Good morning. I am linda feldman, Washington Bureau chief of the Christian Science monitor. Our guest today is tom perez, chairman of the Democratic National committee. Welcome and congratulations on last night. A bit of background. Chairman perez is from buffalo, new york. He earned his bachelor degree from Brown University and a law degree from harvard. After graduating he served a number of government positions, clerked for a federal judge, was a prosecutor for ted kennedy, worked in the office of civil rights for president clinton, and in 2002, became the first hispanic member of the Montgomery County council in maryland, then serves as marylands secretary of labor. In 2009, president obama named mr. Perez head of the Civil Rights Division at the u. S. Department of justice. In 2013, president obama made him secretary of labor, and in 2017, mr. Perez was elected chairman of the Democratic National committee, which brings us to today. Now for the ground rules. We are on the record here. Please no liveblogging or tweeting while the breakfast is underway. There is no embargo when the session ends at 12 00. We will email to reporters as soon as the breakfast and if you would like to ask me a question, please send a signal and we will allow for that if time permits. And now mr. Perez, if you would like to make some opening remarks. Tom perez thank you. It is an honor to be here with all of you. Two and a half years ago, february of 2017, i ran for chair of the dnc under the promise that we would Work Together with our partners in the democratic ecosystem to build a 50state party so that were competing everywhere, every year, in every zip code, and we are doing exactly that. 2017, virginia and new jersey, those elections taught us that democrats could win again. A month later, doug joness victory in alabama taught us we could win everywhere. 2017 was about scale. What can we do across the country at scale . We now have nancy pelosi as speaker of the house, even against the headwinds of gerrymandering where we not only had to win races but beat the spread in order to win so many seats. The last time we flipped this many governor seats from red to blue was 1982. The historic gains in state legislative seats. The work continues into 2019. When i say the ecosystem, i mean the ecosystem. Yesterdays victory was a victory for all democrats. It was a victory, i think, for our Democratic Values and i cannot say enough about the great work of all the partners in the ecosystem. The democratic governors association, a powerhouse, invested over 5 million alone in direct investments kentucky, not to mention other efforts they made. Made investments in mississippi as well. Let me say a bit about mississippi. We invested this year in jim hood. We are investing next year again because we are in it for the long haul. That is what a 50state party does. What i learned from last night was that we indeed can win everywhere and what is notable to me about the victory in kentucky is the similarities it has to our victory last year in wisconsin. Number one, it starts with candidate quality. In wisconsin, we had a spectacular candidate for governor, tony. In kentucky, a spectacular candidate for governor, steve bashear. Steve beshears son andy beshear. Andy is the attorney general, as you know. His father, when he was governor of kentucky, one of the most effective healthcare exchanges in the country, and when matt bevin got elected, he broke it. People saw that. I firmly believe you cannot govern effectively if you have to hate everybody you disagree with. Thats what matt bevins m. O. Was. Thats what scott walkers m. O. Was. What you saw yesterday was a great candidate, a Great Organization competing everywhere. In wisconsin, tony eberts not only did better in milwaukee and madison, but across the state. About a quarter of the gain was in milwaukee and madison. The rest was all across the state. We competed everywhere and when we were competitive everywhere. Same thing in kentucky. It wasnt only louisville and lexington, although we ran up the score there. We did well in areas where bevin had done well four years ago. In coal country, we won a number of counties, competing in rural parts of the state. When you are in every zip code candidate and your message resonates everywhere because he was talking about health care, he was talking about basic pocketbook issues, that is how he succeeded. Virginia, another example, and i cannot say enough good things about the great work of the Democratic Legislative Campaign committee, an important player in the ecosystem. At the beginning of this term, i spoke with jessica post, the remarkable leader of the dlcc and we talked about the fact that if we could flip roughly 4041 seats in the legislative chambers this cycle, we would flip those chambers. Thats on top of 8 chambers that we flipped in the 2018 cycle. We were talking about the two chambers in virginia. Mission accomplished last night. I spent the night in Prince William county. Prince William County embodies the challenges that donald trump and his politics of division are confronting in todays world. It is the quintessential suburb that democrats continue to win across the country, whether its in virginia or pennsylvania in 2018 or elsewhere. Corey stewart practiced the politics of division. Virginians overwhelmingly rejected the politics of division, and they now have a majority in the Prince William county board. Thats what we have as a Democratic Party. We believe diversity is our greatest strength, and mr. President , when you continually divide america, that is not only unamerican, that is going to be terrible politics for you. Thats not who we are. The voters of virginia spoke up. The first