Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ A freedom-focused lawyer could be the next chairman of the Republican National Committee： an interview with Harmeet K. Dhillon

00:00:00.000 tonight meet the freedom lawyer who just might be the next chairman of the republican national

00:00:20.220 committee a feature interview with harmeet dylan it's december 27th and this is the ezra

00:00:25.300 levante show shame on you you censorious bug

00:00:32.380 harmeet dylan is one of my favorite people such a great pundit you probably recognize her from tv

00:00:46.020 if you watch any american tv she's often on shows like tucker carlson tonight talking about

00:00:51.180 republican matters legal matters freedom of speech she's everywhere on tv but she also runs a very

00:00:57.600 busy freedom oriented law practice one of the few to do so almost exclusively in fact she set up a 0.60

00:01:04.240 whole freedom oriented legal defense fund especially active in california during the lockdowns sort of

00:01:10.200 like our canadian version of the democracy fund just amazing i'm very delighted that today she's

00:01:15.940 our guest for the whole show she's next

00:01:18.400 and joining us now is harmeet dylan who i regard as the most important free speech lawyer in america

00:01:34.140 of course she does other things too harmeet great to see you thanks for taking the time to meet with us

00:01:38.660 thanks for having me ezra well i want to disclose to our viewers that you're not just

00:01:43.260 an interesting commentator an expert that we talked to you have in the past actually helped

00:01:48.440 rebel news as a lawyer as we faced battles of free speech and canceled culture so you know we know your

00:01:56.640 work is excellent you're not just a talker you're a doer i don't even know how you get it all done i

00:02:00.960 see you on tucker carlson i see you on the media but for example you were recently on the ground in

00:02:06.080 arizona going toe to toe with democrat lawyers about the the election shenanigans there i don't

00:02:13.460 know how you like you're literally all over america fighting for freedom i don't i don't know how you

00:02:17.640 do it well you know it matters matters on what you prioritize in life so for me it's pretty much

00:02:23.440 family and these free speech and freedom issues and so while i sort of started out as a free speech

00:02:30.380 lawyer and have really focused my career on that you also realize that if you don't have

00:02:35.800 the right laws in the government if you don't have the right leaders who care about those issues

00:02:40.440 you know ultimately those words on paper don't matter we saw that during covid you guys saw that

00:02:46.800 in canada certainly and you're continuing to suffer there more than we are i think and so i think

00:02:53.020 these things go hand in hand and if you really want to affect change you have to we have to take a big

00:02:56.860 picture look at it so so i do work uh long hours well we're grateful that you do um i i have to tell

00:03:04.380 you i was i felt like things were going in the wrong direction for a number of years uh as a user of big

00:03:10.940 tech platforms like twitter and youtube and facebook rebel news has faced demonetization and

00:03:16.860 deplatforming and i felt like it was only getting worse and they were getting more brazen and then uh the

00:03:22.300 2020 election and and frankly the the lackluster uh results in the u.s senate midterms but i have to

00:03:30.740 say i've been as the kids say white pilled as in i've been given a hope about the future by elon

00:03:36.600 musk's takeover of twitter and his emphasis on free speech and his revelations coming clean about what

00:03:43.300 twitter did in the past i have to say for the first time in a few years i'm actually feeling hopeful

00:03:48.620 again i shouldn't say that because i'm tempting fate what would you say is the state of freedom

00:03:55.440 in big tech online on our phones on our apps uh is elon musk a blip or is he maybe a new trend

00:04:04.160 i would call elon musk a trend um i would say that you know look historically overall

00:04:10.600 uh twitter's censorship situation has really waxed and waned and the recent revelation um you know

00:04:18.600 earlier this month of the of the twitter files by independent journalists matt taibbi and barry

00:04:24.940 weiss working together has been an eye-opener and that was led by the owner of the company saying

00:04:31.700 this needs to happen for freedom um you know i don't know his politics particularly but he has

00:04:37.580 said very strongly that the fact that you know certain lawyers and certain politicians meddled in

