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The Rising Porn Actor

Accused of Abuse and
Harassment: ‘He Put Me
in a Suitcase’
#METOO

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Listen to article 13 minutes

O
n a particularly dreary day
in 2015, Heather Vahn
checked her Instagram. “I
was very bored or very
single, and I came across all
the messages,” she recalls.

Her inbox had been bombarded with

dozens of DMs from “Thomas,” a Czech
MY ACCOUNT model with chiseled features and a few

MANAGE NEWSLETTERS thousand followers. He’d been

messaging her for a whole year, with
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS no response. “He doesn’t take ‘no’ for

NEED HELP? an answer,” says Vahn. “Now, I look at

the way other girls are talking about his
pushiness… I have a lot of insight into
that.”
 SUBSCRIBE
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Vahn is seated across from me at The

Daily Beast’s office in Manhattan. She
appears emotionally drained, breaking
down in tears several times during the
course of our conversation. The
popular adult actress, 31, is here to
discuss the horrific cycle of
psychological and physical abuse she
allegedly suffered at the hands of
Tommy Wood, a rising adult film star
who recently had a feature role in the
AVN award-winning Drive, and whom
MY ACCOUNT AVN, the adult industry’s premier trade

MANAGE NEWSLETTERS magazine, recently branded a “fresh

face.”
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS
A little over a week ago, on March 8,
NEED HELP? Vahn tweeted out graphic images of her
bruised body to her 84,000-plus
followers, accompanied by a message:
 “this wasn’t consensual. this happened
SUBSCRIBE
as a result of wanting to ‘talk out’ an
incident and he wanted to sleep and
talk in the morning. When I said no we
talk now – this was my punishment.
THIS MAN IS IN PORN NOW.”

Not found

I Am Deleting This In 10 Mins Cause It’s

Fucking Embarrassing.

this wasn’t consensual. this happened as a

result of wanting to “talk out” an incident
and he wanted to sleep and talk in the
morning. When I said no we talk now - this
was my punishment.
THIS MAN IS IN PORN NOW :(
pic.twitter.com/doR2XItal8
— Heather Vahn (@HeatherVahn) March 8,
2020

While the #MeToo movement has led to

MY ACCOUNT a number of changes within Hollywood

MANAGE NEWSLETTERS and other industries, it has yet to make

a mark on the adult world, where
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS alleged serial abusers not only work

NEED HELP? freely but win heaps of awards. James

Deen, arguably the biggest male star in
porn, has been accused of sexual
assault by over a dozen women but
 recently took home several porn
SUBSCRIBE
“Oscars.” And Markus Dupree, who’s
been accused of abuse by several of the
adult industry’s biggest female stars,
including the late August Ames prior to
her suicide, was just this month made
an “Exclusive Contract Star” by the
adult film studio Brazzers. This
astonishing lack of accountability has
made it difficult for even porn’s biggest
female stars to speak out.

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For Vahn, it was the Dupree news that

MY ACCOUNT inspired her to post about her own

MANAGE NEWSLETTERS alleged abuse. She was browsing

Twitter and came across a fellow
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS performer’s tweet about Ames’ abuse

NEED HELP? allegations against Dupree (“It felt like

rape,” Ames said). “It was like whoa,
because I’d worked with Markus and
 never had a problem with him. It
SUBSCRIBE
triggered me.”

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Vahn reluctantly agreed to give Wood a

shot in 2015, and the two soon began a
full-blown relationship, with the adult
star staying at the male model’s home
in New Jersey. But there were some
early warning signs, she says. “He
started finding things in me he didn’t
agree with, and tearing at my
MY ACCOUNT intelligence,” she remembers. “He
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS would say I’m ‘so stupid’ because I
didn’t know how to do my taxes, things
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS
like that.”
NEED HELP?
She says she became “very subservient”
to him. “I was docile… it took me years
to even try to defend myself.”
 SUBSCRIBE
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MY ACCOUNT

MANAGE NEWSLETTERS “The abuse started small. It started with

SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS shoving in the house, and then he did

this move where he puts his hand over
NEED HELP?
my mouth… then he began putting one
hand on my mouth while the other
hand went around my throat,” she says,
 visibly trembling. “And I would go limp,
SUBSCRIBE
because I’m not a fighter like that. He’s
6-foot-1, and dominant, and scary, and
I’m only 5-foot-3.”

