Campaign chair. We have live coverage on cspan. A little different then usual, but we are here, our whole team. We will be here all week. Our first guest is tom perez. The leader of the Democratic Party. He is also an architect for the convention. They will be here to watch the democrats officially nominate joe biden. Due to the coronavirus pandemic the convention is virtual, mostly and it will include Vice President bidens acceptance speech. You have lined up a lot of heavy hitters in the party to keep this going online. So lets talk about it. Thanks for being here. It is a pleasure to be here. It six an exciting week. Weve heard a lot about the campaign being a referendum on president trump. But this is about your message country. What is your focus in pitching Vice President biden to the nation . Mr. Perez our messages about uniting america. Not just the united uniting the Democratic Party. With had Great Success there. This is telling everyone across america you have a seat at the Democratic Partys table. We will talk about we will be talking about what we will be doing to build back america better. We will be talking about the confronting america, the coronavirus, the economic collapse, our civil rights pandemic and we are going to be talking all week about how democrats, our vision for works formerica that everyone, talking about Building Back better. That is what joe biden will do. About theimply Democratic Party. We are excited to have Michelle Obama and barack obama and we will also have a convention across america. People will hear from ordinary people doing extraordinary things. We have a dreamer down in florida. We will hear from a family farmer who voted for donald trump because he trusted him and now he realizes that trust was misplaced. We will see joe biden, a man of empathy, a man of accomplishment. Day one, battle tested. Chairman perez, you listed crises affecting Many Americans in their lives. What you want the take away to be about the message of the Democratic Party . Is in an upbeat and celebratory week or a very serious tone . Mr. Perez we are in a crisis in this country. Who can lead us out of these crises . Do for the next 78 days is to make the case very forcefully that joe biden has the character sure that she understands you have to listen to the scientists. This president s abject failure to listen at the outset of this pandemic to the experts the notion that this will disappear magically he did not cause the coronavirus but his watched response has resulted in a tragic loss of life. We are so far behind. This campaign and this election is about leadership. Its about frost. Who can you trust to help us build back a better america. Who can you trust to rebuild the economy. Who can you trust to build an not usere it is against them. This and we about will have we will need a steady hand at the tiller. You have listed a lot of issues. You have not mentioned the postal crisis. Whats your plan and addressing that issue and are you going to talk to the party about having an lawyers ready and a game plan for election day . Mr. Perez we will use every tool in the toolbox. He has to cheat. He knows that vote by mail is safe, secure. Himself. T his family does it. Virtually his entire cabinet does it. Many americans depend on Prescription Drug choices for critical elements of their survivor and you have a president deliberately trying to make this fail so he can win. We will talk about our vision of winning. Our vision of winning is making sure the voting process is fair and accessible to everyone. Thats why we have invested so heavily on an unprecedented structure. What were saying is this. Very clearly make a plan. Ever you areere across the country. Whether you are registered or information get the to register. Make a plan. Register. Get your ballot. Do that early. Addition, Speaker Pelosi is reconvening congress. We are using the litigation tool. We dont and election in wisconsin even though the republicans tried to weaponize the pandemic. The reason that we one that was because we were organizing. There people to go out and use an absentee ballot. Helped 90,000 voters get in franchise. We are using litigation. We outhustled the other side. That enabled us in florida and get an and elsewhere to advantage in the number of people who signed up for vote by mail. We are going to hold the Postal Service accountable for doing their job. Thats what they have to do. This is a civil a civil issue. When i hear the chief of the staff to the president say you cant show that voter fraud does not exist, that is horse pucky. I have done that. I have gone to court. Voting is safe and secure and you should not interfere with it, mr. President. And you know what . Be therican old will not church by this president s attempt to deflect. You will your a lot of conversation about this. People need options. If you want to vote in person, you should have the right to vote in person. We should have the maximum number of early vote days so you can be consistent with social distancing. And those who want to vote early should be able to do that and thats what we will continue to fight for. This is about our democracy. Hes not going to get away with this. Chairman meadows, you. Entioned mark meadows another former republican, john kasich, will be speaking at your partys convention as tough as your message is, beyond kasich speech, will there be overtures to joe gop voters . Will bez there overtures to everyone across america. John kasich is one of a number of republicans who will be speaking. I disagree with john kasich on so many issues of importance like the right to form a union, womens reproductive health, but we have widespread