Full interview: Eli Bremer on ousting Dave Williams as Colorado's GOP chair

We're gonna put this raw on our youtube channel like we do with some other interviews. So once we get going, we're really going. Sounds good. Ok. Um, our next conversation today is with Eli Bremmer and I, I'm still a little confused if I put New Colorado GOP chair under your name as your title or not. What, what do you consider your title? Colorado GOP chair? That it's that simple. Ok, so the current Colorado Republican Party could kindly be called a dumpster fire and that might be an insult to dumpster fires. So why would you want to be the new chair of a dumpster fire? Well, it's not what I want to do. It's what I really felt needed to happen. Uh, you know, I have run the largest county party in the state. I know how to run a party operation. We needed someone to come in and clean this dumpster fire up and that's what I'm here to do. That's why I've said I'll only stay through the end of this election cycle and then I'm gonna turn it back over to hopefully a good leader who can run it correctly the next time Dave Williams and the now voted out leadership are holding a Colorado GOP party meeting Saturday, the Republicans who showed up this past weekend to the meeting that elected you, they canceled next weekend's meeting, but the old leadership already called the previous meeting fake and that the results of your leadership don't count. How are Republicans to know who to trust? Well, we, we followed all the right procedures. The former chairman went to court. He lied to a judge, he got a temporary restraining order. The judge found out he lied to him, overturned it. He kept on trying to sue to keep us from having a proper state central committee meeting and he failed. So he held one last weekend. Ironically, he is saying our meeting didn't count because he only had 12 supporters show up. But he's saying the meeting he held back on July 19th under a bridge where three of his supporters showed up is in fact valid. I mean, you, unfortunately, you can't make this stuff up, but that's what we've been dealing with. That's what we're going to be putting behind us. There is no meeting of the Colorado Republican party this weekend. There may be a rally at the church. They'll probably talk some issues, maybe talk about how they're disgruntled with the new leadership. There is no meeting that was in fact legally canceled. Um And the actual Colorado Republican party is moving ahead. I actually just got off the phone with the NRCC, had a great strategy meeting with them about how we're going to be supporting Gabe Evans and Jeff Hurd now. So the National Republican congressional committee is the arm of Congress that tries to elect Republicans to Congress. They are not the national uh GOP, they're not the National Republican Party. So do you have assurance from the national GOP that it will settle any leadership in your favor? Well, there, there is a, it's a very dynamic situation on that front right now, I think the first step will be settled right here in Colorado. The Colorado courts do have jurisdiction over enforcing final rules of the central committee of a political party. In fact, that was determined a couple of weeks ago when the former chair took, uh, took Todd Watkins and Nancy Pelosi to court and had lied and asserted that the State Central Committee had met and had made a final judgment, the judge when he learned that he had been lied to, overturned a temporary restraining order and effectively said, yes, that's correct. You can come back when you have a final ruling of the State Central Committee. So there's a, there's, there's legal issues that need to be worked out in the State of Colorado. Eventually, it will likely show up at the RNC membership and credentials meeting. But that may be a little while out and frankly, it might get settled before that. Do you plan on being the group taking the case to court. Are you going to be the plaintiff proactively going to court to say hi, I'm the real leader. Look, I, it's a little too early right now to talk about legal strategies and stuff that just happened 48 hours ago. Um, we're in the process of just trying to take, uh, take stake of what's been going on. The, no one from the Colorado Republican Party had been working with Jeff Hurd's congressional campaign. I was the first party officer that called him. No one was working with Dave Evans. I was the first party officer that called him. No one was working with Paul Lundin. I was the first party officer that called him. So we are already doing the job of the party this afternoon. We're going to be opening up a temporary field office and state party headquarters down here in Colorado Springs so that we can continue doing the work of the party as we move ahead. But this could take a minute to finish out on that note of those candidates telling you you're the first to reach out to them from the party. Will you have the party endorse all Republican candidates in a general election even if you personally disagree with them. We already did. It was my very first act as state party chair. I stood in front of the State Central Committee and said on behalf of the Colorado Republican Party, we endorse every Republican candidate who appears with our name on the general election ballot. And that's what a party should do earlier this month. The Colorado Republican Party that just got ousted sent an email to party members supporting