They got into regular arguments over

Wood’s rampant infidelity, she says, as
girls across the world began messaging
Vahn on Instagram saying they’d slept
with him. “The cheating thing started
getting to a place where I was getting
upset often. He didn’t like that, so the
physical stuff started happening more
and more. There was slapping, a lot of
choking, and holding me down with his
body weight,” Vahn tells me. (The Daily
Beast reviewed messages from
numerous women saying they’d slept
with Wood; one woman even expressed
alarm, saying he sneakily removed his
condom during sex.)

Wood proposed that the couple engage

in threesomes, Vahn says, to “help bring
them closer together.” She says she
MY ACCOUNT wasn’t into the idea but gave in to
satisfy his urges. Women began visiting
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS
their home almost daily to have sex
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS with Wood while Vahn says she hung
out in the other room. “How did we get
NEED HELP?
here?” she’d ask herself. “I didn’t like it.
I only like to be with one person,
outside of my work.”
 SUBSCRIBE
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That soon escalated to sex-party orgies.

Again, Vahn says she agreed because it
made Wood happy. “Those were not
necessarily consensual. They were,
because I did those things, but I did it
under pressure. Do this or I’ll leave you.
It was emotionally horrific, and so
exhausting,” she says.

“I would get drunk to deal with the sex,

because we were swinging, and he was
trading me to other couples. I didn’t like
being passed around like a commodity,”
MY ACCOUNT
she continues, tearing up. “Being
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS wasted made things go by. I didn’t like

SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS to be present.”

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At one of these orgies, she says she felt

she was pushed far beyond her
breaking point. Vahn remembers
standing by the doorway smoking a
joint while Wood was engaging in
MY ACCOUNT group sex. A woman beckoned her to
the bed. When she stayed still, Wood
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS
got angry. “Heather, didn’t you hear
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS her? Come into the bed,” she recalls him
telling her. “I gave him daggers for
NEED HELP?
eyes, because ‘no’ means ‘no’ for me.
But he crossed the line that day,” she
says. “Four guys had sex with me, and I
 don’t know where my head was at. My
SUBSCRIBE
eyes stayed closed and I was very limp
a lot, and people didn’t like that.”

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“I feel that I was gang-raped,” she

confesses through tears. “And it’s tough
to say, because I walked into the room.
It’s consensual and non-consensual at
the same time. It’s a loose thing. He’ll
say, you agreed to be there, because you
did this for us. But I did it against every
fiber of my being.”

During the drive home, Vahn says she

MY ACCOUNT
wanted to talk about what had just
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS happened but Wood refused, saying he

SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS was tired. “I couldn’t go to anybody

else,” she says. “Who am I supposed to
NEED HELP? talk to besides my partner, who’s the
only person who knows what I’m going
through?”
 When they got home, Wood said he was
SUBSCRIBE
going to bed. But Vahn wanted to go
over what happened that night, and
how uncomfortable and violated it
made her feel.

“I was standing in the doorway of our

bedroom and he got out of the bed,
grabbed my head, and began jerking it
around. I’m having the thought of, ‘I’m
going to die… he’s going to snap my
neck.’ And—it’s so stupid—I was
worried about him. I was thinking, ‘He’s
going to make a mistake, and if I die
he’s going to go to jail,’” she tearfully
recalls.

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MY ACCOUNT

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“So he did that and went back into the
NEED HELP? bedroom. But he could hear me crying
into the couch in the other room, and so
he’d march back in and say, ‘Shut up!
 I’m trying to sleep!’ He started hitting
SUBSCRIBE
me with pillows, and then he began
grabbing my head and smacking it
against the floor. I looked into his eyes
and saw vacancy there. I’m like, ‘What
are you doing? I love you, why are you
doing this? I don’t understand.’”