00:04:42.300 the 2020 election is outrageous and can never happen again that the government is meddled that there

00:04:46.880 have been all these communications from the government he fired a former fbi lawyer who um you know

00:04:52.980 was meddling with the release of those documents about twitter shadow banning and um you know reading

00:04:59.380 of people's direct messages and things like that now you still look at some of the other tech

00:05:04.980 platforms google has been i would say worse than twitter in terms of youtube suppression has been going on

00:05:12.420 for years i would not even call it suppression call it manipulation boosting certain kinds of searches

00:05:18.720 de-boosting certain kinds of searches um you know like hate speech against muslims is is you know

00:05:26.800 sort of treated differently than hate speech against jews for example in a report that came out several

00:05:32.440 years ago things like that um facebook uh is kind of all over the map that they you know if you look at the

00:05:39.900 testimony of mark zuckerberg in congress he seems to be confused by the whole thing and like doesn't

00:05:46.780 like censorship but all the people he hires are in favor of it and you know of course he may be speaking

00:05:52.640 out of both sides of his mouth because he's played very heavily with his money in uh getting democrats

00:05:58.720 elected through i would call pseudo non-profit efforts with valid harvesting and so forth so

00:06:03.860 i would call it complicated um but i do think that elon musk has led a new era of glass notes if you will

00:06:11.820 uh online and i hope to see more of that and it's refreshing i do feel like it's a new opportunity for us

00:06:19.180 to have that conversation in the country and the world i the most uh hopeful and unexpected statement

00:06:26.440 came from the boss of netflix which is again a pretty liberal company judging by their content

00:06:32.640 and he was pressed on elon musk and said he admires musk and he he likes the free speech approach and

00:06:39.020 though he may have a different management style uh he was very positive here's a clip of that from a

00:06:44.960 recent conference uh i just thought well wow maybe free speech is spreading take a look you're on there

00:06:50.280 all the time what do you think what's going on i'm excited i'm excited um elon musk is the bravest

00:06:55.560 most creative person on the planet i mean you know what he's done in multiple areas is phenomenal

00:07:00.740 um you know his style is different than like i'm trying to be like a really steady respectable leader

00:07:06.360 you know he doesn't care he's just like out there you know but think of a guy who's spending 44

00:07:13.080 billion he could have built the biggest he could have built a mile long yacht for 44 billion okay

00:07:18.060 but it's like not good for the planet doesn't he's not interested he's in for you think what he's

00:07:22.460 doing is good for the planet absolutely i i'm uh 100 convinced that he is trying to help the world

00:07:28.860 in all of his endeavors okay and he's trying to help the world in that one because he believes in

00:07:33.920 free speech and there's power for democracy and that there's an option now how he goes about it

00:07:38.720 again you know it's not how i would do it um but i'm deeply respectful and i'm amazed that people are

00:07:44.700 like so nitpicky on him on yeah sure the blue check mark he's making a mess of some things or

00:07:49.780 not you know but it's like give the guy a break he just spent all this money to try to make it much

00:07:54.480 better for democracy and society to have a more open platform and i am sympathetic to that agenda

00:08:00.160 i thought that was encouraging and maybe elon musk well he showed that twitter is actually growing if

00:08:07.900 we can believe him he's saying that the average daily users for twitter is record highs there was

00:08:14.800 this rumor that all the advertisers were going to flee well he met with tim cook of apple their biggest

00:08:20.780 advertiser who confirms that they're staying i think that elon musk might just actually pull this off

00:08:27.000 i mean it's bad to bet against him he's the guy who built spacex and and tesla i you know what i i'm

00:08:33.280 i'm nervous about letting my heart hope too much because i'm used to being disappointed but wouldn't

00:08:38.860 it be something if we had a new era of free speech i don't know that maybe i'm being a little hopeful

00:08:42.900 let me talk to you about something that i know you're a real expert on and it sounds technical um

00:08:48.740 it's section 230 of the communications decency act which sounds very weird sounds like it's about

