Top Oregon RNC official says he was unaware of pro-Nazi host and White national activist they discussed during YouTube chat
By Andrew Kaczynski and Drew Myers, CNN
A top Republican Party official in Oregon appeared on a YouTube show hosted by a man with a history of racist, anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi statements, in which the official, Solomon Yue, spoke supportively of another man who espouses White nationalist rhetoric.
Now, Yue tells CNN’s KFILE he wasn’t aware of the comments made by either of them and both Yue and the Republican National Committee have condemned them.
In a March episode of Pure Politics hosted by Greyson Arnold — who has posted enthusiastically about Nazi Germany — Yue was asked if a far-right activist named Nick Fuentes and the event he’s best known for organizing, America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), should have a role in picking candidates to run for office in primaries.
“Yes,” Yue, an RNC committeeman, replied. “Actually, in the ideal world, America First candidate is bottom-up process, it’s not top-down.”
Fuentes, who has been banned from most social media platforms for his White nationalist rhetoric, said the United States needed to protect its “White demographic core” at February’s AFPAC meeting, which was billed as an alternative to the annual Conservative Political Action Committee conference.
Later in the interview, Yue said he could use his leverage as an RNC official to help elect America First candidates.
“If somebody like the NRCC (National Republican Congressional Committee) came to us, asking for favors both in terms of money and in terms of a boots on the ground, I would have leveraged that,” he said. “I would ask, ‘What are you going to give to me in return,’ right? In return, you cannot support, in the primary, you can’t support your incumbents. You have to allow people to decide, and Republican voters to decide.”
Yue told CNN in an email he was unaware of the views of either man, Arnold or Fuentes, at the time of the interview and rejected them.
“I have no idea that this individual made these offensive and racist statements. I believe these racist viewpoints not only have no place in our Republican Party but also should be rejected,” Yue told CNN in an email.
“My YES was based on Fuentes has his constitutional right to political assembly and to participate in political process so he should be allowed to compete with CPAC conference,” he added.
Yue is a “senior RNC leader,” according to his biography on the RNC’s website. An immigrant from China, he has served as one of Oregon’s committee members since 2000 according to his biography on the RNC’s website, making him one of the longest serving RNC officials in the country. Yue is one of three officials representing the state in the governing body of the RNC.
In addition to his role at the RNC, he also is the vice chairman and CEO of Republicans Overseas, a grassroots organization for keeping Republicans outside the United States active in politics.
An RNC spokesperson told CNN that “White supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry are not welcome and have no home in the Republican Party.”
Yue led a push within the Oregon Republican Party to censure Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump after the January 6 insurrection. He has tweeted baseless conspiracies that the Capitol riot was a “false flag” event perpetrated by Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters. He also compared Black Lives Matter activists to Nazi storm troopers.
Arnold, the YouTube host who interviewed Yue, has a history of pro-Nazi and White nationalist statements. He has advocated shooting refugees and punishing undocumented immigrants with death.
Arnold did not comment on the nature of his posts when reached by CNN.
In tweets and posts in 2021 on the messaging app Telegram, which has become popular with White nationalists banned or suspended from other social media websites, Arnold repeatedly shared memes saying the US fought on the wrong side in World War II.
The posts pushed appalling conspiracies that there was a “Jewish cabal” that controlled the US government during the war and Jewish plans existed to “genocide the Germany people.”
CNN is not amplifying or repeating the vile racist and anti-Semitic language of many posts.
One of Arnold’s tweets from May 2020 called Adolf Hitler “a complicated historical figure which many people misunderstand.” He also shared a meme last year calling Nazis a “pure” race.
Yue repeatedly promoted his appearance on Arnold’s show in tweets tagging Arnold’s Twitter account to share that the interview was taking place. He later posted the interview, tagging Arnold in both tweets.
Arnold did not hide any of his views on his public social media accounts. He solicited his interview with Yue via Twitter and advertised it on his Telegram account as well. Yue tweeted with Arnold as recently as Thursday
At the time of the interview, Arnold’s Twitter feed prominently featured tweets suggesting a journalist be killed, and a video from Pure Politics he pinned as his top tweet had the White nationalist slogan “White Pride Worldwide,” and other racist statements.
In his hour-plus interview with Arnold, Yue drew on his Chinese background and his teenage experiences during the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1960s to draw comparisons between the Black Lives Matter movement, “cancel culture” and Communist China. He said the United States is having its own cultural revolution and becoming more like China, which he called the “new evil empire.”
Yue also praised Trump for not being politically correct and for embracing an “America First” policy and repeated the lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump. Yue also claimed attacks on Asian Americans by “thugs” in Black Lives Matter and Antifa were being ignored and used to divide society.
“Guess what nobody’s saying anything,” Yue said. “They pretend because they still want Antifa and Black Lives Matter thugs to divide our society. And they’re not going to say anything.”
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