Tina Peters ahead of her election security breach trial. Do you think the state party should continue backing Peters at this point in time? I would not expect to see anything else on that. Our focus is going to be getting Jeff hurt, elected, getting Gabe Evans elected, working with Senator Paul Lundin and Representative Rose Tbilisi. Anything outside of that is simply not going to be something we focus. We are going to turn the corner and be laser focused on the mission of the party as it's defined in our governing documents and our bylaws. We exist to help Republicans win general elections where you want to focus is a slightly different answer than do you think the party should continue to back Peters? You're not going to see anything from us on that issue going forward just because that is not where we are going to be. We are going to be working with Jeff Hurd's campaign and Gabe evans' campaign. We are not going to be talking about ongoing litigation involving former Republican elected officials or anything else like that was the 2020 election stolen from Donald Trump. I've spoken about this uh prolifically. This is not something that we are going to be talking about going forward I was asked about it in the rally we held a month ago. This is about the 2024 election. I've been exceptionally clear. The state of Colorado has some of the best and most secure voting in elections in the country. I am proud of the security that we have around it. I know the people who helped set up the system that was actually done by Republicans and I think Colorado voters can feel very safe and secure when they cast their ballot. And I hope they cast their ballot for Republicans up and down the ticket. Understood. But was the 2020 election nationwide stolen from Donald Trump? I'm not going to talk about the 2020 election. It's just not gonna happen. Ok, we don't talk about, I'm not talking about anything that happened in other states. I'm here to talk about our election in Colorado. And the only way that that's even relevant is people have asked me, do we have secure elections here in Colorado as the Republican party chairman. It is my job to make sure that people feel comfortable with that. I feel comfortable casting a ballot. I think every Republican and an affiliated that supports our candidates should feel comfortable casting a ballot, they should cast their ballots early. I want those ballots in the very first day they're eligible. Here's a little bit of why it's relevant in 2016 when Trump first ran for president, you said on a radio program that you had been called A Rhino Republican in name only for supporting Trump and that you supported Trump before it was cool to do so. Is the Colorado GOP under Eli Bremmer, the party of Donald Trump? I was very clear in the meeting on Saturday, we endorsed Donald Trump. He is our candidate. We are supporting him. We are supporting every one of our congressional candidates, every one of our State Senate, every one of our state house candidates. That is the job of a party organization. And if the president decides the former president decides that he wants to compete in the state of Colorado, he will have our full support in doing so. What is success for you in taking over leadership? Which is 2.5 months to go before the election if Republicans do not win swing seats? Is it your fault? Well, right now, we're still trying to get stock of exactly what's going on. And the first thing we have to do is stop doing the harm. I've heard candidate after candidate tell me how the former leadership of the Colorado Republican Party was hurting their campaigns. The very first thing that I heard from the congressional candidates and from the senate leadership was eli, please stop the damage that this party organization has been doing to our campaigns. That is the first thing we're going to be focused on. After that, we're going to be focused on setting up campaign operations, coordinating, working with these candidates. And we don't know yet exactly what the resources are going to be. No one has any idea if there's any money left at the party offices, we don't know if there's crimes that have been committed. So at this point in time, what I can tell you is and what I've promised our candidates, they will not have to watch their backs from attacks from within their own party that will come to an end. How that helps us in the general election. We know it will help us. We don't know yet. It's just too early to make a call of how much impact we're going to be able to make. So it sounds like you could take responsibility for lessening the damage. But can you take responsibility or should it be a responsibility if there's not as much success, if there's not success? Well, right now, we don't even know what, what the, the playing field is. Ok. My background, I was an Olympic athlete. We trained for years, decades to go into the Olympics. The last two months. We, the saying we had is the, hey, is in the barn. Uh a lot of this election cycle right now is going to be fairly baked in. We can make some marginal differences. The state party needs to not be sending out communications that damage our candidates. That one I've committed to our candidates will never happen under my leadership. So I, I don't know the exact landscape right now. I haven't seen any Poland. I've talked to our candidates. I've given them assurances. We will do everything in our power to help them. But