BUCK: Joined as promised by Senate candidate in the great state of Arizona, Blake Masters. Mr. Masters, good to have you back on the show, sir.

MASTERS: Always good to be with you.

BUCK: So, you are ahead in some of the polling we have seen, which is fascinating because we heard Mr. Astronaut Mark Kelly was unbeatable, not seeming like that right now.

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A vote for Mark Kelly is a vote for violent crime. pic.twitter.com/8ha866Rh1z

— Blake Masters (@bgmasters) October 18, 2022

MASTERS: Yeah, that turns out to be fake news. Most Arizonans. Surprise, surprise. They don’t like a wide open southern border. They don’t like illegal immigration or fentanyl or paying too much for gas or groceries. They don’t like violent crime, which is surging ever since Mark Kelly took office. So people are going to vote for change in a big way here in just two weeks.

CLAY: So, Blake, appreciate you coming on. And for people out there in Arizona, obviously you’ve got a lot of big races that are taking place, including the governor’s race. But I tweeted out, I think you saw it, I’d love to watch the gambling markets. And early last week, for the first time in your campaign, you took the lead. In other words, where people are putting money down, it’s neck and neck, basically dead even back and forth in both the polling and the gambling odds. Are you seeing on the ground a sort of an upswell in support for Republicans as you travel around the state of Arizona?

MASTERS: Absolutely. Our grassroots is fired up. We are activated. I think people are excited. They feel the energy that they see the polling tightening up. And this is if you believe the polling, right? I think the honest pollsters, yeah, they have this race, you know, neck and neck right now. But the especially honest ones admit. there’s a lot of Republicans that are answering those calls. You know, why would you confess your political opinions to a stranger? And in a climate where you’ve got President Biden up on TV calling you a fascist, a threat to democracy if you believe in the border wall or if you want to support the police. So I even think the polls might be underestimating the support. But I can tell you on the ground anecdotally, people in Arizona are fired up for this chance to save our state and save our country.

BUCK: So the biggest issues in all the polling — and we’re speaking to Blake Masters, who is running for Senate in Arizona. Biggest issues are obvious. And it’s clear in all the polling. Right. It’s the economy, border/immigration, and crime. Those three and some version — depends on whether they break down inflation and the economy. Two separate things, but those three are the big three. How do you differ from Mark Kelly on those four? For the Arizonans who are listening right now who are thinking, you know, Blake’s new, what do you do differently or what would you do differently from Mark Kelly?

MASTERS: I will actually try and succeed at securing the border. You know, Mark Kelly, he hems and haws and says, “Oh, I’ve done all that one person can.” No, he’s done nothing. He’s voted in lockstep for Joe Biden’s open borders policies. It really is that simple. He doesn’t believe in a border. If the Mexican drug cartel terrorists, if they could vote in this election, 100% of them would vote for Mark Kelly because he gives them everything they want. They don’t want me in there. I’m actually going to secure the border. Mark Kelly also went along with all of Biden’s crazy spending. They printed $6 trillion and spent it in the last year.

Well, that causes inflation. When the government prints a trillion bucks and makes every dollar in your wallet worth less and less, normal people understand that very well. And when we tell people, hey, Mark Kelly pretends to stand up to Joe Biden, but that’s fake. It’s a lie. In D.C., he rubber stamps Biden’s agenda. He’s caused this inflation. Get me in there. I will block Biden’s demented spending and his crazy America Last energy policies that have caused all this inflation.

Today is a great day to vote LAKE, BLAKE, & ABE!

(& Mark, Kevin, Yee, Nick, Paul)

Go to https://t.co/jqmkMCN0Qf to find your polling location, golden ticket, and proposition info! #Election2022 #VoteRed #LeadRight pic.twitter.com/mnmYgIVNbb

— Republican Party of Arizona (@AZGOP) October 24, 2022

It really is simple. If you like open borders and you like crime and you like inflation, there’s a U.S. Senate candidate for you in Arizona. His name’s Mark Kelly. He’s delivered all these problems. He’ll make them worse if you give him any more time in office. But if you think you and your family deserve better, hey, vote for me. I’m the change.

