The Great America Show - HARMEET DHILLON SAYS THE RNC IS NOT WORKING TO THE BENEFIT OF THE GOP, PAYING FUNDRAISING FEES AS HIGH AS 40%. SHES RUNNING TO UNSEAT RONNA MCDANIEL TO FIX THE PROBLEMS.

00:00:00.000 Hello, everybody. I'm Lou Dobbs, and welcome to The Great America Show, and we're delighted to

00:00:04.860 have you with us. Straight talk is what we do here, and I wish I could say that imperative

00:00:10.080 had spread throughout the Republican Party, but alas, no, it has not. But they're doing better,

00:00:16.360 in part because the GOP is at war and they're battling for their survival.

00:00:21.800 Rhino Kevin McCarthy against his America First conference, battling Congressman Andy Biggs for

00:00:27.500 the speakership, and Rhino Ronna McDaniel now in a fight for the chair of the Republican National

00:00:33.020 Committee. Her challenger is Trump and MAGA supporter attorney Harmeet Dillon. Dillon is an RNC committee

00:00:40.060 woman for the state of California, and Harmeet, like nearly all Republicans, is upset about the

00:00:45.600 RNC's role in Republican electoral defeats over three election cycles. President Trump picked

00:00:52.960 Ronna to be RNC chair in 2017. The 2018 midterms were a disaster. So was 2020, of course, and the

00:01:01.760 2022 midterms, well, they fell well short of expectations and underperformed dramatically,

00:01:07.840 even though the GOP did take back the House by a slim margin. The Republican Party is disappointed,

00:01:15.600 to say the least, and wondering where the party leaders have been, what are they doing,

00:01:20.360 and why, with all the losses and disappointments over three election cycles, does Ronna McDaniel

00:01:27.680 think she deserves another term as chair of the RNC? It would, I should point out, be unprecedented.

00:01:36.060 Our guest today doesn't think Ronna should be chair again. Our guest is Harmeet Dillon,

00:01:40.740 running to be the new chair of the RNC. Harmeet, delighted to have you with us here,

00:01:45.940 and I'm personally delighted that you are running to lead the RNC. What you're doing, Harmeet,

00:01:51.640 is, in my opinion, important for the Republican Party's future and the country's.

00:01:56.800 Well, thank you so much. And I feel myself as a volunteer my entire life in politics,

00:02:03.000 and having sat on the RNC for six years, and having really seen us do worse successively in

00:02:10.820 elections, even as we tell our voters that we're doing better, I felt compelled to stand up and

00:02:15.720 run when I saw that we were looking at another term of the same leadership. And this is not a knock

00:02:21.160 personality-wise. It is simply about my desire to do this, to win elections.

00:02:27.820 Well, I think that there couldn't be a better motive to step forward and run. I want to speak

00:02:35.700 to Ronna McDaniel, because all of us know that she has failed throughout her term as chair. And there

00:02:43.460 is an implied, if not explicit, arrogance in having failed miserably she would expect to be kept as the

00:02:54.340 chair of the RNC. It's not a sinecure. It is an expression of a philosophy, an ideology, a political

00:03:02.460 party that needs strong and effective and successful leadership. I, I do not understand how she could

00:03:09.980 be so, uh, uh, self unaware. Well, she is one of a hundred. Well, she isn't even a member at this

00:03:19.560 point because of the way we work, but 168 members of the RNC. It's a kind of a, it's kind of a unique

00:03:26.360 club, if you will. It's a clubby club of insiders, some of whom have been there for decades.

00:03:31.640 Um, and some of whom, you know, view it as something that they use to get something that

00:03:36.600 they want. And, but the stakes are so small. Literally people have told me in prior meetings

00:03:43.520 or told other members, they've changed their vote on a leadership issue because the chair,

00:03:49.160 a chair appointed them to a committee or a committee, or, you know, gave them attention

00:03:54.260 on a particular issue or transferred, you know, funds, resources needed for their state to their state.

00:04:00.900 I mean, these are all important things, but they're also sort of the job. So, you know,

00:04:04.940 sort of saying that you're entitled to another two years where we didn't win elections for six years

00:04:10.040 and we aren't winning them next time. If anybody is being rational here, um, it seems irresponsible

00:04:15.980 to me, quite frankly. And we're, I view myself as a fiduciary. I'm a, I'm on the board of the

00:04:21.860 Republican party and it's a fiduciary in any corporation. I think you have a duty to step up

00:04:26.420 and say, wait a minute, this isn't going the way we were promised. This isn't going the way it

00:04:31.640 should. The right questions are not being asked. The right people are not running the show. The

00:04:37.120 right outcomes are not being derived for our shareholders, our stakeholders, if you will.