agreement on the fact that this president has completely of liberated the guardrails of this democracy. Their grungy or from other republicans who else, chairman . Mr. Perez meg whitman and you will hear from a few more. We will keep a few surprises for later in the week. You will hear from people across the ideological spectrum of america. What we all agree on is that we need guardrails in our democracy. That is what i love about joe biden. Joe biden understands the politics of arithmetic. It erstands that in America Needs to engage in addition not subtraction. People tell me that having joe biden at the top of the ticket with Kamala Harris is so helpful because he is a uniter and we need a uniter in chief and a healer in chief not a tweeter in chief or divider in chief. wpeople will see and hear from havers with whom they disagreed. What we are all agreeing on this week and throughout is that joe biden is the person for the job. Republican, democrat, independent, you have a seat at the Democrat Party table. We are going to make sure you have a voice. Perez, and then final minutes, you talk about a message of unity and reaching out to some republicans and featuring republican supporting Vice President biden. We remember in philadelphia the tensions with the sanders delegates on the floor. I know it is virtual. Anyou expect any issues, challenges from the sanders delegates this time around . Chairman perez we have already approved the platform. Documentorm as a whole is both inspirational and aspirational. Senator sanders and others was invaluable to putting that together. The Vice President and senator sanders convened a series of policy groups on critical issues. If you have a preexisting condition we are going to protect you. If you are looking to make sure you can get a job that pays a wage that enables you to feed your family, that is what we are fighting for. Our platform is bold and inclusive. That is what we have done. We worked hard over the last four years. We understand our unity is our greatest strength and Donald Trumps worse nightmare. We will make sure he has a lot of bad nights of sleep between now and the election. The convention is not about our unity as a party, but uniting america. Best, when we are at our when we are a United States of america and that is what joe biden and Kamala Harris will bring. Robert are you confident the sanders camp is doing everything in their power to unite around biden . Chairman perez senator sanders has been a great partner. I worked with him on the unity of Reform Commission in 2017 we traveled the country together so we could listen and learn together. Field ofnprecedented roughly two dozen candidates running for president. What is happening now and what has been happening since april is, every single one of them are working their tails off to help joe biden win. A republican who ran for president is helping joe biden november. The party of lincoln is dead and buried and has been replaced by the party of trump that favors division. We will hear some birtherism because they are morally bankrupt. That is why we are going to win. We are organizing early, everywhere, and we have a Leadership Team in joe biden and Kamala Harris that are uniting america around a bold ribbon of Building Back better. We are not trying to build back to where we were in 2016, we are building where we need to go in 2021 and beyond. We will see what the party of biden and herod robert we will see what the party of biden and harris looks like this week. We appreciate your time and we hope you come back for another conversation. Chairman perez always a pleasure. If you areg around watching the livestream, i appreciate you join ching i appreciate you joining us. Joe bidens Campaign Manager will be with us next. Washington post live once again. I would like to welcome of the woman in the room behind the scenes working with Vice President biden and senator Kamala Harris. , shefer Omalley Dillon has worked on five president ial campaigns, state, and local races, has worked with president obama on his reelection. I appreciate you being here. Jennifer so happy to be here. Robert if we were in the room together or at the convention reporter and Campaign Official talking politics if we were looking at a map right now, you have done battleground states for a decade , what would you tell me is the path to victory for the biden harris ticket . Jennifer i am glad you started with that because i could talk about the map all day long. Getgoal our job is to 270 electoral votes. We want to create as many pathways to 270 as possible. We are not reliant on one state or one pathway. That the map favors the Vice President this cycle. It favors him and we have more states in play, we feel like we have an expansive map to 270. We know that our job is to keep as many states competitive for as long as possible and to ensure that we are building this big Broad Coalition that we call the biden coalition, a unique set of voters across the country that we think makes up the support they will take to win in each state. A nationalhis is election and we are running for president of the whole country, but we also need to win electoral votes statebystate. We are building our campaign to do that and we have a candidate in the Vice President who has a unique ability to speak to this Broad Coalition far greater than donald trump and that is what is putting us in a strong position to 270. Robert when you think about the map, we hear so much in our reporting about the industrial midwest and that is important, do you also see florida or the sunbelt as just as vital to the biden strategy . Jennifer absolutely. I would say that it is hard to