00:08:55.540 pornography which it actually sort of was back in the day that was you correct me if i'm wrong harmy

00:09:00.620 that was a rule put into law by congress decades ago actually that protected internet service

00:09:08.280 providers from the content on their system so if you're just running an internet company and some

00:09:13.600 user put pornography up you weren't held responsible for it unless it was brought to your attention and you

00:09:20.180 did it like you were not regarded as a publisher in the first instance and that section 230 has been

00:09:27.960 stretched to protect internet companies including google youtube facebook instagram twitter from any

00:09:34.780 legal consequences for anything they do now correct me if i miss explained section 230 but why don't you

00:09:43.460 tell me a little bit about that and and how it might be reformed to allow more freedom on these web

00:09:51.080 platforms section 230 was passed in 1996 uh really as a result or a i would say a reaction to a supreme

00:10:01.100 you know to some legal opinions that purported to punish um an internet like an email company i mean

00:10:11.880 let's step back a little bit because you know in 1996 we didn't have any of these apps we did not have

00:10:16.900 the internet as we know it right now we had aol dial up i remember that that was really your only

00:10:21.840 option to get email you know you've got mail and these like clunky apps and we do it over the phone

00:10:26.940 line and back then you know there were a few of these platforms like prodigy and a few others where

00:10:32.760 you could get mail and some were painting themselves more family friendly than the others and so they did

00:10:38.420 not allow certain things on their platform they didn't want there to be pornography and stuff and so

00:10:42.340 you know they would have a rule that you couldn't do it but if it snuck through um somebody could sue

00:10:47.140 you for that and so the the law was passed to say internet companies that are simply hosting other

00:10:54.760 people's content cannot be held liable for it you know like you said exactly unless there's sort of a

00:11:00.700 takedown process with respect to certain illegal content you know child pornography what have you and

00:11:07.140 um defamatory speech criminal things like that but then there's a catch-all phrase that's also added

00:11:13.320 in 230 uh that you can't be held responsible for moderating content on on these categories but also

00:11:19.900 this otherwise objectionable now the otherwise objectionable category has been stretched to

00:11:24.580 really as sort of a sort of afterthought to at least become the entire rule and tech companies

00:11:31.000 now tech has evolved to all these complex platforms that today manipulate the speech that we see

00:11:38.120 censor speech for even remove the former president united states while he was a sitting president from

00:11:44.380 the internet something that elon has reversed donald trump and when you try to sue them for taking down

00:11:53.500 speech in violation of their own terms of service they say we can do whatever we want

00:12:00.280 our uh protection under section 230 trump's tort law and trump's contract law that's literally their

00:12:06.760 position in court so for example you have a um a prominent feminist in canada named megan murphy 1.00

00:12:16.540 and i represented megan uh in a case against twitter where megan was calling out a transgender activist

00:12:26.180 uh in i think in the vancouver area who would really troll immigrant women by you know seeking 1.00

00:12:33.740 waxing of this male jonathan yaniv we we know him too well i'm afraid i mean yeah jessica jonathan yaniv

00:12:42.440 and so that and so this feminist not i mean not my views but you know this feminist said well 0.79

00:12:48.740 you know she didn't think this person should be invading women's locker rooms asking girls questions 1.00

00:12:55.100 about their periods and asking women to touch his genitalia so she called it out on twitter and at

00:13:01.340 the time twitter did not ban um so-called misgendering as a category of speech that could get you suspended

00:13:09.800 or banned well there's all these you know transgender activists there and all these all these activists had

00:13:15.360 a direct line to content suppressors at twitter and so twitter not only removed our client banned her

00:13:22.480 permanently for calling jessica a he oh there he goes again and um and then retroactively changed

00:13:31.980 the terms of service to cover this conduct and then said that apply well you know you don't

00:13:36.220 retroactively change contracts in america or in canada the free world and so the court said well

00:13:42.120 sorry under 230 they can do whatever they want their contract doesn't really matter now that is not what

00:13:46.120 congress intended i have worked hard over the years to get members of congress to comprehend this

