Fox News host Brian Kilmeade says Trump's claim he won Arizona in 2020 is an 'outright lie'

• Fox News host Brian Kilmeade has rejected Trump's Arizona election fraud claim.
• He described Trump's claim he won the swing state as an "outright lie."

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade said on air that Donald Trump's claim he won Arizona in the 2020 presidential election is an "outright lie" and the former president is wasting the time of supporters with bogus election fraud claims.

Kilmeade on his Fox News Radio show Monday took a call from a Trump voter concerned about the former president's fixation on his groundless claim that the election in 2020 was stolen from him as a result of a vast plot by his political foes.

The voter, called Logan, said he was concerned that Trump's obsession with the conspiracy theory could cost Republicans in the mid-terms in November — and Kilmeade agreed.

"There is so much to talk about that matters to you and I, Logan, right now about what's happening in the Ukraine, how China is just forgetting about phase one, how they're beginning to militarize everything around them, about to take Taiwan back," Kilmeade said.

"That's what people wanna talk about. It's not hard stuff."

The host addressed Trump's claim that he was the real winner in the swing state of Arizona — a claim that was further discredited last year when a GOP-backed audit found that Joe Biden's win in Maricopa County had in fact been larger than initial vote counts found.

Earlier audits commissioned by state Republican lawmakers had also found no evidence to substantiate the claim.

"Nobody cares about 2020. Nobody. And everything that he said and the challenges that he made should have been done before the election. And they did a recount in Arizona, and the recount showed no difference almost, and he came out and said it showed that they won Arizona," Kilmeade said.

That's an outright lie, and please stop wasting our time with that, because he's capable of doing so much more."

Fox News hosts have long been among the former president's closest media allies and during his presidency would rarely push back against his claims.

But the network is currently embroiled in a multi-billion dollar lawsuit with election machine companies after hosting Trump allies in 2020 who falsely claimed the machines had been used in a plot to fix the election (Fox News has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit from one company, Smartmatic.). Some hosts are now pushing back against the election fraud claims.

During Trump's time in office Kilmeade would frequently take part in softball interviews with the president as host of Fox & Friends, Trump's favorite breakfast show. But in recent weeks he has criticized Trump's election fraud claims and says Republicans need to learn to lose.

Kilmeade's comments echo the concerns of some Republicans that the former president is denting their chances of electoral success going forward with his fixation with his defeat in the 2020 election.

They believe that Trump's claims the voting system is fixed could dissuade supporters from casting their ballot, and that Trump is ignoring core issues that are more prominent in voters' minds.