look at our map and not think about each state uniquely. I would argue that we have a lot of lessons that we have learned out of 2016. Certainly 2012 and 2008. If we start from there, the states that are on the map that we feel we are confident in, but we need to do the work. Virginia, new hampshire, colorado. In eight and 12 those were strong battleground states. They are still battleground states but we are still heavily favored. Some call them safe but i believe we need to do the work to continue to maintain our support there. Then you look at the traditional swing state list. That is some of the states you are referencing, pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan. Its also florida, north carolina, and arizona. We dont have to win all of those states, it depends which state we win. In those states we really have been ahead in the polling. We have been competitive across the board and those will be states that will tighten up certainly between now and november because they are swing states. They have swung either way in previous election. Those are states that donald trump one in 16 that we are focused on winning back. Often, ittalk about has never truly been a battleground state at the level it is. Some of that is because of the trends of the last several cycles, some of that is the important work that has been done on the ground. Mark kelly is running an incredibly Strong Campaign and we will work we are working closely with him. If you look at states like ohio and iowa and georgia and texas, all of those states are on the map, we are within the margin and ahead depending on the polling, and we are doing the work to ensure they are in play. Our job is to make sure that we are keeping all these pathways open. That we are not relying on a historical sense of where the race should be. We are looking for opportunities wherever possible and going on offense wherever possible. We are playing the states in a way democrats have a knot before and we are doing it to win, which i think is a place we are not seeing as much of as you look to Donald Trumps recent strategy which is a much smaller number of states then we are working with where we are spending resources. Robert what about the south . Georgia, andut Stacey Abrams campaign for governor came close. Democrats are always trying to come back in the south. Could 20 20 be the year and what it take tot would win a state like georgia at the president ial level . Is ther i think 20 20 year, whether we are talking about florida or georgia, these are states that are changing demographically year after year. There is states where a stronger electoral population including democrats that trend in our direction. In georgia i had the opportunity to work with Stacey Abrams on her campaign in 2018, and the work has been done and the foundation has been laid for us to build on it in a way we have not seen previously. I think the states in the south are a real opportunity for us, they are places that we have strong support where we have a growing electorate, where we are continuing to see real opportunities locally and at the national level, and we have leaders like Stacey Abrams that are helping to pave the way and that has an impact on our ability to do the job and engaging voters so they turn out to vote. Robert you use the phrase the biden coalition. What does that include . Does that include the sanders voter, and the john kasich republican who does not like president trumps leadership . I honestly believe Vice President biden has a truly unique ability to bring people together. I think you are seeing that in so many ways. You are seeing that from day one in terms of the campaign he has led and the voices and the message she has driven across the country. You are seeing that in the historic numbers of turnout and enthusiasm but time behind his candidacy. You are seeing that and how quickly we were able to bring the Party Together for senator sanders to come on board. That is certainly a testament to the Vice President and bringing support across the board. This convention is about welcoming everyone. Whoever you are, whoever you voted for before, wherever you live, wherever you come from you are welcome in our party and this convention as part of Vice President bidens candidacy. We think there is real opportunity to grow that coalition. It is making sure that we are speaking to the base of our to our core groups that are always driving for the heart and soul for our of our communities. Democrats have really united the party and you are seeing that in all the polling of the support the Vice President has, they are completely united behind him. You look at the voters that came on board in 2018 and we are seeing that trend in our direction. Suburban voters, more women voters in particular, we are seeing that was a huge driver in winning in the house 2018 and we are continuing to see those trends. You look at this Broader Group of generally disaffected voters. Maybe they have been moving away from democrats in recent years. They are voters in communities we have just talked about, they are young voters. We are doing the work to reach these voters, to make sure they know they have a voice in this coalition, that the Vice President not only is a leader for them but also carrying their voice and how they are leading and that we are spending the time to make sure that we are having the conversation about where we are taking this country. We are looking at a Broad Coalition across the country across different groups. When we think about senior voters that are in support of the Vice President in significant numbers so far ahead of any democrat in recent memory. Certainly about the