Muslim American elected last night in Prince William county. A sikh american elected last night in Prince William county. Thats what we are all about. We are competing everywhere. When i look at Youth Engagement in virginia, Youth Engagement when up Something Like 200 300 percent. Young people are responding. This is the third year in a row donald trump has been president for 2017, 2018, 2019. The common denominator in all of these has been democrats competing, winning, and leading with our values. Again, i am so appreciative of the partnership and the leadership of the dlcc, and in kentucky last night, we had a new entity in the democratic ecosystem. The Democratic Data Exchange, some of you may be aware, which was created earlier this year. The work done in kentucky last night was the first battle test for the Democratic Data Exchange. Thats a very important partner in the evergrowing democratic ecosystem, a partner that can enable everybody running for office to have more information. We were proud to be a partner in kentucky. We were proud to invest roughly 900,000 dollars in the coordinated campaign in addition to the work we did with the voter file and the partnership. The state party chair is one of the best in the country. You couldnt find a better candidate than andy beshear, and when you lead with your values, you can win. Theres nothing weak about kindness and compassion. Last night, andy beshear said i will truly be looking out for you, as opposed to the president the night before who said you need to vote for matt bevin, otherwise, it embarrasses me. Mr. President , elections are not about you. They are about the people we are trying to help. Thats why democrats are winning. We are focused on helping people across the country, and so i am excited, but i am absolutely sober about the task at hand and we are going to continue to compete early, everywhere, and together with our partners as we are now less than one year from the most important election in my lifetime. Thank you. Im sure we will have more questions about yesterdays results. I want to ask you about the 2020 race and the still huge, diverse, potentially divisive president ial field. On the question of party unity, i know you have a unity pledge that youve asked the candidates to adhere to, but you have also talked about an expanded unity pledge which is not just to have candidates serve as surrogates for the eventual nominee, but to have senior advisors work with the eventual nominee and also share data, which is critical and which Bernie Sanders did not do in 2016. Tell us where that stands, in your efforts to keep the party from flying apart as we get closer to the actual nomination. Our unity is our greatest strength as a party and its Donald Trumps nightmare. Our unity is what helped us win last night and in 2018 and 2017. And every candidate running for president understands this is not about them. This is about democracy at a critical inflection point. Thats why i asked every candidate to not only pledge to support the nominee but to pledge to actively campaign for the nominee, to have a surrogate, an ambassador, if and when they leave the race, because one thing we know is that if there are 20 some odd people running for president , all but one will not make it to the mountaintop, and every one of them has taken that pledge. They sign a document early on if they are running as a democrat, they made a clear commitment to us. I have absolute confidence that everyone will follow through on that. That doesnt mean we dont have disagreements in the primaries. Thats what primaries are for. That doesnt mean we wont have a tough primary. Thats what primaries are for. Whoever emerges will be battle tested. Have they all signed the document for the expanded pledge, the sharing of data . We havent made them sign a document. They have made a commitment and i am confident we are moving forward together. People understand this is different. Health care is on the ballot. Womens reproductive rights are on the ballot. Immigration is on the ballot. An economy that works for everything is on the ballot, Climate Change and all of those things are on the ballot. Our democracy as we know it is on the ballot the ballot, and everything will candidate understand this is bigger than them. We have to come together, we will come together, and over the last three years, we have come together in these races, and our unity has enabled us to win historic gains up and down the ballot. Are you concerned the democrats might nominate someone who is too leftwing for those gardenvariety of democrats and that unity pledge will not hold . I think the problem is that the Republican Party the party of lincoln is dead, and the real challenge is right now, the Republican Party is so off the rails to the far right. I mean, virginia yesterday, a big reason we won that race is that there was a special session a few months ago to deal with the issue of reducing gun violence in the aftermath of yet another horrific shooting. What happened in that special session . 