Trump endorses Thiel-backed Senate candidate Blake Masters, calls Attorney General Brnovich 'such a disappointment'

• Trump endorsed Blake Masters, a self-described nationalist backed by millions in funding from Peter Thiel.
• Masters is running for the US Senate in Arizona and has claimed that Trump won the 2020 election.

Former President Donald Trump endorsed Blake Masters, the former president of the Thiel Foundation, in the Republican Senate primary in Arizona on Thursday.

Touting Masters' investment and business career, Trump labeled Masters a "great modern-day thinker" while highlighting the Senate candidate's stated belief that the former president won the 2020 presidential election.

"Blake knows that the 'Crime of the Century' took place, he will expose it and also, never let it happen again," said Trump. "It is my great honor to give Blake Masters my Complete and Total Endorsement!"

But while Trump did note aspects of Masters' personal biography — including his Stanford University education and his co-authorship of "Zero to One" with tech billionaire Peter Thiel — much of his endorsement message served as a condemnation of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich.

"Mark Brnovich is such a disappointment to me," said Trump. "While he understands what took place in the 2020 Presidential Election, and that it was Rigged and Stolen, he only views it as something he would like not to see happen again."

Brnovich has generally led in polling of the primary race thus far, though Trump made clear in a statement weeks ago that he would not be endorsing the attorney general. Trump has frequently expressed frustration that Brnovich has not more forcefully pursued baseless claims of a stolen 2020 election in the state.

A recent analysis by Insider found that Trump-endorsed candidates in competitive races receive 63.5% of the vote on average.

Thiel — a tech billionaire and increasingly prolific Republican who also backed JD Vance in the Ohio Republican Senate primary — has contributed $13.5 million to date towards an outside spending effort on behalf of Masters's candidacy.

Masters, a self-described "nationalist" and populist who says he believes the country is run by "psychopaths," is running for elected office for the first time, though he served on Trump's 2016 transition team alongside Thiel.

He also recently declared that the gender pay gap is a "fake left-wing narrative" because men do "the most dangerous jobs."