I started crying quietly into

the pillow again, and I could
hear his footsteps coming
toward me, so I braced
myself. And I could feel
blows over and over again in
MY ACCOUNT
the same place. And then it
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS

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NEED HELP?
was over.
“He let go of me, and went back into the
bedroom. I started crying quietly into
the pillow again, and I could hear his
 footsteps coming toward me, so I
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braced myself. And I could feel blows
over and over again in the same place.
And then it was over.”

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Vahn took photos of her bruised and

battered body afterward (these were
the ones she posted to Twitter). There
were other violent episodes, she recalls,
including an incident where Wood got
physical with her in an East Village
MY ACCOUNT apartment. “He put me in a suitcase,”
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS Vahn says. The Daily Beast observed a
number of domestic violence incident
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS
reports Vahn filed against Wood, as
NEED HELP? well as nearly 100 photos of bruises,
cuts, and gashes she says were caused
by him.
 In a rambling response to The Daily
SUBSCRIBE
Beast, Wood didn’t deny that he abused
Vahn but said “if in anytime I were ever
to inflict harm or violence to any
individual it would only be out of self-
defense.” He says that Vahn “stalked”
him, “vandalized” his belongings, and
would “hit, scratch, punch and throw
various items at me,” calling theirs a
“toxic relationship.” As for the sex
parties, he says she “would
continuously break down” and that “it
was pretty obvious that she wasn’t the
right person to explore that type of
lifestyle with.”

According to Vahn, Wood pressured her

into signing a document stating that he
never hit or harmed her—and then
took her to his bank and had them
notarize it. “This was an attempt by him
to silence me after beating my ass,” she
says. (The Daily Beast reviewed audio
of Wood admitting to hitting Vahn
while pressuring her to sign the
MY ACCOUNT
document; Wood denies that he
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS pressured her to sign it, calling it a
typical “domestic relationship
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS
agreement.”)
NEED HELP?
 SUBSCRIBE

Courtesy Heather Vahn

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In the days since Vahn posted the

photos of her bruised body to Twitter,
MY ACCOUNT Wood has engaged in an online Twitter
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS campaign against her, posting choppily
edited videos and emails revealing
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS
sensitive personal information,
NEED HELP? including her email address. “He’s been
doxxing me for like… days now,” she
says.
 Then there’s the so-called disclaimer
SUBSCRIBE
video. “Thomas recently posted a video
of me on his Twitter, of me in my
bathtub, saying, ‘This man has never hit
me.’ That video was made under
duress,” she argues. “He said, ‘Say what
I want or I’m never coming home.’ And
I said whatever he wanted me to say,
because I wanted him to come home.
And it was hard. And it was shitty to
make those videos. You can see it in my
eyes, like, why the fuck am I doing this?
It’s like a hostage video. I’m clearly
under duress.” (Wood says Vahn made
those videos “on her own will.”)

Vahn isn’t the only performer in the

adult industry to have issues with
Wood. He’s earned a reputation among
women in porn for pressuring and
harassing them on Instagram to shoot
adult scenes with him (Wood mainly
shoots amateur content but has
MY ACCOUNT recently transitioned into studio porn).

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“He asked me to shoot content with him

for OnlyFans at the end of January
when I was in L.A. I had a bad gut
feeling so I just told him I was too busy.
He was SUPER pushy and aggressive
and didn’t want to take no for an
answer,” says Sydney Leathers. “[He]
kept insisting I had time because he’d
‘only need two hours.’ Seeing Heather’s
post definitely validated the weird
feeling I had about him.”

“There are several known abusers still

working in the business, sadly, so I just
feel like it’s important to call people out
on this shit,” she adds.

Why Porn Has Gotten So

Rough
NSFW

MY ACCOUNT Marlow Stern

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Mia Khalifa on Life After
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Past’
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Marlow Stern
 Another prominent adult star, Bunny
SUBSCRIBE
Colby, says Vahn told her of Wood’s
alleged abuse around the time it
happened, in 2017. “Last year, I started
to see him on Twitter shooting content
with people, and then I put two and two
together,” she says. Since Wood
belonged to a legitimate porn agency,
101 Modeling, he had what Colby calls
“this veil of reputability, because this is
a guy who only shoots content and
doesn’t shoot pro scenes, really.” (When
The Daily Beast reached out to 101
Modeling about Wood, the agency
simply said: “We have
removed Tommy Wood from our site
and no longer represent him. We hope
that the situation finds the proper
ending.”)