00:13:51.220 i've testified in congress several times about this issue and frankly too many members of congress on

00:13:56.460 both sides of the aisle are just captive you can give them a political contribution and they'll do

00:14:01.720 whatever you want yeah that's sad that includes many republican members of congress i am you know some

00:14:08.560 who are running for leadership positions right now and so it's kind of disgusting but ultimately maybe

00:14:13.640 there will be a bipartisan will on this issue or we elect better republicans who will actually win

00:14:18.520 elections that's one of the reasons i'm running for rnc chair because you know all of this is

00:14:23.220 pointless you know cocktail party chatter unless you actually win elections and implement change

00:14:27.600 through strength we're going to get back to your campaign for rnc chair i'm very excited about it

00:14:32.860 we'll talk about in a minute but let's just take one more minute on section 230 here's a way i think

00:14:38.180 about it and you tell me if this is correct if you put up let's say on the wall of a school

00:14:43.140 a cork board like a bulletin board and anyone could affix something to it you it makes sense that

00:14:49.300 you wouldn't sue the bulletin board owner if they didn't have any rules for what could go on they would

00:14:54.980 be like a like a phone booth you have no idea what people say when they use your phone booth

00:15:00.340 so that's a platform but a publisher is someone who uses their judgment edits things chooses curates

00:15:09.220 now that's very different that's not a bulletin board that's not a pay phone that's a radio

00:15:14.800 broadcaster that's a newspaper editor and seems to me the tech companies want to be treated like a

00:15:21.420 platform oh we're just an empty vessel you can't hold us accountable for what's in us

00:15:27.000 but then they make very publisher type decisions like you just described of of the canadian feminist who 1.00

00:15:35.740 was saying certain words so they i think they're having it both ways that they want the immunity

00:15:43.000 of a neutral bulletin board cork board but they want the power to say no no we're only letting

00:15:49.200 things we like up on our bulletin board like a publisher would i i i can't believe that has gone

00:15:55.420 on for as long as it has but i i think you're right i mean if you look at the largest lobbyists

00:16:01.200 in washington dc it's not the military it's not the banks it's the tech companies they're the biggest

00:16:07.580 spenders there aren't they well yeah absolutely i mean by the way they subsidize uh you know by

00:16:14.360 um you know sponsorships of uh big conservative organizations as well um i wouldn't name names but

00:16:22.120 you know like sometimes i i was surprised at one point to go to one of the biggest gatherings of

00:16:26.640 conservatives and see platinum sponsored google i mean they you know they want access right so

00:16:30.820 i think you're exactly right when congress passed section 230 in 1996 there was no concept of an

00:16:37.420 internet that we know today there was no concept of filtering deboosting boosting shadow banning none

00:16:43.980 of these things and so today literally i would say up until elon musk took charge and fired people

00:16:49.800 who were doing this and maybe even today in some degree literally everything you see there is curated

00:16:57.540 in some way it isn't unfiltered it's very different than typing a message in my upper east side apartment

00:17:03.900 in in the 1990s and dialing up the internet and sending it to my mom okay like that was literally

00:17:12.640 the equivalent of the phone lines yeah but today the you know it's like a magazine it's like sending

00:17:20.020 a letter to the editor of vanity fair and they decide whether they're going to publish it or not

00:17:23.320 i mean so that's very different and when they choose to publish it and it's defamatory or what have you

00:17:29.400 or it's it's terrorists planning an attack on israel uh or america you know they're like oh we don't

00:17:36.240 have nothing to do with that but they actually are reading and filtering and all of that and so

00:17:40.280 new laws are needed to reflect these new realities and new politicians are needed who aren't owned by

00:17:48.220 big tech yeah we'll move on in just one sec i gotta just ask you one last question because

00:17:53.280 we we see the revelations from the twitter files and again kudos to elon musk for airing his own

00:17:59.080 dirty laundry he well he bought the laundromat and he's he's airing someone else's dirty laundry he's

