Arizona GOP Primary Heats Up: Candidates Launch “A Pair Of Brutal Ads” & “Didn’t Hold Back On Attacking Each Other,” Propose “Privatizing Social Security”

CBS News: “Becoming one of the most expensive primary battles in the country”

Arizona Republic: “Grew increasingly tense as the debate wore on”

NBC News: “GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters suggests privatizing Social Security”

Arizona’s GOP primary heated up last week – news coverage highlighted how the candidates “took turns hitting each other’s backgrounds” and “suggested privatizing Social Security” at a recent debate, and launched “a pair of brutal ads” “to attack each other” in what is quickly “becoming one of the most expensive primary battles in the country.”

See for yourself:

CBS News: Arizona GOP Senate candidates hold debate as negative ads overtake airwaves

• The Republican candidates for Senate in Arizona faced off in a heated debate for the first time on Thursday night as the closely watched race is becoming one of the most expensive primary battles in the country.

• With early voting for the primary set to begin in two weeks, Republicans have already spent nearly $40 million on TV advertising, according to AdImpact, which keeps track of political ad spending.
  
  
• Lamon, who is self-funding his campaign and has pledged to spend $50 million, has poured $7.8 million into TV ads. Masters is backed by Saving Arizona, a super PAC funded by billionaire Peter Thiel that has spent over $8 million on ads this cycle.
  
  
• The top-polling candidates… didn’t hold back on attacking each other.
  
  
• Brnovich and Lamon both attacked Masters for his ties to Thiel, saying Big Tech is a threat to Americans and Masters represents their interests. “I am going to call it like it is up here,” Lamon said, “do we really need (Thiel) to buy a seat for Arizona from California?”

• “I know that the answer to Big Tech is not having someone that’s financed by Big Tech and made all their money in Big Tech,” Brnovich added.
  
  
• Masters and Lamon… are now increasingly using [their] ads to attack each other. A new ad from the Save Arizona PAC claims Lamon is “associated with forced slave labor” in China and that his company imported supplies from Chinese markets.
  
  
• The new ad from Saving Arizona aired nearly 80 times in two days this week across the Phoenix market, according to AdImpact. It started airing just a day after Lamon’s campaign pulled one of their ads where a supporter of the businessman says Lamon has “always opposed China,” adding, “don’t believe Blake Masters or his pro-China, big tech billionaire.”
  

Arizona Republic: Arizona Republican Senate debate features digs on Blake Masters, Mark Brnovich

• Arizona’s Republican Senate candidates took turns hitting each other’s backgrounds Thursday.
  
  
• The sharpest blows landed on Blake Masters over his support from billionaire Peter Thiel and his ties to Facebook.
  
  
• Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich accused Masters of being “beholden to an industry.” Former solar power executive Jim Lamon alluded to Thiel spending $13 million to help Masters and made a similar point.
  
  
• “Do we really need that to buy a seat for Arizona from California?” Lamon asked. “The last thing we need to take on Big Tech is somebody from Big Tech.”
  
  
• Some in the crowd at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix heckled Brnovich as he defended his office’s work to protect against election fraud, the issue that led former President Donald Trump to recently endorse Masters and rip Brnovich. Brnovich responded angrily.
  
  
• The forum… was the first time all five of the GOP candidates appeared on stage together and grew increasingly tense as the debate wore on.
  
  
• Masters said he favored privatizing Social Security… “We’ve got to cut the knot at some point though, because I’ll tell you what, I’m not going to receive Social Security,” he said. “We need fresh and innovative thinking. Maybe we should privatize Social Security. Private retirement accounts, get the government out of it.”

Breitbart: Exclusive – Ads Hammer Anti-Trump Arizona Senate Candidate Jim Lamon’s Chinese Business Ties

• A pair of brutal ads have hit television airwaves in Arizona exposing the Chinese business ties of businessman Jim Lamon.
  
  
• The first, from a group called Crypto Freedom PAC, hammers Lamon for “managing a group propped up by Obama’s green energy loans” then founding a “new business partnering with Chinese-controlled solar companies.” Lamon’s “profits,” the ad says, were “powered by a Communist red sun.”
  
  
• The buy on this ad, sources familiar with it told Breitbart News, is about $800,000 worth of television spending.
  
  
• The second ad, from the pro-Masters Super PAC, called Saving Arizona PAC, has a gong that is hit every few seconds and a narrator who says Lamon is “China’s candidate.”

• “Lamon’s company imports its supplies from China,” the narrator says. “He helped build nuclear power plants for the Chinese government, associated with forced slave labor, and is using the money he made in China to run for office in Arizona. Jim Lamon, he would be China’s man in the Senate not ours.”
  
  
• The second ad is airing in Arizona with a mid-six-figure buy behind it, sources familiar told Breitbart News.
  
  
• Expect more and more to keep coming out on Lamon’s ties to China.

Business Insider: A Trump-backed Arizona Senate candidate suggests he wants to privatize Social Security

• A Trump-backed Republican Senate candidate in Arizona suggested privatizing Social Security on Thursday, arguing the safety-net program will be long gone by the time he reaches retirement age.

• “We got to cut the knot at some point though because I’ll tell you what, I’m not going to receive Social Security,” GOP Senate primary candidate Blake Masters said at a primary debate hosted by the conservative group FreedomWorks.
  
  
• Masters argued it was time to overhaul the popular program.
  
  
• Masters, a venture capitalist, is among the most conservative candidates in the crowded Arizona GOP primary. He questioned the existence of a gender pay gap and blamed gun violence on Black people earlier this year. He has also promoted Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was rigged.

American Independent: Second Arizona GOP Senate candidate says he backs privatization of Social Security

• The front-runner in the GOP primary to run for Senate in Arizona in November against Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly suggested on June 23 that Social Security should be privatized, an approach to the popular government program that experts say could jeopardize a vital financial lifeline for retired Americans.
  
  
• “Maybe we should privatize Social Security, right? Private retirement accounts, get the government out of it.”
  
  
• Masters is the second GOP candidate running for Senate in Arizona to call for privatizing the overwhelmingly popular government program that provides income to retired and disabled adults, after Republican Jim Lamon.
  
  
• The Arizona Republicans are among a number of GOP candidates running for Senate who support privatizing the program, including New Hampshire GOP candidate Kevin Smith.
  
  
• Social Security is especially important in Arizona, which has a large portion of retirees. It is the second-most popular state for retirees over age 60, behind only Florida, according to AARP, a lobby for older Americans. According to Census Bureau statistics, 18.5% of Arizona’s population is over the age of 65.

NBC News: Trump took entitlements off the table. One of his 2022 candidates just put them back on

• At a candidate forum Thursday in Arizona, a Trump-endorsed Senate candidate — Blake Masters — floated the idea of privatizing Social Security.
  
  
• “Maybe we should privatize Social Security. Private retirement accounts. Get the government out of it.”
  
  

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