Vice President s leadership. We do believe this is a referendum on donald trump and we are seeing that in the support and concern that voters have, seniors in particular with lacks leadership or thereof around covid and the economy. We believe the Vice President , to win, must build a Broad Coalition, and we believe he is doing just that. I think he is uniquely qualified to do that. I would be hardpressed to a better economic plan the likes of which the Vice President rolled out over the last ever weeks that talks about made in america as well as a Clean Energy Future and a caregiving economy in the way the Vice President did. Voters trust him across the board and that is what they are driving home to support his campaign. Many ofthose voters, them would also like to see vice , see senatoren harris on the campaign trail, but we are in the middle of a pandemic, an economic crisis, but especially a pandemic. As Campaign Manager, how do you deal with that issue . You want the candidates to travel, but will they in the coming months . Jennifer its hard to imagine how much i have been thinking about this and the whole campaign has. Showob is to meet with and up to voters wherever they are. Concerned about the travel restrictions as i am making sure that we are spending Building Community, connection, and engagement with voters during this time of crisis. We often say people come to a campaign for the candidates and stay for the experience, the participation, the empowerment. How do we recreate that in a virtual way . We arewe ensure that creating opportunities to build connections that are not just looking like they have in the past because that is the way we do things. Us as ans a lot to campaign as we thought about our new organizing model and how we reach voters while not putting orm in harms way, our teams volunteers in harms way, how do we ensure we make the connections and have quality conversations. That does not always mean that it is just to say i want to know how you feel about this election or are you with us or against us . It has been far less partisan. Its first and foremost showing up and asking how people are doing and what is going on. How is your community handle that. We have beenon communicating with and building on week after week with this crisis really showing up for our voters. What does that mean for us tactically . Inmeans we have not stopped how we engage with voters. We are doing it wherever they want to be met, that is where we will be. Some of that is digitally. We are reaching people in new ways digitally across platforms, working across this Broad Coalition of surrogates and supporters that we have on their network as well as ours. We are also using traditional tactics in ways more prevalent and were successful. We are seeing this in polling, more people are responding and we are seeing this in the work we are doing in the campaign and our ability to have conversations, sometimes im just happy not to talk to someone in my family that im stuck in the house with. We are seeing that over texting. What we are focusing on his Building Community and making sure we are doing the work of voter contact in a way that is safe and that allows people to make those connections. The Vice President is reaching millions and millions of people as he is engaged. He is doing that when he is able and has seen us travel to do that. Theave seen this throughout past week as we rolled out senator harris as our running mate which has been so phenomenal and amazing, its been a wonderful week. We are looking for the opportunity on how we can broaden our reach and we are seeing that with the convention as well. We believe while there are challenges here there are real opportunities and we are really capitalizing on that. We are certainly seeing that with how we are organizing and reaching people. Robert one of the challenges you face is the postal crisis. When you are looking at all of your data, how many votes do you expect to come through the mail this fall and how are you preparing for dealing with those votes and the postal crisis at the same time . Jennifer the chairman spoke to this very well. This is top of mind for everyone. Fundamentally, as a campaign, our job is to ensure we are doing everything we can to make it as easy and accessible for people to vote in the ways they want to vote in their lives whether that is vote by mail, early, in person, or on election day. We are doing the work to ensure that we are minimizing the chaos. We know that Donald Trumps strategy is one of subtraction. It is certainly clear from thatthing we are seeing our campaign is growing, it is growing in support and growing in donations, it is growing in engagement and across every metric we look at to determine success and make sure we are on track. Trumpsd to see donald path as positive as ours. He sees this as a game of subtraction. That we sawstrategy in wisconsin and georgia is creating chaos to make it more confusing for people to participate in this process. My job is to make sure we are doing the opposite. We are doing everything we can on the front and to prevent things we think will really harm peoples ability to participate. We are also doing as much to ensure that we are supporting voters in showing up and voting. Arizona where 70 of the population votes by mail, they are on the permanent absentee list, they are voters who do this year to year. They know how to do this work. Our job is to make sure they applicationget that as early as possible to give the post office the time it needs. There is no doubt that there is political work at play, and we welcome the leadership of Speaker Pelosi on this issue. We are obviously very