00:04:42.000 And so, you know, it's remarkable the amount of hostility I received from some sources as a

00:04:47.520 result of standing up and saying, you know, basically the emperor has no clothes. Excuse me.

00:04:52.680 We did not win. Don't tell me that, oh, you turned out 4 million more voters than last time. Who did

00:04:59.120 they vote for? They didn't vote for Republican candidates. So how does that help us as a party?

00:05:04.200 Um, you know, there's a lot of numbers that keep changing and, oh, we, we did this, we did that.

00:05:08.380 We made so many phone calls. If you dig in, what you find is we hire vendors who tell us we, we had

00:05:16.860 3 million voter contacts or 2 million voter contacts. You dig into that and you find that means they left a

00:05:22.440 message. You didn't actually contact somebody, but they're taking credit for a voter contact and they

00:05:26.880 get paid on the basis of these so-called metrics. Now, a business person wouldn't run a business this

00:05:32.720 way, but that's how it's being run. If the inmates are running the asylum, the fat cat consultants who

00:05:39.780 are running the show under Reince Priebus' era, and I like Reince, but let's face it, the same personnel

00:05:45.540 are here now that we're under his era. They're losing elections and they're making themselves rich

00:05:51.180 and in a corporation run well, that would not be tolerated, but it is tolerated at the RNC and it

00:05:56.460 will not be tolerated under my watch. Yeah. Karl Rove has stepped forward as a man who

00:06:02.620 considers himself a spokesman for the Republican National Committee for the Republican Party.

00:06:08.960 He considers himself to be a modern-day James Baker. He is the farthest thing from it, yet the

00:06:15.980 Republican leadership, the rhino leadership, has embraced him as if he were. The man is wrong in

00:06:23.080 2012. He's been wrong in so many elections. It's unbelievable. And then he gets paid literally

00:06:29.900 hundreds of millions of dollars to whisper in oligarchs' ears about what he knows about what's

00:06:36.040 going on in the Republican Party. This is the kind of mindless nonsense that the Republican Party is

00:06:43.220 given to, isn't it? There is a sense of inertia at the RNC about supporting the current leadership

00:06:50.660 for a fourth term. And if she gets a fourth term, it would be the longest-serving chair in RNC history

00:06:57.180 since the 1850s. So you have to ask the question, I'm asking the question, is that merited? Are we really

00:07:03.020 killing it at the box office? I don't think we are. I don't think anyone, frankly, of the thousands

00:07:07.400 of Americans contacting me about this thinks we are either. But some of the reasoning I've heard

00:07:12.960 to support the current leadership is, she asked me first. I mean, that's okay. That doesn't seem

00:07:19.600 like a compelling reason. Or she's been good to my state, transferring funds to my state,

00:07:26.360 being kind to us, which I think is actually the job, one of the jobs of the RNC. So any chair would

00:07:32.620 do that or be supportive of races or candidates. But overall, there's a lack of concern about the

00:07:39.460 overall results. There seems to be almost really a lack of desire to win. And maybe people are burnt

00:07:47.500 out from COVID or whatever it is. But I am here to win elections. That's why I donate my time to be

00:07:56.420 at the RNC. I am not here to be appointed to a committee that particularly interests me. I do

00:08:02.420 my own work outside the RNC. I'm not here to go to fancy receptions or cocktail parties or take

00:08:09.300 pictures with United States senators. It's not really a high on my list of life goals.

00:08:15.460 And, you know, I want to just have a better life. I want to not pay $7 for guests. I want to be able

00:08:22.680 to buy a home without, you know, getting sticker shock and feeling like I can't do it. I want my

00:08:29.320 border to be closed so that only people we want to come into this country come here. And I don't want

00:08:34.900 to feel at risk of, you know, sort of being the victim in a sort of gang killing here in the city

00:08:40.280 that I live in. These are seem to be a little concern to some of our members. And so that's

00:08:46.240 what I'm up against. Now, that said, there are many members who are very happy to hear a different

00:08:52.720 vision about the future of the RNC. And I'm focusing on the future, not the past. There are

00:08:58.420 many members who agree with me. And they did agree to support the current leadership because there was

00:09:03.500 no alternative and they're open to change. And in fact, many of them have changed their views

00:09:08.440 gladly in short calls. I'm having long calls with some people. They have philosophical differences

00:09:13.880 about different issues. We talk about them. And I will say the chair is fighting very hard to

