Judging Freedom - McDaniel Beats Back Strong Challenge to Retain Republican National Committee Chair

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here with Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, January 27th, 2023. It's about 10 minutes of four, sorry, in the afternoon here on the East Coast of the United States. The Republican National Committee just finished voting for its new chair, and Rona Romney McDaniel was elected to her fourth term. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be something I would comment on or something that would be very significant. It's a libertarian show. I mean, we talk about government abuse. We talk about war and peace. We talk about the primacy of the individual over the state. I usually don't get into the weeds of one political party over another. But there's something to be said here for Ms. McDaniel's victory. When she first became chair of the Republican National

Committee, and Donald Trump was Mr. Donald Trump at the time, and then he became president and she wanted to stay on, he basically said to her, you can stay on, but you got to stop using your maiden name. Her maiden name is Romney. She is a niece of Mitt Romney, a person that President Trump famously hates and feuds with publicly. So Rona Romney McDaniel became Rona McDaniel. And under her watch, the strength of Republicans in the Congress kept shrinking. Under her watch, it was expected that Republicans would triumph this past fall, and of course they did not. Some will say it's her fault, others will say it's not her fault at all. But President Trump stayed neutral on this,

but he did have an acolyte running, Harmeet Dhillon, a well-known conservative Republican activist lawyer from California. I know Ms. Dhillon very well because she was on Fox many times when I was there. She's a conservative Republican with some liberal instincts. She's not a down the road, down the line, middle of the road person like Rona Romney McDaniel is. She was clearly Donald Trump's choice, though he didn't say it publicly. She was also clearly the choice of Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who is the leading candidate to be the Republican nominee for president in 2024. So it's interesting that the person that Donald Trump, who's going to make a run for the presidency, former president himself, and Governor DeSantis didn't want this person. Mike Lindell,

on whose network occasionally I appear as recently as last night with my friend Brennan Howes, got four votes. Harmeet Dhillon got 51 votes and Rona Romney McDaniel got 111 votes. So it wasn't even close. She got two thirds of the votes to reelect her. So this is her fourth term. I don't know where any of this is going to go. I can't imagine her staying on if Trump or DeSantis is the nominee, even if neither of them wins. If one of them is the nominee and wins, I would think it would be inconceivable that she would stay on. She would offer her resignation and the winner would probably choose his own person to replace her. If anything else comes out over the weekend about this, we'll let you know about it. So signing off as usual.

More as we get it. Have a nice weekend. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.