concerned about the operational changes being put in place two months before an election. We also acknowledge that we are in a pandemic and postal workers are doing everything they can and the best job they can with little support. Sure voterso make know there is a way to participate safely and that we are helping them do that. Every state is different, every jurisdiction is different. How do we support voters from an end to end standpoint. From registration to vote we make it as easy as possible and make sure we are executing on that. Confident we will be able to execute our strategies and reach our voters. I am confident donald trump will do everything he can to stand in our way and we will make sure we have the resources and focus to stop that. We are focused on ensuring that we do everything we can to maintain the best process to support people voting and voting by mail. Robert when you talk about executing the plan, we keep hearing from Top Democrats that lawyers are ready, the House Speaker is bringing back the congress, at least the house to debate this issue and discuss this issue, can you offer any more specifics or detail about what the Biden Campaign is doing on the ground were virtually to address this ongoing postal crisis . Jennifer i will speak more broadly. We will have the largest Voter Protection effort that has ever been conducted on a president ial campaign. I have been part of each one for the past 20 years in president ial politics. We have ensured that we are doing all we can to support voters to vote in any way they can. That certainly means we are looking at a very sophisticated complex, and multipronged multi prong approach that includes litigation, andtical coordination legislative efforts, that certainly includes supporting the jurisdictions in this election. If we look at the primary, the challenge in georgia was less malicious intent and more the fact that poll workers that traditionally work the polls are older voters, may be in the time of covid they are not able to participate in the same way. You had new poll workers who were less trained or did not have the training or the experience. Those mechanisms were put in place. How do they support the execution of an election in a pandemic which has not ever been done before. There are realat challenges that need to be supported through in a different way. Certainly we are very focused on making sure that we are supporting our voters and eating them where they are. Are doingrk that we now, but her engagement and research we are seeing because of what is at stake in this country because of the support the Vice President has and people will find a way to vote. They need to make sure they have that information. I think the online, chairman mentioned iwil lvote. Com. we will execute the most robust advertising strategy and resource allocation across all of our Advertising Channels to reach voters around voting. We are going to be doing it earlier than ever before and often we talk about the backwards hockey sticks. Up tohing kind of builds Maximum Capacity right before the election. , because ofpandemic concerns about mailin voting we are going to have a number of places where that backwards early stick starts in september and continues at a very high peak all the way through november. We feel very confident that we not only have the operational ability to execute on this, we also have the right strategy to ensure that we are reaching voters and supporting them through that process. Our goal is going to be pushing people to participate and vote, to know the way they can vote and do it as early as possible while also ensuring that we are supporting a heavy amount of turnout. We expect turnout to be greater than any president ial election before us and we will make sure that takes ice even in a pandemic. Robert you believe turnout will be higher than any time in American History . Jennifer yes. We expect turnout to be higher than 16 and we will do all we can to make sure that we are supporting voters as they turnout. Closelyyou have worked with president obama over the years and are running the biden Harris Campaign as Campaign Manager. In these tough times with the pandemic you may rely on major figures beyond the ticket like president obama. What is going to be his role beyond the speech this week in the final stretch of this campaign . Jennifer the first thing i would say is, the Vice President is such a tremendous candidate and to have the opportunity to a really him has been special experience and one that is allowing us to partner formerr, not just with candidates like president obama. They are out there doing the work. Come in a primary people together and say we support you and checking the box on that. Not really engaging as much as one might hope. Support of the Vice President with this campaign it has been so amazing to see the breadth and depth of support and action the Vice President possible orders are taking to help us reaching out to their own network making sure they are helping us whether it is we are seeing that with president obama and something at the end of the day we know it will take everyone in order to make sure that we win and we save democracy. We are seeing tremendous support across the board but also support in action. That is something we will continue to see. President obama has been a great partner across the board. Wonderfuld opportunities for voters to see the Vice President and president obama talking and going through some of the real serious issues that this country is facing, such incredibly serious issues and reminding voters what this country needs and deserves in leadership. I think you are seeing that come through and