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MY ACCOUNT

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NEED HELP?
 Wood sent many, many DMs to Colby
SUBSCRIBE
via Instagram pressuring her to shoot
with him. “I never responded to him. It
was a series of DMs,” she says. “I know
tons of people on Twitter have
complained, whether using his name or
not, that he’s very insistent on shooting
content and will not take no for an
answer, even if it’s directly given.”

One prominent adult star, who declined

to be named out of fear of retaliation,
called Wood “creepy” and says Vahn
texted her photos and videos of Wood’s
alleged abuse years ago. “He bullied me
in real life to have sex with him when I
didn’t want to. I did say OK after he
kept asking (I had spent the night) but
this unfortunately is behavior that I
didn’t recognize at the time as being
wildly inappropriate (rape culture)
behavior,” she says. “Then later on, he
asked me numerous times to shoot
content. I always said no.” (Wood
denies being “creepy” to performers,
MY ACCOUNT
but says “being direct can be viewed
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS wrongly and misinterpreted,” so he’s
since become “more gentle and polite.”)
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS

NEED HELP?
Despite Wood’s online smear campaign,
Vahn says she feels heartened by the
 positive response to her post and is glad
SUBSCRIBE
to be speaking out. She knows that
those in the industry who do can be
branded “difficult” but says she feels it’s
an important step to help move the
culture forward.

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“Things need to change,” she says.

Vahn is also in a much better place

now. On March 9, she wrote, “Hey
everyone, I woke up today and my
Twitter is blown up wow… I have been
holding back for a long time. I feared
MY ACCOUNT
judgement [sic] & humiliation. I’m a
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS shy-type, ya know… on the contrary,

SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS you have my back? thank you.”

NEED HELP?
Marlow Stern
@marlownyc
 Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.
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ELECTIONS
 Blake Masters SUBSCRIBE

Reconsiders His
MAGA Throwdown
Against Kari Lake
MASTER AND COMMANDER
Two ultra-MAGA candidates are on a crash
course for a GOP Arizona Senate seat
nomination. But one of the potential candidates
may be having second thoughts.

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Listen to article 8 minutes
NEED HELP?
 It looked like a MAGA
SUBSCRIBE
match-up for the ages: two
of the most Trump-aligned
Republicans anywhere in
the country—Kari Lake
and Blake Masters—
squaring off against each
other for a shot at the U.S.
Senate seat held by Sen.
Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ).

Lake, the Trump-obsessed

failed gubernatorial
candidate who continues to
deny the 2020 election and
her own 2022 defeat, is all
but certain to launch a
Senate campaign this fall.

Masters, a hard-right Peter

Thiel acolyte who lost his
2022 Senate bid after
running a dark and
dystopian campaign, is
gearing up to launch his
bid for the GOP

MY ACCOUNTnomination, according to a
Wall Street Journal story
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS
last week.

SUBSCRIPTION OFFERSon the GOP ticket

Running

NEED HELP?last year, the two

campaigned across the
state together, with one
Arizona strategist saying
 they “genuinely like[d]
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each other” and “drew
very close” on the
campaign trail.

RNC Taps
Conway,
Masters for
‘Review’ After
Midterms Flub
BACK TO THE
DRAWING BOARD

But the 37-year old Masters

was known to be itching
for another shot at the
Senate, and the Journal’s
report—which included the
detail he had already taped
his campaign video—
suggested he’d be willing to
take on his old friend in
order to get there.

MY ACCOUNTSuddenly, however,
sources close to Masters
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS
are doubting whether he
will go through with a
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS
campaign that would entail
NEED HELP?a brutal cage match of a
primary fight against his
former ally.
 “Look, I don’t think he’s
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running,” a Republican
operative who’s spoken
with Masters about the
matter told The Daily
Beast. “I always thought
this was a trial balloon.”