00:09:18.280 maintain her position, which is, as you mentioned, Lou, is kind of interesting when you haven't

00:09:23.740 performed the way that the voters, your constituents expect you to. And yet there seems to be a sense of

00:09:28.640 entitlement that I've done a good job and I deserve this. So she has basically every employee,

00:09:34.600 senior employee at the RNC is working on the campaign. There are outside consulting firms

00:09:38.720 working on this campaign. There are hit pieces being peddled throughout DC about me. And she is

00:09:45.640 fighting very hard to maintain this position. So I think there are many things that are wrong with the

00:09:50.020 RNC, including the use of its resources for the personal benefit of staff and others there. And those

00:09:55.980 are some things that I would change. So you can imagine the people doing that don't want to see a

00:09:59.820 change.

00:10:01.520 Yeah. And that's a disruptor is never, never welcome. And it's also a clear sign that you're

00:10:08.120 the right person for the job. Let's talk about, I want to just to say one thing very quickly in

00:10:14.840 talking with Ronna McDaniel, seeking assurance on what she was doing in the ground game this year.

00:10:21.680 I got back much of what you just talked about. Well, we've knocked on more doors. We've rung more

00:10:28.380 bells. We've handed out more pieces of paper. I didn't get a single solitary original thought

00:10:36.180 from the RNC whatsoever. And when you talk to the DNC, you're talking about a mad, manic,

00:10:46.560 focused, and driven organization at winning. Do they go too far? Most certainly. They lie,

00:10:54.200 they cheat, and they steal. But the fact is, the Republicans cannot continue with this kind of

00:10:59.720 leadership. It's sickening. It is just wrong. And that people believe they should be in that position

00:11:08.240 after failing is completely mindless, and get support for it is even more mindless. So I want to

00:11:15.040 turn to what you will, what are your top two or three priorities as chair to lead the RNC?

00:11:23.040 Well, thank you. There are a few. And one of them is one I've been talking about all the years I've

00:11:27.300 been there, and that is election integrity. We should have been fighting back much harder on

00:11:32.480 Democrats' advances to decrease voter ID laws and, you know, expand the dates of voting and loosen the

00:11:40.560 restrictions for showing up. And, you know, accountability, signature matching, you name

00:11:46.640 it. That has not been a priority at the RNC for the first four years of the current chair's tenure.

00:11:51.260 I will give her credit for making it a higher priority in the last two years. But it remains

00:11:57.360 the case that for some of the election litigation that I do, there's no budget for it. And so I have

00:12:01.920 to find donors outside the party, donors who stopped giving to the party to fund it. And I've been

00:12:06.760 able to do that. And there's only, unfortunately, so many lawyers in the country who even do election

00:12:11.120 litigation because of the left and their attacks on those lawyers. And secondly, the lack of funding.

00:12:16.660 So that's a real problem. We don't have a bench in that regard. And the Democrats have a very deep

00:12:20.920 bench. Fundraising. I think we have very high costs of fundraising at the RNC. They're as high as 40%

00:12:28.280 for some of the types of fundraising that we do. And that's insane. Like one of my, you know,

00:12:34.940 Kitchen Cabinet really is, you know, some folks at Turning Point USA. I'm good friends with Charlie

00:12:40.340 Kirk and, you know, the other leadership over there. And I asked them as I started this race,

00:12:46.580 hey, what does it cost you guys? You raised $100 million last year. What does it cost?

00:12:50.600 Oh, under, you know, 7%. And so I'm thinking as I'm a business owner, I'm thinking, why can't I get

00:12:57.260 those rates at the RNC? What's going on? I mean, of course, it's a different kind of organization,

00:13:00.680 but you're talking about multiples. And that means there's a lot of fat and waste and consultants,

00:13:06.720 fundraising consultants getting rich without constant commensurate benefit to Republican

00:13:12.740 candidates and voters. The organization is very top down. Again, this has to do with the consultant

00:13:19.820 culture, which sells products or apps or data or what have you. And it is one size fits all. And you

00:13:27.320 get a, you get a, I would say a cozy cronyist consulting relationship that nets you millions.

00:13:33.840 And then the RNC forces it on state parties. I think that's wrong. I think the way that we do

00:13:39.840 small dollar fundraising with WinRed is, is needs to change. Some of the messages I believe are not,

00:13:46.140 you know, straightforward. They're even abusive of our donors. I do not think that's right. And I

00:13:53.400 don't think, you know, there are some other mechanical issues of how state parties use it

00:13:57.760 and benefit from it and don't benefit from it that need to change. They haven't changed in the six

00:14:01.480 years at the RNC. And now WinRed was, I think, started in 2019. But in those years, since then,

00:14:08.020 the party has not been responsive to state chairs on those issues. Other issues include messaging.

