RIFLE — Lauren Boebert has never had a problem challenging the status quo.
Visit her restaurant ‘Shooters Grill’ in Rifle and you’ll quickly see most of the staff is packing heat.
“It keeps that feeling of the old west alive. The customers have their jokes with the waitresses, if I don’t tip are you going to hurt me?” Boebert told FOX31 during a visit back in 2019.
However, most Coloradans first saw Boebert in September of 2019 when television cameras recorded her confronting then presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke about his plan to buy back people’s AR-15’s.
“With my glock on my hip I looked him in the eye and said ‘hell no, you’re not.’ I did that because I didn’t see anyone else doing it,” Boebert said.
Boebert has continued to fight, defeating five time incumbent Congressman Scott Tipton in the primary election. The win got the attention of President Trump.
“It was amazing. President Trump got on the phone and said ‘Lauren, you are really great. I have professionals in my office saying what happened?” she explained.
Boebert got to meet President Trump during a Fourth of July celebration at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. She says she thanked him for everything he’s done for our country.
“I am the battle tested MAGA candidate. I knew from the beginning I was more MAGA than my opponent,” she said.
Boebert couldn’t name any issues she disagrees with the President on.
While she may not be trying to distance herself in any way from the President, she is trying to separate herself from a far right wing conspiracy theory movement called QAnon.
Boebert has been criticized for appearing to sympathize with the movement, which has supported debunked theories that the Clintons and several other prominent Democrats are involved in a human trafficking and child sex ring, and that there’s a deep state working to undermine President Trump.
“I believe there are people working in the administration that at least appear to be actively undermining President Trump,” Boebert said.
However, while she supports a few of QAnon’s theories, Boebert says she is not a QAnon sympathizer.
“No. I’m not a follower. This is just a fake attack from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee,” she said. “QAnon is a lot of things to different people. I was very vague in what I said before. I’m not into conspiracies. I’m into freedom and the Constitution of the United States of America. I’m not a follower,” she said.
Last month, Boebert also made headlines when she defied public health orders and kept her restaurant open during COVID-19. Her restaurant had its license revoked for about a week.
“This was always about making payroll,” she said.