00:18:04.920 showing really the internal machinations all the way up to the executive suites uh of how they censored

00:18:12.620 things and how they misled the public it really is quite incredible for someone to to do to a company

00:18:19.140 that they just bought is to put all their bad news out in public i i don't think i've ever seen it

00:18:24.920 done before um here's my question to you a lot of times people say not just section 230 gives these

00:18:33.380 companies immunity but hey it's a private company they can do what they want um they don't have to

00:18:39.120 let you write on their platform just like fox news doesn't have to let you appear on their shows they

00:18:46.000 own it they can choose but but if government agencies whether it's the fbi the cia the white house

00:18:55.580 dr fauci and the nih if a government institution emailed called twitter and said censor this guy

00:19:04.160 silence that guy then it's not a private company anymore then it's not a section 230 decision

00:19:11.800 anymore it's it's really the law that i would guess applies would be the u.s first amendment

00:19:16.640 i mean yeah i agree with that that actually ties into a law suit that my law firm did and my non-profit

00:19:23.080 the center for american liberty there's a prominent conservative commentator named rogan o'hanley

00:19:27.740 he's a former entertainment lawyer in california and now a social media influencer they're very

00:19:33.640 popular with young people on on twitter and other platforms and still on instagram and others but he

00:19:39.260 was removed from twitter after the 2020 election for posting some i think i would say very mild critiques

00:19:45.520 but popular critiques of the integrity of that election uh calling for an audit of the california

00:19:51.840 election which by the way had probably over a million ballots that went out to people who

00:19:55.860 aren't registered voters in california so that's a good question to be asking and he also questioned

00:20:01.540 whether joe biden uh if he had the most votes ever in american history why is there a barbed wire

00:20:07.240 fence around the united states capitol um he was banned from twitter for that we later learned

00:20:12.980 through judicial wash efforts judicial wash being one of our you know activist um non-profits uh on

00:20:20.180 the free speech and government secrecy side in the united states that the california secretary of

00:20:26.720 state's office specifically requested that our client be removed because he was supposedly spreading

00:20:32.380 election disinformation and we have a document that demonstrates that and some some biden campaign

00:20:40.480 vendor was paid 25 million dollars by my taxpayer dollars in the state of california to censor

00:20:47.220 our speech and it worked and in fact 98 percent of the posts that that were recommended by the

00:20:54.080 secretary of state of california to be taken down were taken down we've since learned that that effort

00:20:59.040 was not just restricted to california but other states and also to the federal government you mentioned

00:21:04.200 fauci you mentioned fbi um you know uh mark zuckerberg has come out and said on joe rogan's podcast

00:21:11.680 that the fbi uh was requesting um you know certain information be taken out of 100 biden's laptop

00:21:17.920 and things like that and so i completely agree we did file a lawsuit under the first amendment

00:21:23.340 saying that this this constituted government interference with free speech now the district

00:21:28.240 court dismissed the case um the case was just argued this month in the ninth circuit

00:21:32.820 and uh we will see what happens with it i think this is a fundamental issue because we and i don't

00:21:38.640 want to get into the weeds here but we have other concepts in american law that say that while

00:21:42.320 generally first amendment issues are restricted to government activity and you know sort of spaces

00:21:46.940 where anybody can go there is some analysis under california law and some other law that if a private

00:21:53.280 area is effectively a free speech forum because let's say it's a company town or a mall or something

00:21:58.500 like that then there could be aspects of first amendment rights that attach to leafleting and other

00:22:04.060 first amendment activities and so you know some lawyers have tried to import those concepts into

00:22:08.800 the first amendment analysis here you know courts haven't really bought into that i think the

00:22:13.140 jurisprudence needs to evolve to reflect the current reality that today and particularly during covid

00:22:17.580 really the place we lived our lives for the most part was on the internet and if you weren't allowed

00:22:22.260 on the internet to speak you were depersoned yeah this is china style social credit social programming

00:22:29.640 and it's unacceptable in a so-called democracy or public yeah incredible um donald trump there's uh

