Kari Lake says she's tired of 'beta men' and we need 'alphas' like Trump: Republican stirs up CPAC after bribery tape scandal and claims people 'back east', big pharma and Wall Street are running the country

Conservative hardliner Kari Lake said the nation needs more men like Donald Trump when she addressed a major MAGA gathering on Saturday.

She described how a year ago she stood in the same spot and described how a party official tried to bribe her to stay out of politics, before saying she liked the 'bull in a china shop ideology.'

'We got way too many weaklings out there,' she told the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in the Washington, D.C. suburbs.

'Let me hear from the ladies out there. We're tired of the beta men. We want some alpha men. We got a number one alpha man in Donald J. Trump.'

Trump is the star turn on Saturday, before he heads to South Carolina, where he is expected to deliver another drubbing to Nikki Haley in the state's Republican primary. 

Conservative hardliner Kari Lake said the nation needs more men like Donald Trump when she addressed a major MAGA gathering on Saturday

But Lake was another big attraction for conservatives gathered at CPAC. She emerged as a national figure in 2022 after losing her run to be Arizona governor and then claiming the election was rigged against her.

She launched a run for the U.S. Senate last year.

In January, DailyMail.com published an audio recording revealing how the chairman of the state Republican Party tried to get her to step out of politics for two years in return for money or a plum job.

In it, Jeff DeWit could be heard saying that he represented 'powerful people back east.' He resigned days after the audio emerged.

Lake riffed on the idea of 'powerful back east' as the idea why she should be elected to Washington.

'Here's the problem. Wall Street has very powerful people back east who are making deals for them,' she said.

'Big Pharma has very powerful people back east, making deals for them. Military Industrial Complex has very powerful people. 

'You know what? I think it's about damn time that the people of this country, the American people, have some powerful people back east working for them.'

People write on a Trump themed bus at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2024, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, Maryland

CPAC has long been regarded as one of the most influential gatherings of conservatives in the world. These days it is part of former President Donald Trump's power base

She spoke a little ahead of Trump who is expected to offer supporters a vision of four years under his presidency compared with four more under President Joe Biden.

'Believe me when I offer you another warning: If Crooked Joe and his thugs win in 2024, the worst is yet to come,' he will say.

Polls suggest South Carolina's electorate will give a huge boost to Trump on Saturday. An average maintained by the FiveThirtyEight website suggests the former president could win by a margin of 30 points in the state where Haley served as governor.

She has promised to fight on in the race whatever happens and has kept up her attacks on the frontrunner.