00:14:15.100 The messaging has not been good. We pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to fancy consultants

00:14:18.820 for messaging. You know them. They're prominent talking heads on television, including Fox News.

00:14:24.980 And the messaging is poor. The social media is poor. Our ability to communicate with younger voters

00:14:31.260 is non-existent. We do not use young ambassadors and influencers. These are the people who other young

00:14:36.380 people speak with. And we're just not breaking through and even thinking about it or talking about

00:14:42.120 it. I think we need better communicators at the RNC. I feel like I'm a good communicator and a good

00:14:47.660 representative of conservative values. We need to not be afraid to stand behind our values.

00:14:53.080 I think, you know, current leadership runs from those values. Maybe that's because consultants

00:14:56.820 tell them that, you know, Dobbs or other important life issues make them uncomfortable or make voters

00:15:02.240 uncomfortable. We have a charter. We have a party platform. We should be prepared to defend it,

00:15:07.260 you know, when it comes up. And we should be prepared to support candidates and support and

00:15:14.840 communicate to our voters that we're going to honor our commitments. And I think that's very important

00:15:18.880 to you. To those points. How will how will you handle the civil war in the Republican Party? Because

00:15:27.720 it is it is now that between the Trump America first MAGA Republicans and the Mitch McConnell, Kevin

00:15:36.880 McCarthy, Ronna McDaniel, RINO Republicans, establishment Republicans who are really simply collaborating with

00:15:47.800 the Marxist Dems?

00:15:49.600 That's such an interesting question, Lou, because it's been a frustration during this race, quite frankly.

00:15:56.340 I mean, first of all, the chairman of the Republican National Committee and the National Committee itself should be

00:16:00.840 neutral in a in a presidential primary. That's part of our rules. But I'm a I'm a Trump. I came into the RNC

00:16:10.080 under the Trump era and I'm an America first American. And that the wing you're talking about, the

00:16:17.000 the warmonger chamber of commerce wing of the party, the the omnibus bill wing that just gave, you know,

00:16:24.780 hundreds of millions of dollars in this bill to the FBI, which has been shown on social and national

00:16:31.980 media to be absolutely corrupt and and, you know, puppeteering our corporations and suppressing our

00:16:39.020 speech. The idea that Republicans would say, yes, let's definitely expand that. Let's have some more

00:16:44.340 IRS agents. Let's just go along with all of this is outrageous. And yet, even President Trump is is

00:16:50.540 been, you know, frankly, supportive of some of that leadership. So I don't know what to do with

00:16:54.860 that. But I know that I have to do what's right for my conscience, which is say, no, this is not

00:16:59.180 what I'm here for. I am not here to sit by idly and smile and have a cocktail while Republican

00:17:06.200 leaders flush our country down the toilet. I'm not willing to do that. I have to stand up. That's

00:17:11.240 what my conscience tells me. So I'm trying to chart that course where I stay true to my values.

00:17:16.900 I'm not trying to do it. I am doing it. And and hopefully the voters will agree. Now, the voters

00:17:23.880 are not American voters. They're the one hundred sixty eight members of the Republican National

00:17:28.180 Committee. If they've been there for two decades and three decades, they're part of that older wing

00:17:32.980 of the party. And I don't mean old in age. I mean, old in thinking. And they're happy with it. And they

00:17:38.440 have, frankly, some of the messages I received back as to responses from my fellow members when voters

00:17:43.740 contact them are absolutely contemptuous of our voters. They call them low information bitchers.

00:17:49.380 They call them, you know, people who don't know how what the Republican Party does or how it works.

00:17:55.160 No, we know we know what it does and what it's not doing. We know it very well. And so I'm one of

00:18:00.260 those grassroots voters who came into the party because of the promise of the party. I'm an immigrant.

00:18:05.680 My parents came here for these values. They registered as Republicans. And it is sad to see

00:18:10.220 basically virtually no difference between the two parties and policies that they're advocating right

00:18:14.960 now in D.C. As we speak, social policies that are not relevant to the base and not even legal or

00:18:21.900 important issues in the country anymore. It is it is it is mind blowing. And so while while they're

00:18:28.960 fiddling and playing with lobbyists and not doing anything about big tech censorship, our country is

00:18:34.400 burning. And so I feel strongly we need to change in leadership all across the board. Now, I can't vote for

00:18:39.820 the House and the Senate leadership. I can only vote for the RNC leadership and run for it. And so

00:18:44.400 that's the change I'm willing to make. And you're doing everything you can to do that, which brings

00:18:50.280 us to what do you think your chances are and when will we know have some great clarity on who will be

00:18:58.200 leading the RNC? Well, I like my chances from having no support because I hadn't run a little over

00:19:06.460 two weeks ago. I have a lot of support. Several dozen members of the RNC are supporting me.