00:22:38.620 he has his strengths and weaknesses i think one of the best things he did as president was his

00:22:44.540 judicial appointments he did a lot of them and they seem to be very strong constitution loving uh

00:22:52.060 yeah i would say strict constructionists if that's the phrase i i think his legacy

00:22:58.860 uh in the courts is one of his strongest legacies and hopefully some of those judges will be more

00:23:05.640 freedom oriented do you have any thoughts on trump's judicial appointments um as regards free speech

00:23:10.740 trump's appellate judicial appointments were terrific his team chose and frankly mitch mcconnell chose to

00:23:19.840 focus on appellate appointments and so the consequence of that is if you're not pushing through

00:23:28.080 trial court appointments is you have to lose a trial to get to a good judge if you draw them

00:23:34.940 in the court of appeals so the work was incomplete and the work was incomplete in part

00:23:42.700 because of you know the size of majorities in the in the in the senate and pushing people through and

00:23:52.400 let's say the republican party has underperformed at the polls over the last three election cycles

00:23:58.280 if we had done better we would have had even more great judges at the trial court level and the

00:24:02.140 appellate level yeah well i have to say uh that's an interesting point of view that he he didn't do

00:24:08.580 enough and there were other areas he could have done it i i think it's not just him right as well

00:24:13.380 yeah it was the senate sure i take your point here in canada we had a conservative prime minister

00:24:18.180 for nine years and he simply didn't care about the courts and so whatever good he did i think has

00:24:22.340 been undone by appointments including his own appointments let me let's get to the republicans

00:24:26.800 because we've touched on them a few times you i see you on fox news and other media talking about

00:24:32.240 uh the law especially in in election battles and you were there in arizona that was crazy in arizona

00:24:40.040 we we sent a reporter uh katie davis court down there for a while i mean we just couldn't stay

00:24:45.400 there for for weeks and weeks and weeks it's not election day it's election month what kind of a

00:24:50.520 country takes three weeks to count ballots you know even brazil counted all their ballots in one night

00:24:57.360 what happened what happened is democrats have been very successful and outmaneuvered republicans

00:25:04.160 not this year not last year but over the last many years while republicans were frankly out to

00:25:10.900 munch on this issue i'm just one republican who's been jumping up and down and screaming about it for

00:25:15.460 years including at the rnc and you know people just shrug and spend money on whatever else they spend

00:25:21.260 money on and so uh democrats have expanded voting day to voting weeks and voting months they've allowed

00:25:29.580 at the same time we have fairly loose voter rolls i we don't keep updating them when people move die

00:25:35.320 you know or otherwise become ineligible to vote we still send them ballots um covet enabled a wholesale

00:25:42.880 shift to vote by mail uh in the 1990s both republicans and democrats and the former president jimmy

00:25:50.360 carter democrat and um and cabinet member james baker had a commission here in the united states where

00:25:57.380 they both concluded in their commission that voting by mail is less secure than voting in person this

00:26:02.860 is also logical and obvious um and yet uh you know you have a combination of insecure voting methods

00:26:10.780 being spammed out to all these people and then strangers can come to your house in many states

00:26:16.660 called ballot harvesting and pick up your ballot and take it this has led to accusations in places like

00:26:21.980 old folks homes or memory care facilities where people do not know that their ballots are being

00:26:27.240 taken from them by aids and filled out and returned and you know if if an election is close so for

00:26:33.940 example my law firm right now is um you know has been working this month in december with um with a

00:26:39.540 campaign for um sec for for attorney general in arizona i.e. abe hamaday the the margin in his race

00:26:46.460 which is still being contested and is an automatic recount is um is like about 500 something votes so

00:26:54.160 if you have a few loose votes here and there in a state that adds up to the margin and so you know

00:27:00.460 that's those are the kinds of issues that we have to be focusing i think 10 times the resources on

00:27:05.360 that issue as we are maricopa county had problems in the 2020 election with machines not reading the

00:27:11.440 ballots and signatures not being read correctly and and all of that and yet they did nothing to improve