CLAY: Blake, we watched your debate against Mark Kelly, and, frankly, you eviscerated him, and at times he seemed uncomfortable even with the fact that the the debate was going on. I think you’re only debating once. Is he basically now in that sort of Democrat hide in the basement election strategy? We know you’re out everywhere all over the state. What is his strategy at this point in the wake of what was a devastating debate performance for him?

MASTERS: Absolutely. He’s hiding away in the basement. He rejected a one-on-one debate offer from CNN, right? Jake Tapper was probably going to moderate that. Jake Tapper throwing softballs at Mark Kelly. No, his team decided that was too dangerous. I’ll debate, any time, any place, anywhere. But after that debate that you watched, you see why Mark Kelly doesn’t want to do it again, right? His record’s indefensible. And I wasn’t going to let him get away with lying. So, all he’s doing now is hiding away. He’s got a lot of money to to run fancy TV ads, right? But he’s got to lie. He’s got to lie about me to slander me. And he has to lie about his own record.

CLAY: Speaking of money… speaking of the money there, Blake, how much has he outspent you in this race and his allies compared to what you’ve been able to put into the race to get it even where you are right now? How much of a money monetary disadvantage have you had?

MASTERS: I think Mark Kelly’s raised about 60, 65 million. I’ve raised about 10 million. So, all-in they’ve spent, the Democrats have spent about 90 million propping Mark Kelly up and lying about me and Republicans in our race. We’ve spent about 20 or 30. So we’re getting outspent by a pretty heavy multiple. But again, the reason why we’re going to win is we have the best message. All we have to do is tell the truth. And the truth is Mark Kelly, he promised to be independent. Oops. Turns out he lied and it hasn’t worked. He’s backed Biden’s agenda. It’s a failure. I’m going to go and block Biden. We’re going to secure the border. And it turns out that’s what people want, just commonsense Republican policies to stop this insanity.

BUCK: Blake, when you hear Nancy Pelosi, for example, trying to shift the conversation away from inflation just because it’s so bad for Democrats, and then you hear other Democrats, whether in the media or elected office, saying, well, it’s a global problem, really, Biden had nothing to do with it, you come from a finance background, ow does that talking point sound? It’s not Biden’s fault. He had nothing to do with it. How does that strike you?

“They took gas from $2 to $6 and now they want a prize because it’s back down to $5.” – @bgmasters pic.twitter.com/nSgNsQVZzu

— Morgan Ortagus (@MorganOrtagus) October 19, 2022

MASTERS: Well, they are other complete morons or they know exactly what they’re doing and they’re lying to you, right? Biden caused this inflation. We know this because two years ago, what was inflation? It was like one and a half percent. You didn’t even have to think about it, right? The economy is working. Biden, the first thing he did was cancel the Keystone pipeline, right? He declared war on American energy. What did these geniuses think was going to happen to the price of energy when you declare war on oil and gas in a country that’s mostly powered by oil and gas? They took gas from $2 to $6. Now they want a prize because it’s closer to $5 in the greater Phoenix metro, mostly because Biden is, of course, selling out oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But when they made energy expensive, they made everything in the economy expensive because literally everything takes energy to make or to move.

So, that’s half the inflation. That’s the left hook. And then the right hook was, again, what these geniuses think was going to happen. They printed $6 trillion in the last 21 months, and that just makes every dollar in your wallet work less and less. They caused this inflation. They took it from one and a half percent in Phoenix to 13%. And it’s crushing people. It’s destroying seniors’ retirements. The Democrats caused this inflation. And if you want more of it, vote for Democrats this fall.

BUCK: Where can people donate to help your campaign in its final stretch your last two weeks.

MASTERS: Very simple. Just go to BlakeMasters.com, chip in five or ten bucks we can win this thing.

BUCK: Blake Masters, critical seat, Clay.