historically, by now the campaigns are running fully integrated campaigns with the State Party. We have just opened up lines of communication. We don't know how much we're going to be able to help out, but whatever we're able to do to help out, I pledged to our candidates. We will do. You keep seeming to segue to my next question because you talked about communication damaging to candidates. Let me start with this the moment. The attempt to remove Williams as chair really took off after he and party leadership sent the homophobic anti pride email saying God hates flags and calling for the burning of all pride flags. But one of the more recent emails from the old Colorado GOP leadership attacked a transgender Democratic State Senate candidate and that's against the Republican state Senator Cleve Simpson who came out saying I don't agree with that rhetoric that got put out there here when you ran for us Senate in 2022. You made a focal point of your campaign as opposition to transgender women participating in women's sports. You even raised money off of that opposition. Would you have sent the same transphobic email that the previous leadership did that was supposed to support somehow Republican State Senate candidate Cleve Simpson that he said he didn't want any of that nasty rhetoric. I've talked to Senator Simpson about that and I've given him my word. We will never send any communications into his district that are not fully co ordinated and supported by him. That communication never should have been sent, that never should have happened. And under my leadership, it never will happen because he wasn't consulted or because of the content. Well, it's both, it, it, it should never happen that the Republican Party blindsides a candidate in the middle of a general election with a campaign message regardless of what it is. And that is a category that I will say for every campaign, we will not be sending out messages on, you know, into Jeff Hurd's district or Gabe Evans district or anyone else's district without coordinating with them on that message. That should never happen and it never will happen again again. When you ran for Senate, there was a section of your website on protecting women's rights and it talked about women's sports no longer being protected, which was a nod to transgender participation in women's sports. But that same section also mentioned the scandal of Dr Larry Nasser, the former Olympics gymnast doctor, convicted of sexually assaulting Children. Those are unrelated issues. So why did you mention both in the same section? Well, it's obviously taken a little bit out of context. I was as you probably are aware, I was one of the leading experts who worked in the post Nasser era to help reform the US Olympic system. I worked with Republicans. I worked with Democrats. I worked with Congresswoman Diana to get to do that. I talked about the system, the systemic breakdowns that had led to that. I am one of the leading experts in the country. People follow my social media about policy around women's sports. This is something that every Republican effectively every an affiliate and frankly, about half the Democrats agree with. I've been very outspoken about saying I believe in protecting women's sports, grew up competing in women's sports that helped her get to the senior executive level that she is today. So I've been an unabashed women's rights supporter. I have many friends who are liberal Democrats who agree strongly with me on that. We work together to protect women's sports. It's something I've been very proud of and I stand by what I've said. I want to end with logistics. Does the party office in Greenwood Village still exist? It exists. We're trying to find out what exactly is there. I don't anticipate that we will have physical control over that for a little bit. We, we're working on that. We're working on all the other assets of the party right now. It's sort of like we got squatters in our house and we're going through the process of eviction and it's going to take a minute to get all the assets under control, but you'll actively use it if you can get in there. Absolutely. It's been the party headquarters for years. It's a great office tonight. We're going to be opening up a new field office here in Colorado Springs that will function as a temporary and interim state party headquarters for us to conduct business out of until we have, uh, we have been able to legally get access back to the party headquarters up in Denver. I, I've talked to the NRCC about opening more field offices in Colorado. We're moving very quickly and how will you gain access to the party's funds? Uh, well, that's in process as well. I've got legal counsel working on that frankly. We have no idea what's out there. Uh, there's been no transparency up until this point. There's a lot of questions about where the finances have gone. There's going to be questions that need to be answered. So, uh, we're going to go through the proper legal process of that. We will need to get access to the bank accounts. We're also talking to the Secretary of State and the Federal Election Commission to make sure we understand how to properly report contributions and expenditures because until we get the passwords to the party's account, we have to make sure we're following the law. Try password. I'm kidding. Um, thank you, Eli, I appreciate the time. All right. Thank you very much. Uh, we have happily talk anytime you want