00:27:18.120 it in fact they knew in maricopa county that republicans are more likely to vote in person

00:27:22.940 i think this is a bad idea republicans but republicans are more likely to vote in person on election day

00:27:27.740 but what does that tell you long lines on election day are only republicans so if the wrong lines people

00:27:33.660 will leave if they if the machines don't work people will leave and there will be long lines

00:27:37.600 if they see bags of ballots in a in a room that are uncounted and on you know attended they will think

00:27:45.280 that their vote will not count and all of this degrades a functioning democratic system and so

00:27:52.400 what i would do to fix that is i would you know take the evidence that my firm gathered over several

00:27:56.920 days in the um in the midterm election where i was working for carrie lake at that time and

00:28:02.200 side by side with rnc lawyers and we know we took we went interviewed a lot of witnesses and we got their

00:28:08.280 statements i would file a lawsuit over that and make sure that the next election is secure now some

00:28:14.400 people say harmeen you know that's weak why can't you fix the last election i mean i could go into

00:28:18.540 that there's all kinds of laws and jurisprudence you know dating back centuries as to you know time

00:28:24.060 limits and what you can do about an existing election so we got to wake up and smell the coffee

00:28:29.040 and know that this will happen in the next election in maricopa county unless we take action to fix it now

00:28:36.300 now arizona does have a republican legislature and so i hope that they pass some strong election

00:28:41.980 integrity measures and they can persuade or have enough of the majority that the governor has to

00:28:46.140 let it go through so we'll see what happens yeah well i sure like carrie lake as a candidate i liked 1.00

00:28:51.160 her fighting spirit now you're running for the leadership of the rnc which is the republican

00:28:55.440 national committee for most of our viewers are canadian so we we know what republicans are but what is the

00:29:02.380 organization the national committee what are it what are its powers is it mainly uh a fundraising and

00:29:09.500 spending agency is it a candidate recruitment arm if you become the leader of the rnc which is i think

00:29:16.380 your goal um what does that mean well it is all of the things that you mentioned if it is doing its job

00:29:24.560 correctly um it is a fundraising and spending arm that transfers money to states that transfers money to

00:29:32.140 candidates that shares fundraising goals and funds with uh other fundraising committees nrsc nrcc there

00:29:38.880 are joint fundraising agreements sometimes and profit sharing agreements and you know but it's so much

00:29:44.680 more than that or it should be um the democratic party interferes in our primaries with dark money and 1.00

00:29:51.220 with you know sort of strategies and we don't do that in on our own side as sort of help with candidate

00:29:57.160 selection and i think we need to be doing that more we've seen that if democrats do it in our

00:30:01.480 primaries and we don't do it then we're letting democrats to find who our candidates are and that

00:30:05.840 leads to loss obviously the republican party should be the clear messaging leader in the party as we all

00:30:13.540 know politicians have their own agendas and special interests and you know deals they have to cut the

00:30:20.620 republican party doesn't have to cut deals we have a primary um we sorry we have a platform that is

00:30:26.600 developed every four years at our national convention because of covid we did not update that during the

00:30:33.120 2020 election unfortunately we had we maintained the same uh platform from 2016 but in 2024

00:30:39.360 absent some other foreign virus shutting down our government we will be having a platform discussion

00:30:46.300 and that will be talking about the conservative ideals these are the activists of the party so these are

00:30:50.400 conservative ideals and the party needs to strongly stand behind the party platform and and have clear

00:30:57.000 and positive goals i'm afraid over the last few years we've just been constantly in cycles of reacting

00:31:02.840 to democrats and certainly the last two years it's all been reacting letting them set the agenda and we

00:31:08.120 sort of have our weak talking points and don't they don't persuade the voters we just saw that in the

00:31:13.580 midterm elections so i want to see a return to you know a more positive vision of the future what can

00:31:19.600 republicans do for you differently than the democrats i think americans are all suffering under this

00:31:24.960 cultural marxism the liberals are pushing i think if we were clear about what we offered we could pick up

