082623 Sherrie Peif

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Reading during the break about this debate saga, and I
remember when Kamala Harris took over for Joe Biden. She
said Donald Trump said, Hey, that debate that we had
set up at ABC was for Joe. We're going to
do our own rules here. And Kamala Harris went out
and said that Donald Trump's afraid to debate me. Afraid

(00:20):
to debate me. So to get back on the story,
Donald Trump said, Okay, we agreed to the CNN debate
with the rules. We didn't ask for any changes. So
here's four debates, and we will agree to the ABC debate.
It's one of the four debates. We'll move with the
same rules as a CNN if you want you wanted
to because originally Trump said the Originally Trump said that

(00:42):
the ABC debate was negotiated Biden, and she says, no,
we want those same terms. So Trump says, okay, to
have the same terms. Well, it turns out doing the
reading is that Kamala's camp is now trying to change
the terms.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Right.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
They pushed Donald Trump to take the terms of the
Biden and now they're wanting they're asking that the baby seated,
sit it down, sat down. They want the candidates sat down,
they want to uh. They basically say that we want
to be seated, We want both candidates to be able
to have notes, and we want opening statements, he said,

(01:19):
and he's and so the Trump campaign says, wait, you
told us you want of the exact same rules that
Joe Biden had, which were no notes. We stand up.
We just get out there and answer questions, free flow,
answer questions, don't need opening statements, don't need just no
just open it. This go. And evidently the Harris people
are now saying, well, hold just on, we want to

(01:39):
we want everybody sat down, we want notes in front
of him, and they get to make opening statements. So
Trump's campaign is now saying, well, screw it. Then the
argument the mics, and Kamala says, and we want the
mics open so we can interrupt him if we want to,
and they see it in debate. They wanted the mics
because they thought Donald Trump is going to be interrupting them.
And Trump says, no, we agreed for this, and the
mic stay off, and they said, oh, you don't think

(02:01):
you can act presidential the whole time, so you have
to have the mic off because you don't have to.
It's become a thing based they're they're really just trying
to change up the rules, and so far Trump's agreed
to everything and that so far, that's where they're saying, well,
you know what, we've keep we keep agreeing and you
keep They say, well, agree to this, agree to this,
and you haven't agreed to anything. So that ABC debate
might be off. I don't know, so we'll see, but

(02:24):
that's what happened. They there were no notes, it was
the same rules to see it in. And then the
Harris camp said we want some different rules, and he said, well,
you told me you wanted to Biden the Biden rules.
So anyway, everybody switch gears back to Colorado Public GOP politics.
Cherry pie Crack, investigative reporter for Complete Colorado dot Com
is on the hotline, and we go back to the

(02:45):
saga of Dave Williams and the Colorado Republican Party drama
of dumpster fire, whatever we want to call it. Sherry
Walking on the program, How.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Are you morning, Jimmy, Hey, welcome, Thank you for having
me on.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Welcome. I know you've been doing a little pete and
physical therapy. Give those knees back in shape. So it's
been a while, but I'm glad to hear your voice.
Welcome back to the show.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Thank you. Yeah, it's it's four weeks tomorrow since my
right knee was replaced. And let me tell you, mornings
are rough go sometimes, but I'm here.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
I appreciate it. You ventured to that meeting in Brighton,
I believe, on Saturday to see the replacement of or
the oulster of Dave Williams and his merry band of
party people there at the State Party. What went down
on Saturday? What was your observation. We had Britta horn
On earlier, who now is the vice chairman. Give me

(03:37):
your journalistic impression of Saturday's meeting in Brighton.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
You know, I think it actually went pretty well. I
will say it was nice to see there was a
mix of people, and I know that Dave william Pez
has said repeatedly over the last couple of days since
that meeting. Oh, there was only seventy seven people in
attendance in their one hundred and forty proxy. It doesn't matter.
The people that had proxies, the people that sent their

(04:03):
proxies took their time, their energy, their effort to find
somebody to take their proxy. This was a meeting that
had to be called last minute out of nowhere. It's
you know, the end of summer. People are busy, people
are working and you know, I personally have a text
message from Dave from way months ago where he told
me proxies that he had no problem with proxies, but

(04:23):
now he has a problem with proxies. But that aside,
it was nice to see the people that were there.
Were a mix of folks who when we elected Dave
as chairman, were on Dave's side, as well as people
who were not on Dave's side. I mean, if you
look at just the two people that were behind this,
Nancy Polazzi and Todd Watkins, both of them have been
very strong Dave william supporters for a very long time.