everything the Vice President is doing. Serving as the voice of the president as he is running for president. You saw that in some of the advertising we did with our first ad in texas and our ads in arizona and lord up. They did not say vote for us, they were not talking about the politics of the campaign. They were talking about how important it is to wear a mask. More importantly to say that we know this is hard but you will get through it. All of that directly from the Vice President. That kind of leadership we will continue to see from him and it inspires the support and action of so many other leaders in our country. I am so excited about the convention. Team against any team any day of the week. You are going to see the full breadth of this country over the next four days, telling the story of this country and how seriously we need leadership in crisis, these multiple crises we are going through and how our party is stepping up because of the tremendous leadership we have across the board. Few minuteshe final i was asking your colleagues about you and they say you are all business, total professional, you dont want to talk about yourself. Can you tell us about what it is like to be a Campaign Manager for a Major Party Ticket in a pandemic, your candidate is in delaware working from home. You are likely working from home. How iss this work and your relationship with Vice President biden, someone you knew but maybe did not so well when you join this campaign. Like as someone who really has done president ial races for the majority of my career, thats in part how we started, i think all of that has helped to build towards this moment and the campaign. I feel so fortunate to work with the Vice President. He and i, and some ways we come from the same place. My parents are former Public School teachers and we share similar values. We have really formed a great partnership. His leadership is what got us here. One of the things that is so important to say is obviously i came a little later to this team than many that have been on this team before. The foundation was laid from the beginning. The Vice President said from day one the whole reason in getting into this race that has not changed for a one second. That strategy, that message and the authenticity of the candidate has been carried through the primary and what propels him to win and has taken us into the general election. I know campaigns are very important. My job is to make sure we are doing all we can to not be constrained by the way it has been done before to acknowledge we are in an unprecedented time and need to rethink everything we thought we knew about organizing a campaign, that we dont get strained by what i call the bells and whistles of campaigning, or the distractions donald trump has put out there. That we also make sure we are anding focused on our goals stay very disciplined to that. Its easy for me to do my job when i have a candidate like the Vice President. At the end of the day we at a campaign are only as good as our candidate and our leadership. On the essence of who our candidates are, that was behind the success of president obama. We talk about how he was a Community Organizer and he created his campaign in that likeness. The Vice President seeks to carry voices with him. He is someone that understands what people in this country are going through. He is not only a leader that can lead because of experience having taken us through a crisis before, but he has the empathy to understand and connect with voters and to see them from his own personal experience. To makeas a campaign is sure we are amplifying that and executing on that and telling that story. We are making sure that it is clear that while this is a referendum on donald trump its also an opportunity to color in a little bit more of who the Vice President is and his vision for the country. We have been able to come through that and that is a testament as a campaign to our team. From the folks that started from the beginning to the new members that have joined, i really am so pired by the staff its not an abstract idea that they are doing this work during the campaign. They are all being impacted themselves like everyone else in the country. They bring a sense of voters theyg to the are talking to because they are living through a shared experience. Fundamentally that is what has allowed us to build this campaign and be ready for this moment and it is a reflection of who the Vice President is and his leadership carrying us forward. Robert i have a million more questions but we will have to leave it there. I appreciate you taking the time as the Democratic Convention begins. Thank you. Jennifer great to be here with you. Robert come back sometime and good luck this week. Today, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton discusses americas role in the world in a prerecorded conversation hosted by the atlantic council. Coverage begins at noon eastern on cspan, online at cspan. Org, or on the free cspan radio app. Picture from milwaukee, where the Democratic National convention will begin later this evening starting at 9 00 eastern. Heres a look at what you will see on cspan. Former first lady Michelle Obama and 2020 president ial candidate senator Bernie Sanders address the Democratic National convention tonight. Live coverage begins at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, live, streaming, and online at cspan. Org dnc or listen with the free cspan radio app. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. Tonightof the speakers appearing from other places then milwaukee. Including minnesota senator amy
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