“Quite frankly, he’s never

publicly acknowledged that
he wants to get into the
race,” the operative added.
“There is not one
comment.”

Another source close to the

2022 Senate candidate
agreed that Masters might
be reconsidering a
campaign, while a third
GOP source said it would
be surprising if he went
through with it.

Arizona Republican
operative Barrett Marson
told The Daily Beast he isn’t
MY ACCOUNTconvinced that Masters will
run for the seat.
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS
“I’m
SUBSCRIPTION not buying it yet,”
OFFERS
Mason said.
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On Saturday, The New York
Times reported that
Masters and Trump had a
 “blunt” phone call last
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Sunday when the former
president laced into
Masters over not
promoting claims of
election fraud.

“Look at Kari—Kari’s
winning with very little
money,” Trump said to
Masters, according to The
Times. “And if they say,
‘How is your family?’ She
says, ‘The election was
rigged and stolen.’ You’ll
lose if you go soft. You’re
going to lose that base.”

The report also claimed

Masters has been
questioning behind the
scenes whether or not Lake
will actually run for the
seat.

A source close to Lake fired

back on that point.
MY ACCOUNT
"Blake Masters was
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outspent by $70 million
dollars
SUBSCRIPTION and completely
OFFERS
reliant on a single Big Tech
NEED HELP?benefactor,” Lake’s senior
adviser, Caroline Wren,
told The Daily Beast, taking
a swipe at Thiel. “If he
 believes that the party
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needs someone with a
proven ability to fund-
raise, then he's not the
guy.”

How a Trumpy
Billionaire Is
Reshaping
Campaigns
THIELBUCKS
Roger Sollenberger

Masters didn’t return

multiple Daily Beast
requests for comment on
this story inquiring about
his plans. Adding to the
confusion, some
Republican insiders told
The Daily Beast they do
believe that Masters will
ultimately run.

MY ACCOUNTBut the consensus within

Arizona GOP circles was
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS
that Masters is a lot further
from
SUBSCRIPTION jumping in than it
OFFERS
may have seemed.
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Why exactly Masters might
reconsider a run is unclear.
Within Trump’s orbit, there
 is a sense that it would be
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highly difficult for him to
defeat Lake in a primary—
and that it would be
difficult for him to win the
former president’s
endorsement over her.
Notably, Trump endorsed
both Lake and Masters in
their respective primaries
last year, adding
complexity to the dynamics
if they were to both enter
the race.

Beyond that, it’s not

inevitable that Masters’
biggest benefactor, Thiel,
would help him in 2024 as
much as he did in 2022,
when he spent $17 million
to support his campaign.
His five-point defeat to Sen.
Mark Kelly (D) was one of
the GOP’s biggest
disappointments of last
MY ACCOUNTyear’s midterm election,
and his campaign attracted
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS
national attention for its
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS
gloomy tone and the
candidate’s own far-right
NEED HELP?
beliefs.

Whatever decision Masters

makes, it will significantly
 shape one of the marquee
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Senate contests of 2024,
which could easily sway
party control of the
chamber next year. In
Arizona, the GOP could
benefit from an unusual
general election
environment, in which the
centrist Sinema runs as an
independent and Rep.
Ruben Gallego as the
Democratic nominee.
(Sinema has not yet
announced her plans.)

A nasty and expensive

primary between Lake and
Masters, however, could
harm the GOP’s chances.
But some Republicans
worry that Lake is so toxic
in a general election that
handing her the
nomination would ensure
the race is over before it
MY ACCOUNTbegins.

MANAGE NEWSLETTERS
“She’s a guaranteed L,” said
Chuck Coughlin, a longtime
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS
GOP strategist and pollster
NEED HELP?in the state. “She can’t win
a general election.”
 Despite Masters’
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drawbacks as a candidate,
observers like Coughlin see
him as someone who could
at least keep the race
competitive for
Republicans—if he
rebrands himself.

“This is not going to be

easy, but is there a lane
there that permits him to
frame his candidacy
around someone who can
win the seat,” Coughlin
said. “He ran against a
much better candidate
than she did. He was much
more competitive with
Kelly than she could be
with a Gallego or a
Sinema.”