(04:45):
In fact, Todd Watkins was Dave's champion back when he
was elected. Todd was the one who put him forth.
He wanted him in there, he was going to be
his vice chair he was going I mean Todd truly
was a major Dave supporter. Things started to fall off,
you know when Dave started doing these things like oh,

(05:06):
I'm going to run for the fifth congressional districts but
I'm not going to step down as party chair. Oh
but hey, by the way, Priscilla Ron, I know you
want to run for Douglas County Commissioner, but you're vice chair.
You can't do both, so you need to step down.
Oh and by the way, it probably doesn't look very good.
Scott James up Inweld County is chairman of the Weld
County Republican Party and running for CD eight. You know,

(05:27):
so Scott steps down. Now, Dave didn't tell Scott to
step down. Scott step down on his own. But those
were the dynamics that were in place at the time.
And when people go to Dave and say, Dave, this
doesn't look good. Oh, I don't care. I don't care
what it looks like. I'm the chair. I can do
what I want. So, you know, that was the beginning
of the end for him. Everybody keeps pointing to this
email about pride and burning the flags and everything in June.

(05:51):
That was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
I mean everything from expending state GOP money on mailers
to attack his own opponent in CD, expending money on
mailers to attack Gabe Evans in CD eight pre primary,
just all the little things that add up that he
has done, calling out, you know, or endorsing candidates before

(06:14):
the primary, calling out other Republicans. It was a succession
of events, and the people that were there on Saturday
was an eclectic mech mix of everybody from all sides
of the aisle. And I was a huge Day Williams
supporter back in the day. Now I haven't. Dave and
I have been on the outs since he started trying
to mess with the state legislature and tried to have

(06:36):
Hugh McKean taken down a few years ago. But at
one point in time, Dave and I were aligned almost,
I mean as aligned as you can get, and we
still technically are on principles and policies. Where Dave goes
astrive from everybody is his process and his personality and
the way he has led this thing. So it was

(06:57):
and everybody got along, even the people that the hand
full of people nine to eleven depending upon what vote
it was, so was there to support the current party.
Even they didn't, you know, act out at each other.
A couple of times Richard Holdthorpe had to tell people
to calm down when Cody LeBlanc would go to the
out of Weld County, would go to the microphone and

(07:18):
start saying things that they didn't agree with. Richard would
remind everybody, now, just let him talk, let him, you know,
move on. But for the most part, it was nice
to see people come together, actually get along, actually do
the business of the Colorado GOP and get this group
moving in a direction that it should move in.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
You know, seventy five days or so from an election,
it seems as if the Republican Party should be dealing
with something else. But this is all, uh, this is
all a road we're on because Dave Williams let us
down this road. He has no one to blame but himself,
and he should be blamed. I even have a friend
who a couple of friends actually that are big Dave
Williams fans, supporters, friends of his, and they they started

(08:01):
to see they said, yeah, this is not looking good.
This is not looking good. And then they'd say, Lakey,
why don't you have him on the show? I said,
he stopped returning text messages the moment that I started
becoming critical about his antics and just questioning. I mean,
I wasn't a blatant critic but asking why the hell
are you using the state party platform to send down
stuff about pride and burning flags and stuff, and the
sermon that's anti pride, just this dumb stuff like that,

(08:26):
and just questioning it, and suddenly the text messages is
stopped being returned. He wouldn't come on the show, and
I said, well, evidently just a simple challenging of your
ideas becomes a problem. The one problem that his friends had,
They said, he probably has lost confidence. Why can't this
just wait until his term is going to be up anyway,
there's going to be a new election early next year.

