INTERVIEW: AZ GOP Senate Candidate Blake Masters Talks Border Crisis, Big Tech, Election Integrity, And More

In July, 35-year-old Blake Masters, who is Chief Operating Officer of Thiel Capital and president of The Thiel Foundation, announced his candidacy for Senate in Arizona.

Should Masters win the Republican primary next August, he will face off against Democratic Senator Mark Kelley in November 2022. According to a third-quarter Federal Elections Commission (FEC) filing, Masters has raised more than $1.1 million.

On Monday, I had the opportunity to speak with Masters about a variety of topics, including big tech, border security, the future of the U.S., election integrity, and so much more.

Below is the full interview (which you can listen to via the SoundCloud embed, or read via the provided transcript).

Q: Can you tell me a little bit about your background and why you decided to jump into politics now?

MASTERS: Sure. Well, I grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and actually met my wife in middle school here. And, you know, was in Tucson through high school, went to Stanford and Stanford Law School, after which I started to work in Silicon Valley, I published a book on startups and entrepreneurship with Peter Thiel, and then started working with him. I run his family office now. But I moved back to Arizona from California in late 2017, by mid- 2018, I was back in Arizona full time. And so I had this, I guess, front row seat to watching both Arizona Senate seats flip blue, which was crazy. I don’t need to tell you how crazy that is. It doesn’t reflect where the state is at. And so, you know, I’ve gotten to do a whole lot in my career, and I really enjoy what I do now, but as soon as Mark Kelly won in 2020, or was declared the winner, I knew that he was going to be bad. You know, we have a 50/50 Senate right now, and I think once the Democrats actually get control, implement their agenda, right, court packing and adding new states to the union and federalizing elections, I think America’s over, frankly, and so it feels like the most important thing that I could be doing right now is to dive in, because I know I can take the Senate seat back from Mark Kelly and from the Democrats.

Q: So there are already seven candidates, not including yourself, in the primary, including, I guess, arguably the most high profile in Mark Brnovich. What makes

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