Lake’s supposed allies in

Trumpworld may know it
too—despite the chatter

MY ACCOUNTthat the former president

would back her again or
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS
even consider her as his
2024 vice presidential
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS
candidate.
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“It’s hard to see Blake
beating her in a primary,” a
Trump adviser said. “So the
 hope is that Kari finally
SUBSCRIBE
gets serious about running
a real campaign with
competent help, rather
than the goofballs and
drama queens she’s had
around her before.”

Kari Lake’s
Lawyers to
Foot $122K Bill
for ‘Frivolous’
Suit
F*CK AROUND AND
FIND OUT

“Everyone loves Blake. He’s

brilliant and is a true
believer in the MAGA
issues,” this Trump adviser
added. “But it’s impossible
to deny Kari is a
charismatic talent and also
got closer to winning than
MY ACCOUNTBlake did last time.”

MANAGE NEWSLETTERS
Likewise, an operative
close to the Trump
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS
campaign wondered what
NEED HELP?Trump would get out of
endorsing Lake or Masters
early in the primary.
 “What does he gain out of
SUBSCRIBE
endorsing in the race?” this
source said.

But some in Trump’s orbit

are wary enough of Lake
that they’ve quietly tried to
recruit her 2022 GOP
primary rival, Karrin
Taylor Robson, into the
Senate race. Robson has
publicly said she will not
run, but one Trump-
aligned operative recently
reached out to her to urge
her to reconsider,
according to a source
familiar with the call. The
source added Robson
remains committed to not
running for the seat.

A Trump-friendly GOP
stalwart, Robson is seen as
a candidate who could
unite party factions and

MY ACCOUNTcompete in a general
election—in part thanks to
MANAGE NEWSLETTERS
her family’s immense
wealth. Robson narrowly
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS
lost to Lake in the 2022
NEED HELP?governor primary after
spending $15 million of her
family’s fortune in the race.
 Neither a Lake
SUBSCRIBE
spokesperson nor a Trump
spokesperson returned The
Daily Beast’s requests for
comment on this story.

According to two sources

familiar with the matter,
Trump hasn’t decided who
he might support in a Lake-
Masters showdown. Lake,
of course, has not even
entered the race yet, with
one source aware of her
plans saying she is
targeting an October
campaign launch date.

With the race potentially

evolving into a nasty
MAGAworld battle, some
Trumpworld operatives
have sought to avoid the
race altogether.

As for Lake’s team, they’ve

already begun attacking
MY ACCOUNTMasters.

MANAGE NEWSLETTERS
At the end of August, a
Lake
SUBSCRIPTION campaign “WarRoom”
OFFERS
Twitter account ripped into
NEED HELP?Masters for joining a
Twitter Spaces
conversation with Arizona
 state House candidate
SUBSCRIBE
Andrew Jackson.

Jackson, a pastor who is

known for interviewing
Arizona political notables,
was a supporter of Lake’s
but has since taken issue
with her approach to
alleged election
irregularities.

“It’s great to have you back,

Blake!” the account wrote.
“We hope your next
interview is with someone
who has not spent the last
9 months smearing Kari.”

Lake herself tagged

Masters for a follow-up
tweet, saying: “I hope you
bring up election fraud,
and Election crime. You’ve
been quite silent. And ‘Dr’
Andrew doesn’t think it
exists.” (For good measure,
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emojis to her tweet.)
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“She
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me personally,” Jackson
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for comment on Lake’s
team taking aim at him.
“I’m for election integrity.”
 Jackson also took issue
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with Lake’s blanket
allegation of “election
crime” in the 2020 election.

“Personal names are being

used and said they’re
criminals,” Jackson said.
“And I’m just saying,
constitutionally, I could
never call somebody a
criminal unless it’s proven
in a court of law.”

Zachary Petrizzo
Politics Reporter
@ZTPetrizzo
zachary.petrizzo@thedailybeast.com

Sam Brodey
Deputy Politics Editor
@sambrodey
Sam.Brodey@thedailybeast.com

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