(08:47):
Get past the election, And that was the early reason
why they thought, maybe, ye, let's just stick with David,
not go through this process on Saturday. Give me your thoughts.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, and that's the big problem. I mean, that's the
biggest problem. And that's what everybody keeps turning to. Here's why.
Because the republic the Republican National Congressional Committee, which is
the funding arm for all the congressional candidates in Colorado
and every state in the United States. FED eight and
CD three are two of the most contested contests in
all of America, and they are the two most watched

(09:18):
and the two most highly needed to make to A
maintain three and B flip eight. But those two seats,
that group will not give money to the state of
Colorado to support those candidates as long as Dave Williams
is in charge. Why would anybody want to donate money
to a state party that is spending that money on

(09:41):
their own, on their own whims, on their own You know,
I'm going to spend the money on my campaign. I'm
going to use it by by sending out mailers about
my candidate that are absolutely untrue, or I'm going to
send out mailers about another opponent of another candidate. Nobody
trusts Dave Williams and Hope Schepplman and Anna Ferguson with money.

(10:01):
So these next seventy five days are the days where
this state party has to go out and fundraise. They
have to show donors with money that we can be
trusted to spend that money where it needs to be,
that we fully are behind all of our candidates, which
we already know the data is not behind the candidates
in five, three or eight. He's made that very clear.

(10:21):
And we've got to have somebody in place that the
NRCC or that's our NCC actually trusts. And that's the problem.
So while it's easy to say let's just wait, people
don't understand the importance of these final seventy five days
and the fundraising that needs to take place. And between
Brittahorn and Eli Bremer, those two have a lot of

(10:42):
people that they know. There's a lot of money that
can come into this into this party from the people
that they know. Eli has worked closely with the federal
folks for a very long time, and so these are
people that they can trust. And in fact, that organization
has already, within hours of removing the current party and

(11:03):
putting in place for the new leaders that organization already
came out and endorsed the new organization and said they
would start working with them immediately. Eli is opening up
an office today in several locations across the state. They're
opening up bank accounts, they're getting things in place. They're
going to get this started the minute Eli and Britta

(11:24):
walked out of that door on Saturday. So those seventy
five days are absolutely the most crucial days that we
need when it comes to raising money. And nobody trusts.
Nobody trusts current leadership.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
It's going to be interesting to see Britta was talking about.
She couldn't say too much. She says, we're working and
getting access to the bank accounts, changing the passwords, change
to the locks. I don't know how that's going to go.
I don't know if Dave is going to try to
find a lawsuit like happened in Michigan when a state
party chairperson was removed. But it doesn't seem like there's
much of a leg to stand on. But sometimes people

(11:53):
do strange things in moments like this. Is there any
word from Dave Williams. I know he hasn't talked to
me in a while. I'm guessing you the same. No
comments from him.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
No, In fact, he stopped talking to me because, you know,
for those that don't weren't aware, I was the chairman
of Congressional District eight, so I had a high stake
in this game, and I stepped down after the Assembly
because I moved. But I haven't heard from him since
the day of the Assembly, when I refused to credential
fifty people out of Adams County who had been given

(12:23):
access to the Assembly basically twenty four hours earlier, and
completely sidestepped the whole process that was supposed to be
in place. How you get delegates to an assembly. I
refused to credential those people at assembly and Anna Ferguson
got in my face and everything blew up. And that
was the last time that I actually heard from Dave Williams,

(12:43):
you know, other than the things that everybody else has heard.
So no, he's not. And the funny thing is, if
he would have embraced that meeting on Saturday, it took
two thirds majority to oust him. Right, If he would
have embraced meeting on Saturday and supported it and had people,
had his supporters come out, and had his supporters go

(13:06):
to bat for him, who knows what would have happened,
Because if everybody looks back on past SEC meeting, Dave
have had a two thirds majority for pretty much everything
he wants. So while yes, I still believe he would
have been ousted, I still believe that enough people have
slipped that that would have changed. Who knows, But why
not why not stand up for what you believe in