90 minutes into it, the republicans gaveled it down. Notwithstanding the fact that 90 of the American People believe we ought to do something to reduce gun violence, and we can do so consistently with the Second Amendment. When you look at roe v. Wade, two thirds, 70 of the American People believe that roe v. Wade should be the law of the land and its the republicans are trying to overturn it. You look at Gun Violence Reduction, people with preexisting conditions, people think you have to have your coverage, and it is the republicans that are trying to take away coverage. I think the extreme party in america right now is the Republican Party, and thats why we have been winning elections, because independent and moderate voters and lincoln republicans have been voting for democrats. Look what happened in 2018. You saw suburban women across this country, you saw young people voting in abundance. We saw it again last night in virginia and elsewhere, and so im very confident that whoever wins our nominations, their values are going to command the respect and support of the majority of the American People. One more from me, where you stand on the issue of a corporatefunded super pac helping the democrats retake the presidency . Well, that is going to be up to candidates, you know . What about money for the dnc . You are way behind the republicans in money. If you look at the Third Quarter of this year, to be clear, if you look at what the Democratic Candidates and the rnc and the Trump Campaign manager, it was 311 million dollars. The democratic ecosystem, especially in the small dollar space, is raising record numbers of money, record amounts of money. If you talk to they had more new donors in 2019 than they did in 2017 and 2018 combined. Their biggest single hour of fundraising in the Third Quarter of this year was the second hour of our september debate. What that tells me is that people are excited by our candidates, they are voting with their smartphone, and they are investing in candidates, so donald trump you know, they raised more money than the dnc last year. They raised more money than the dnc in 2006. We won at scale last year. Theyre morally bankrupt and that is the problem. They have to spend a lot of money on their Legal Defense fund, because their legal bills are mounting. And so we have to raise enough money to get our message out out, to build the infrastructure of success, and thats what we are doing. Are you ok with a corporatefunded super pac helping the dnc . Again, we dont have a corporatefunded super pac helping the dnc, and we have been very clear that we dont take money from organizations that are inconsistent with our values. Thats been a very clear rule of engagement for us at the dnc, and that will continue to be. And you are ok with biden backing down on his rejection it will be up to the each individual candidate, and the voters will accept that. Each candidate have to run a campaign they believe that is best for them. Paul bedard from the Washington Examiner . Hi, paul. The president backed away from his promises after recent shootings. Nationally it was not big but in your races, it was a big thing, especially in virginia around the nra. How do you see this issue playing out in 2020 and would it be safe to say that the nra is surrounded by proguncontrol counties and legislators . The issue of reducing gun violence is an issue of national importance. This president has broken his promises repeatedly to the American People. He said the day after a shooting, yeah, weve got to do something about background checks, and the following day he meets with the nra, and voters in virginia spoke and communicated very clearly about this. The majority of nra members believe that we can have commonsense Gun Violence Reduction measures and Second Amendment freedoms, and i think this is going to be a really important issue to the American People. I applaud the young people not simply from parkland, but from across the country. The mothers of the movement. We need to stop going to funerals and we need to stop kowtowing to the nra. People have spoken. This is an example of so many issues where this president makes promises and breaks promises. He said, i am not going to mess with your health care and now he wants to do away with coverage for preexisting condition. He said there will never be a plant closure to workers in ohio, in michigan, in wisconsin, in pennsylvania, and you see we are now in a manufacturing recession, the worst for the Auto Industry since the great recession. Barack obama saved the Auto Industry and this president continues to break his promise. He has a record now and people will ask, can we trust him to keep his promise . I think the answer is a resounding no. Good morning, jonathan. Big municipal victories last night. A year ago last month, the democrats came and ran at the congressional races, but you lost legislative seats in new jersey this year. How does that bode for 2020 . Is there a concern that you cannot keep your gains . As you undoubtedly know, we won a lot of very critical races in new jersey. Did we win 100 of the ones out there, no, but did we win a majority . Absolutely. Phil murphy is one of the most effective governors in the country and fighting for issues that new jersey voters care about, making sure that the new jersey economy works for everyone, making sure that if you work a fulltime job, you can feed your family. I think new jerseys going to continue to be a great model of how we succeed as democrats, and theyve built a remarkablyeffective, every zip code organization, and that is what enables them to win. Some turn on these local issues, but when you look at the aggregate data in new jersey, we did pretty darn well. You won five seats in trump districts in 2020. I am actually focused on taking the remaining house seats in new jersey. We now have all but one and i know if phil murphy were here, he would say, i want all the house seats. The remarkable candidates, whether it is andy kim or mikey cheryl or others, one of the big lessons i learned from this 2017, 2018, and 2019 cycle is that candidate quality matters. They continue to field candidates like matt bevin. Ive known you had your hands full, but i wonder how you feel about the u. K. General election, where you have a very leftwing candidate hoping to be Prime Minister in five weekstime, and whether you think there might be Lessons Learned