsed Masters and appeared with him during multiple rallies in Arizona.
While Masters has pushed the former president's repeated false claims that the 2020 election was "stolen" from him, including in campaign ads that aired before the Republican primary, he described President Joe Biden as the "legitimate president" and admitted that he had not "seen evidence" of massive fraud during the debate.
"We got a lot of complaints about that, I don't know what you did with the debate," Trump told Masters after the debate, according to a clip of the documentary shared to Twitter by NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hillyard.
"I heard you did great on the debate, but a bad election answer," Trump added. "You've got a lot of support, you've got to stay with those people."
Masters replied by insisting that his campaign would "absolutely stay with" those who support 2020 election falsehoods, before boasting about having "put Mark Kelly on the ropes."
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