An Interview With Tomi Lahren on 2024, ‘Tin Foil Hat’ Election Theories and Trump’s Legacy After Jan. 6

Tomi Lahren, the Outkick host and conservative firebrand, joined me for this week’s episode of The Interview. We discussed her career, the 2024 presidential campaign, why she prefers Ron DeSantis over Donald Trump, the former president’s stolen election claims, and her Covid commentary.

Lahren’s whirlwind career started, of all places, at OANN when she was just 21 years old. She was swiftly picked up by The Blaze, where her viral commentary catapulted her to internet fame, and eventually she landed, as many conservative influencers of note do, at Fox News. From there, she became one of the faces of Fox streaming service Fox Nation before shuffling over to Outkick — a successful sports and politics website run by Clay Travis and owned by Fox — where she continues to deliver fiery commentary to a large audience.

“I wish that Donald Trump would not have run again,” Lahren told me. She may be known as an ardent supporter of the former president, but the chaotic ending to his last administration and his handling of Covid prompted her to look outside the MAGA tent. She still considers herself a Trump backer, but prefers the governor of Florida for the 2024 nomination.

“I think had he not run again, he would go down as one of the greatest presidents in American history, by the numbers, I think he would have,” she said. “I think that he left a great legacy that unfortunately at the end got a little squirrely for more reasons than one. January 6 being one, the handling of Covid being another.”

The Make America Great Again platform “has to” exist without Trump, Lahren argued, and she thinks DeSantis is the best fit to carry on that legacy.

“Do I think [2024] should be a battle of the elderly? No,” she said.

Lahren has been critical of the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol. In the wake of the riot, she called them “anarchist animals.”

Now, Lahren has some odd theories about that day. When I pressed her on what the riot means for Trump’s legacy, she suggested the rioters were not actually Trump supporters.

“There are questions remaining if all of those people were Trump supporters,” she said. “I could put on a Biden hat right now. It doesn’t mean I’m a Biden supporter.”

I pointed out that there aren’t really any questions remaining as to whether the rioters were Trump supporters. Beyond the obvious information we had at the time (the fact that these people, decked out in MAGA hats and waving Trump flags, attended a Trump rally before storming the Capitol in an effort to overturn the 2020 election) we now have mountains of evidence from the many prosecutions of the rioters proving that they were in fact Trump supporters furious about the election.

Lahren herself was once a proponent of the election lie that fueled the riot. When the race was called for Joe Biden in November 2020, she posted on Twitter: “Stolen election. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.”

Now, she just wants Trump to let 2020 go.

“We’ve got to move on,” she said. “We’ve got to look forward. I don’t care if you think that this election was stolen. If you want to wear a tinfoil hat, I don’t care. That’s fine. Believe that. But it’s not going to win the next election.”

We also discussed her commentary on Covid, which recently saw Outkick temporarily locked out of its YouTube account. Lahren took to Twitter last month to call out the video platform.

“So Outkick has been locked out of YouTube due to Clay and I rightfully pointing out the Covid vax is basically worthless,” she wrote. I asked what she meant by that.

“Exactly that,” she replied. “The vaccine is basically worthless. So if it doesn’t prevent infection or spread, it’s basically worthless, is it not?”

The vaccine is, of course, not basically worthless. It may not entirely prevent infection, but it has been proven time and time again to significantly reduce hospitalizations and deaths.

At the height of the Covid pandemic, you were 11 times more likely to die from the virus if you were unvaccinated. Even now, long after many Americans received their Covid shots, the unvaccinated are dying at a much higher rate than vaccinated Americans. When I presented that information to Lahren, she was undeterred.

“Well, I would disagree with you on that,” she said.

Watch a clip from the interview above. Download the full episode here, and subscribe to The Interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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