for the Democratic Party, if you, too, had a leftwing candidate. I wonder what your opinion is on Jeremy Corbyn as well. I will let the voters in the u. K. Speak to what is going to happen there. Ive am not going to do a donald trump did and put my thumb on the scale of the election. They have been in a quicksand of gridlock since brexit past, and a few days after brexit, Boris Johnson acknowledged that a lot of his promises about brexit were not accurate. That is the challenge they confront. I am very confident about our candidates here because again, i think its really important to analyze what the American People are concerned about. They want a leader that is going to look out for them. What the tax bill that the republicans passed and the ukraine scandal have in common is they illustrate what this president s north star is. The tax bill was all about helping himself and people like himself. Ukraine is all about himself. His northstar is what he sees in the mirror every single morning, and the American People want a leader whos going to wake up every day looking out for them. How am i going to keep my health care . How am i going to get a better job . The Financial Times had a poll a few days ago that said, two thirds of the American People are not better off, feel like they are not better off off of donald trump. I understand why, because theyre not. It would be a very Different Campaign for the Democratic Party to run if sanders or warren was the candidate compared to if it is joe biden or pete buttigieg. What they have in common, win you look at the polling, they are all defeating donald trump, and so i have confidence that whoever our nominee is is someone who is going to be fighting to ensure that you can keep your health care if you have a preexisting condition, is going to fight to ensure that we take on the pharmaceutical industry, that we take on the nra, that we make sure roe v. Wade is the law of the land and we pass immigration reform. We are a nation of laws and immigrants. That we at knowledge Climate Change and its existential threat to america. I think some of us in the media have a tendency to complete unity and unanimity. Im not saying the candidates agree on every detail of every issue, but the unity of values matches where the American People are. It is the Republican Party that is off the rails to the right, and that is why we have been able to win back so many constituencies. John from newsmax, to your right. Two brief questions should donald trump be impeached or do you just want to defeat him next time . And second, you have a postscript on republicans, their big talking points the big talking points this morning about ever electing the firstever black attorney general in kentucky, a strong trump supporter, and the first woman attorney general in new jersey, an nra member. It brings no joy to me, speaker pelosi, it brings no joy to anyone. No one runs for office on a platform of, i want to impeach the president. I want to help people. But when they take that office they take an oath, they take an oath to uphold and support the constitution of the united states. This is a straightforward abuse of power case. What we saw yesterday with the relief of ambassador sondland. I mean, that was a smoking gun, plain and simple. I spent over 10 years of my life as a prosecutor. Boy, if i had witnesses like ambassador taylor, ambassador yovanovitch, the colonel these witnesses are unassailable on this president s effort to focus on the whistleblower is a classic distraction. The whistleblower has it knowledge that the whistleblower does not have firsthand knowledge. Now we heard from the folks who have firsthand knowledge and they cooperated, this was an abuse of power. The president put his own interests ahead of the national interest. You dont hold foreign aid hostage in order to get dirt, dirt that does not exist, on a political opponent. Every day the mountain of evidence grows, and what i am interested in knowing is what will republicans do . Will there be a howard baker moment like in watergate . It took him two years. But will it be someone who has the courage to step up . At the moment, i am skeptical. I am skeptical. On every other issue, when kids were being held in cages, they did not step up. So many other moments. Charlottesville, they did not step up. So the past actions do not exactly give me a lot of optimism that they will put country before party in the future. But time will tell, and i applaud the deliberate work thats being done by the committee and every time someone from the white house refuses to show up, you know, thats just adding to potential articles of impeachment for corruption for obstruction of justice. The postscript, your second question was about the election of the attorney general in kentucky. Thats the same state that threw out matt bevin. If i were the president , i would be trying to look for something if i was the president , i would be trying to look for something he went to kentucky to campaign for matt bevin with rand paul by his side. He put his credibility on the line in the most telling statement he made, you have to do this for me. Again, mr. President , it is not about you. You said you would not forget the people in coal country and you have forgotten them. It is about people in the health care exchange. They had one one of the most effective healthcare exchanges in the country and matt bevin undermined it. That is what people remember. Being mean is not an effective longterm strategy, and that was matt bevins strategy. Good morning. So, texas. I wanted to ask you about the senate and the house race. At one point, you were involved in trying to encourage beto to run for senate and maybe joaquin as well, and