00:19:12.520 That is increasing on a regular basis. And what's really amazing, Lou, is there is a grassroots

00:19:18.440 groundswell across the country like I haven't seen in many years. I mean, the thousands of people who

00:19:24.820 have sent messages to each of their state's representatives. Some members don't like it. A lot

00:19:29.420 of members do. And they're listening to them. State parties are calling meetings, special meetings of

00:19:35.200 their executive committees to vote, a vote of no confidence in the current leadership or to support

00:19:41.120 me. That's very heartening. And some people are listening to that. People are being persuaded by

00:19:46.720 information that is being shared about mismanagement in the building. That's a matter of public record.

00:19:52.600 Reporters are pointing it out. And there's a lot of screaming and gnashing of teeth about it. But it's

00:19:56.620 in the FEC reports. What what is what money is being spent on in the building? And and so I like my

00:20:02.660 chances. There are five weeks to go. Donors are calling me. Members of the House and the Senate

00:20:08.320 are calling me. Voters are calling me. Members of the RNC are privately calling me and saying,

00:20:13.740 I'd like to support you. It's a it's a secret ballot, Lou. But I I'm going to keep my support

00:20:19.020 private for now. That's the kind of horse trading you do see both in the House and you see it at the

00:20:23.280 RNC. And and and we are definitely we are definitely on a path to victory. So I believe in

00:20:30.740 God and I took guidance before I started down this path. I felt it was the right thing to do. I put my

00:20:36.660 armor on. I am fighting and I will continue fighting until the bitter end. And if if I am not

00:20:43.020 graced with a victory, it will still be a victory because I will have exposed some of the things that

00:20:50.200 need to be talked about in the party that we are politely papering over. And and I will lay the

00:20:55.040 groundwork for change in the future. But right now I'm focused on victory. Well, as you should be. And

00:21:00.860 as we all hope you achieve, I will say this when you talked about some of the elites within the RNC

00:21:08.680 who would talk about low information. Bitchers, low information bitch. I was trying to figure out a way

00:21:17.740 a bladder. There's no polite way to say that. It's contempt. Low, low information bitchers. I would

00:21:24.840 like just to say to those elites, those low information bitchers you're talking about are

00:21:30.160 exactly the people you should be listening to. And the fact that you're not means that to each and

00:21:36.020 every one of you in the RNC who is in that position, you're nothing more than low, you know, low

00:21:42.180 members of a low IQ orthodoxy. That is the problem. And that's what, Harmeet, we hope you can break

00:21:49.740 through and lead the party to great success. I know that you will, given the chance. Harmeet,

00:21:57.880 we thank you. We always give our guests the last word. Your concluding thoughts, if you will.

00:22:03.900 My concluding thoughts are that if any of the people listening to this are Republicans who want to see

00:22:08.280 change, yes, they can contact the three members of the RNC politely, but more importantly, if they're

00:22:14.060 active in their party and they can call for a vote of their state party or executive committee on who

00:22:18.900 should be the next chair of the RNC, that is the most powerful message that can be sent. And I appreciate

00:22:24.720 everybody's support. And people can find me at at P-N-J-A-B-A-N on social media. And my campaign

00:22:32.180 website with a lot of information about me is d-h-i-l-l-o-n-f-o-r-r-n-c.com. Thank you very

00:22:39.040 much, Lou, for this opportunity. Thank you, Harmeet. And God bless you. God bless you too, Lou.

00:22:45.460 Harmeet Dillon, running for chair of the Republican National Committee. Thanks everybody for being with

00:22:51.360 us. Please follow me on Twitter and Truth Social at Lou Dobbs. That's at Lou Dobbs on Twitter and Truth

00:22:58.140 Social. Thanks for being with us. Have a great weekend. Happy New Year and God bless you. And may

00:23:04.400 God bless America.

The Great America Show - December 29, 2022

HARMEET DHILLON SAYS THE RNC IS NOT WORKING TO THE BENEFIT OF THE GOP, PAYING FUNDRAISING FEES AS HIGH AS 40%. SHES RUNNING TO UNSEAT RONNA MCDANIEL TO FIX THE PROBLEMS.

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