00:31:30.760 more independent votes and even some democrat votes and you really need that to form a winning

00:31:34.940 coalition in this country and so um i think there's some wasteful spending at the rnc i know that

00:31:41.860 i think that our priorities are out of whack and i think that frankly really the same people have

00:31:49.100 run the rnc for the last 12 years and america's moved on it's 2022 right now it's going to be 2024

00:31:56.360 when the next national election happens we cannot be using 1990s methods and you know talking points

00:32:04.860 to elect people um our party right now is a very dc oriented top-down consultant driven i would say

00:32:13.480 corrupt consultant driven outfit um people who get paid whether we win or lose people who make money

00:32:20.880 from fundraising whether it's effective or not the messaging i'd like to change that more to a

00:32:25.880 grassroots type effort i want to hear more from the americans who care about the future of our country

00:32:30.620 and and so that's that's my vision i mean there's so many things i'm excited about it i'd love to

00:32:37.140 make our party more effective more in touch with the voters who we asked to send their small and large

00:32:44.020 checks in and i want those politicians who we support to be more in touch with those voters and i think

00:32:51.300 there's a big disconnect right now the party is divided with recent elections we really need to unite

00:32:56.400 around a winning agenda for 2024 for the future of our country well i think that's a very appealing

00:33:02.360 message how does the vote work who gets to vote for the leader of the rnc when is it is it just other

00:33:09.540 state committee members i don't know the structure when will we know and how do you campaign is it just

00:33:15.160 a small number of people who choose it's a very small number of people who choose um it's 168 people

00:33:22.960 who choose out of the whole country of you know 300 million people plus each state and the six

00:33:29.200 territories puerto rico and guam and the others u.s virgin islands mariana's islands american samoa

00:33:36.400 uh these have three members each to the rnc the state chairman or territory chairman the national

00:33:43.520 committee man and the national committee woman i'm the national committee woman from california

00:33:47.860 and i am um you know one of the 168 members and so when ronna romney mcdaniel became the chair

00:33:55.320 she was the michigan uh chairman of the michigan gop and she's not had a contested election believe

00:34:02.720 it or not so she's been elected for three cycles unopposed and so now she's seeking her fourth term 0.99

00:34:07.760 and i believe three cycles of not winning elections is is enough and so um you know i would say five cycles

00:34:17.080 because we had two georgia runoffs that we lost as well and so around the country there's a huge

00:34:24.060 groundswell to upgrade the rnc but some of our members are not hearing that so it is a one-to-one

00:34:30.580 conversation with each of them to try to persuade them as to why we need to improve and change the rnc

00:34:36.620 and so you know that's that's that's it i'll be taking a step back if i win this from my law practice

00:34:43.020 and my non-profit for two years and my colleagues will continue to run those um while i focus on

00:34:48.640 turning around the national party well it's very exciting and uh i can imagine um all the

00:34:55.980 conversations the phone calls and the meetings if there's just 84 people you need to convince in

00:35:01.480 addition to yourself that is a heck of a of an exciting process i certainly hope you win i think

00:35:08.960 you'll bring legal smarts and a modern approach to campaigning because although i'm a canadian and

00:35:15.140 of course uh you know i'm not a voter in the united states what happens in america has a huge effect on

00:35:20.760 canada and the more you embrace freedom and prosperity the more we benefit as well i mean it's

00:35:26.700 been great spending so much time with you i know you're so busy i'm actually amazed you were able to

00:35:31.080 pull yourself away to talk to us at such length thanks for your great work for rebel news for fighting for

00:35:36.680 freedom for freedom for everyone and i hope you succeed and become rnc chair thank you so much

00:35:41.740 and it's an honor to represent people like you who support freedom anywhere in the world that's very

00:35:46.260 nice of you to say take care my friend

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Rebel News Podcast - December 28, 2022

EZRA LEVANT ｜ A freedom-focused lawyer could be the next chairman of the Republican National Committee： an interview with Harmeet K. Dhillon

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