so we have a situation where there are at least four solid candidates that are in the race for senate and they are polling very, very large, just looking here at the Texas Tribune poll. 66 of primary voters do not even know who they are or who they will vote for. So i will ask you about how you see that and whether any of them what do you even think they could potentially i know he says no, but if it is possible that beto would come back. And we have what is known as texodus. I wanted to know what you think about that. Texas is a battleground. I do not know if beto orourke will run. We did a debate in texas because we strongly believe that texas is a battleground. This president is underwater in texas. The poll i saw a month ago had the generic democrat ahead of the president in the general election by Something Like five points. That is why he was there. I think its remarkable that this president has to spend time in states like texas, and i think we can compete. I think one effect of last nights election, you will see more retirements. Not just the texodus, but more retirements from republicans because they can see the handwriting on the wall. Donald trump wins the state by 30 points and he cant drag a republican across the finish line in that state. If im a republican in a swing or even close to swing district, im looking at myself in the mirror. I think we can win the senate race. I think we can win we are competing in the president ial and equally importantly again, the dlcc is a really important partner of ours, we are competing in the state house representatives because, like i mentioned before, we needed to win 40, 41 seats in 10 chambers to flip those chambers, and we flipped two of those chambers last night, so now we need about 37 seats in eight chambers. One of them is the texas house of representatives, where we need nine seats to flip that chamber. They have a remarkable party chair, gilberto hinojosa, and i look forward to continuing to work with him. We had remarkable gains in the last cycle and i think we can compete everywhere. Again, suburban virginia last night, you saw what happened there. The suburbs in 2018 in texas, you saw what happened there, harris county, fort bend county, democrats winning everywhere. We have a real shot of taking over the house of representatives there, in addition to competing in the federal races. Yes, our partners and the Democratic CongressionalCampaign Committee already have a field office in texas, because they correctly believe and i could not agree with them more that there are six opportunities now, there might be more coming up because texas is a remarkable potential opportunity. Ill give you one more data points. 800,000 more latinos voted in 2018 in texas than in 2014. 800,000 more. 3. 5 million latinos were eligible to vote but did not vote. Roughly half for registered and did not vote and roughly half were eligible to register and did not register. We are longterm invested. And again, that is a loss by a little over 200,000 votes. That number will be closer to 4 million. If you want to know why they engage on the republican side in Voter Suppression, is because they see the numbers. They cant compete on the merits for africanamerican votes, for latino votes, for asnamerican votes, so they try to make it harder for them to vote. That is why we are so invested. Not just we the dnc, but the democratic ecosystem, the dccc and others in those communities. Huffington post . Could you go into more specifics about what exactly the dnc did, the money you put in, resources, things like that and how can we replicate it elsewhere . Sure. We invested roughly 900,000 in the coordinated effort and invested in the party. Then self is a remarkable partner in that effort, the party chair. In addition, the voter file that they use is the dnc voter file. We spend a lot of time, our data people and their data people, making sure that our data was as rich as possible. We bought up about 110 million cell phone numbers a year ago to give to all the state parties, because if you want to communicate with voters today, you have to meet the voters where they consume their news, and smartphones or the place where they are consuming their news. I also mentioned the Democratic Data Exchange. The Democratic Data Exchange was established earlier this year and it is chaired by governor dean, and it is a really critical addition to the Democratic Party ecosystem, because what the Data Exchange enables is the legal, realtime transfer of data between the independent expenditure side and the hard side. Previous to the establishment of this, you couldnt there was no vehicle to, in realtime, share information. As we were running up to the election, the existence of that exchange enabled everybody who was involved in kentucky, whether it was us or the party or the Beshear Campaign or folks on the independent side, it enabled them to be smarter, to understand more about voters. The Democratic Data Exchange is there have been previous efforts to establish an exchange of this nature and they did not succeed. We spent a lot of time working with all the stakeholders in the ecosystem to establish this, and what we intend to do in 2020 is scale it up. We learned lessons, plan, execute, reflect, reiterate, learn, and we will learn a lot of lessons from kentucky. We look forward right now, i know our immediate attention is on louisiana, because we have a Runoff Election there and we are going to continue to work with the dgn, with the Edwards Campaign and with the Louisiana State party to ensure that we reelect john bel edwards. Bloomberg news. A twopart question. The first is devon highlighted during the race about thinking about if you commit. Do the results