‘Freedom Is Worth Losing Friends Over’: Arizona GOP Senate Candidate Fires Back After Best Man Slams Him For Saying COVID Vaccine Mandates Are Evil | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Hank Berrien.

    A leading GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate seat in Arizona, blasted for calling COVID mandates "evil" by the man who had been the best man at his wedding, fired back that he wished his best man well, but retorted, "Freedom is worth losing friends over."

    Blake Masters, the Chief Operating Officer of Thiel Capital and president of The Thiel Foundation, is running for the Arizona Senate seat. Masters is challenging incumbent Democrat senator Mark Kelly in 2022 for one of the seats that could determine whether the GOP can regain control of the United States Senate. He told The Associated Press in July, "I fear that we are losing the country. I want my kids to grow up in an America that works like the one I grew up in. I want them to grow up in a country that I still recognize."

    On Thursday night, following the Biden administration's announcement setting Jan. 4 as the deadline for companies with 100 or more employees to mandate COVID vaccinations or start weekly testing of their workers, he tweeted, "covid vaccine mandates are evil."

    That prompted Collin Wedel, whom Masters stated had been the best man at Masters' wedding, to snap on Twitter, "Shame on you. I'm so utterly disappointed in what you've done with yourself. People will get sick, and die, from your reckless rhetoric. As someone who loves and use to respect you: What happened to you?"

    Masters fired back, "Collin was a best friend growing up. He told me about the famous class where I met Peter Thiel, and he was best man at my wedding. The most deadly virus we face is progressivism, it rots both brains and nations. I wish Collin well - but freedom is worth losing friends over."

    In early October, the Pima County Democratic Party in Arizona attacked Masters, saying "There is no border crisis" after Masters had pointed out the porous nature of the border wall by showing where it simply stopped, allowing drug cartels to monitor the border and instruct their agents when to cross.

    The Pima County Democratic Party tweeted, "Hey @bgmasters-this is actually what our border region looks like. It is not some imaginary, cosplay, video game, that you like refer to as a 'Kill Zone' - it is a diverse, beautiful, and thriving community. #BorderTown #TheBigBorderLie#ThereIsNoBorderCrisis#QnutsZ."

    Masters fired back: "Wow. AZ Democrats are going with 'There is no border crisis.' They can't defend 200k+ illegal crossings every month, so they just ignore it and call you a racist if you talk about it."

    He continued:

    *Everyone knows there is a crisis.* The problem is so bad the Biden admin had to lie and say a couple border guards were whipping Haitians - after the story was totally debunked - just to end the news cycle. And the logic here is hilarious. Most war zones are literally also just nature if you go there when there's no fighting. This is like standing by a brunch spot in chicago and saying "see there's no homicide problem" Good luck in 2022 gang.

    Prior to the Pima County Democratic Party attacking Masters, he had tweeted video of himself climbing up the hill adjacent to the border wall to show where it ended, then tweeted, "This hilltop, about 100m into Mexico, is a cartel observation post. A scout peaked (sic) his head out to scope us out, but ducked away before I could get a photo. From here, he can observe about 50 miles of border. He tells his drug and human smuggler buddies when to cross."

    "... our southern border is also the biggest crime scene in the United States," he stated. "Every household in this photo knows what it's like to have cartel operators cross their land with near impunity."

    He added, "1. Finish the wall 2. Hire and train thousands more border patrol agents. Pay them well and support them 3. Technology. Cameras, sensors, drones, the works. What we need is simple, but Joe Biden and Mark Kelly want the opposite. Which is why we're going to win big in 2022."

    The Wall Street Journal reported on September 10 that Cochise County Republican Sheriff Mark Dannels' "department operates 600 cameras that monitor trails in Cochise, Santa Cruz and Pima Counties. Since Jan. 1, they've spotted 21,000 illegals entering the country. But the apprehension rate is only 39%."

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