(13:28):
and go to the people and say no, this is
not you know? But he won't do that. We haven't
even heard from him hardly at all. He puts everything
on hope Sheplman. He has hope Sheplman do everything. And
it'll be interesting to see because this meeting that they're
having on Saturday, as far as I'm concerned, is just
is more illegitimate than anything ever because they opened it

(13:51):
up with three people in attendance earlier in July and
then immediately gabbled down in recess. They didn't have a
quorum to eat then open the meeting. So I don't
know how you can open a meeting without a quorum
and then gabble it into recess and pick it back up,
you know, a month later, over a month and a
half later.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
It's gonna be interesting to see what happens competing meetings.
He's still doing that if the r n c C
has any sway, if the Trump I mean the Trump
the rn C is run by the Trump campaign or
the Trump people, So if they can call him and say, dude,
it ain't happening. We're not working with you. I don't
know how quickly they step in, but we will see.
Do you know how long it does take? I've heard
a couple of weeks before the rn C would kind

(14:32):
of render which side they're on. Is that something will
be expandited since for an election season or does it
matter or do they just not care what's happening in
Colorado because they got bigger fish to fry.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
You know, I'm sure that that will actually probably you know,
I don't know for facts that from people that I've
spoken to. My guess is is the RNC will weigh
in sooner rather than later because of, like I said,
those congressional seats. The rn C, you know, the Donald
Trump campaign has pulled out a call araund though they
don't have an office here anymore, and they've done that
because they're trying to, you know, focus on those swing states,

(15:05):
those battleground states where they need to. But the thing
is Colorado has three congressional seats that are very important
to maintaining power in Washington. You know, Three is currently
held by a Republican, five is currently held by a Republican,
and Aida is currently held by a Democrat. Well, Aid
is completely flippable, and that is, like I said, the
most watched and competitive seat in all of the country.

(15:27):
And then three, you know, Lauren Bobert and what happened
up there, It's very possible that slips blue and then
down in five that is likely to stay red, but
it needs to stay red, and it needs to have
the support to stay that way. So the RNC knows
that they're not you know, they're not dumb, and I
would assume that when they take a look at what's
going on and they start having conversations with the RNCC

(15:51):
and they start talking to people, and they recognize that
without the what happened on Saturday being found the party,
we're gonna lose at least two, if not all, three
of those seats that we have to get.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
Cherry Pie Crack reporter for the Complete Colorado website, and
she's talking about the meeting that happened on Saturday. Than Alsted,
a current now former chairman of the Colorado GOP, Dave Williams,
real quick, we're gonna run short on time. But I
do find it interesting that it ended up being Eli
Bremer at the top and Britta Horne and vice chair.
Eli is well known to be part of what you

(16:26):
would call the more establishment wing of the Republican Party.
His uncle is the famous Paul Bremer. Back in the
George W. Bush administration warre in the Middle East, Eli
was a chairman of the Colorado GOP and El Paso County.
I should say the Opasso GOP and then Britta Horne.
It is much more of a grassroots activist. But you
kind of got both worlds represented here in this takeover

(16:48):
of the new Colorado GOP. Thirty seconds your response.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
Oh, I agree, and I think Eli came in. I
think Eli was successful in his bed because of the
fact that he went to the people with a clear plan.
He already had ideas and this is what we're going
to do, and this is what I've already done, and
neither the people I've already spoken to, And this is
how we're going to hit the ground running. And I
think that that mixed with bread it is going to
make it, make it work.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Sherry Sherry Pie. I'll talk soon. We'll stay in touch
on this thing. We never know how it goes. So
what Dave William does appreciate you keep getting better, keep
those knees moving. I am Jimmy Lankey. It's Lakey on
the radio. Jimmy Lakey. To be precise, Jimmy Lakey right here,
News Talk six hundred kse col stand by. There's more

(17:33):
to come.