tell you that impeachment is bad politics for republicans . Bevin ran heavily on the aca and bolstering medicaid, do you believe this is the message the democrats should carry in 2020, or are you equally confident that single payer can win . Thanks to Lyndon Johnson with medicare and medicaid and barack obama with the Affordable Care act, we are well, we are 85 of the way or, roughly, up the mountain top. And we are having a discussion about how we get to the summit of the mountain and we have differences of opinion, and voters in the democratic primary are going to decide, if health care is your number one issue, what do you think is the best pathway . Every democrat running for president wants to ensure that if you have a preexisting condition, you can keep your coverage. Every single democrat is taking on the pharmaceutical industry. Pelosi and democrats in the house have passed a series of bills in the house to take on the pharmaceutical industry. The voters understood that Steve Beshear built one of the best healthcare exchanges in the united states. People were getting access to quality, Affordable Health care and matt bevin made it worse. Donald trump is doing the exact same thing. On your impeachment question, they tried to nationalize the kentucky race. They were unsuccessful. They were unsuccessful because voters got to the polls and said, who is going to help me . Who has my back . Matt bevin had four years of a record, and it was a record that was abysmal. People could not trust him. We have a president at 1600 pennsylvania who is in the same boat. There have now been three elections in 4017, 2018, 20 19, and each election has been a repudiation of trumpism. We have seen it, the politics that say no, you cannot have health care and the policies that say we are going to help me, donald trump, at the expense of everybody else. I know we have a lot of work to do, but i approach today and every single day leading up to the election next year with that same determination, to make sure we are focused on these Critical Issues. Is that to say you think impeachment doesnt matter . Democrats can walk and chew gum. Democrats have a constitutional obligation to pursue this investigation. I think the American People look at the polling, the more people learn about this, this is a straightforward abuse of power case. This was a president who threatened to take away foreign aid unless they interfered in an election. He was inviting a foreign leader to interfere in a domestic election. That is unamerican at a minimum and people can see through that, and people will also see that the democrats are doing their job constitutionally and doing their job on health care and all the other Critical Issues that people elected them for. I mean, donald trump, i would like to see him tweet about preexisting conditions. He doesnt because he is obsessed with tweeting about himself. When you started planning the 2020 debates, did you anticipate in november you would have 17 candidates still running, and what do you make of candidates who say the dnc is in some way picking winners and losers or putting their thumb on the scale, is a better way of putting it, by ranking the thresholds like you have . I was not sure how many people would be in the race. When we were planning the debate regimen. We did know there was going to be a historic field in terms of its size, and so what we did, we had some basic northstar principle fairness and transparency. In january, we laid out the rules of engagement before everybody was in the race. We laid out the threshold for the first debate long before the first debate. We created a grassroots fundraising threshold because the one thing we knew about the field is that there were going to be folks who were household names and there were going to be folks who werent household names, but we want to make sure we give everyone a fair shake and work with to ensure they got a fair shake. One thing i applaud about cnn and others who do town halls, you did not just do the folks who were wellknown, you gave everyone an opportunity. This field has had more earned Media Opportunities than any field, i would argue, in american history. And because of that, the American People have gotten to kick the tires on our very, very deep field and im proud of our deep field. The closer you get to iowa and New Hampshire and voting in every campaign, you raise the bar because candidates have to demonstrate that theyre getting traction. So with respect to your second question, i respectfully but strongly disagree with the notion that we have somehow been winnowing the field. We have been doing what you are doing in every cycle, we started out at 1 in june or july. Hard to get lower than 1 . We went up to 2 in september, october. 3 in november, and december, there is no candidate that i am aware of on the democratic side who has been number 4 in december, or even had traction for a large part of the primary cycle. And so we studied that history and make sure we have been exceedingly inclusive, and frankly, some days, frankly, i get a different question than what you ask me, which some days i get, you do not have enough people in the field. Some days, you have to many people in the field. That will be up for the voters and the candidates themselves. So i am proud of what we have done, and it is indeed going to be up to the voters, and some candidates are up in the polls, some candidates are not. What we have done is create a fair and level Playing Field for all of them to compete. You ran against one of the candidates, pete buttigieg, for dnc chair. What did you learn about him in that race and do you think that him losing to you with the best career decisions hes made . Ill leave that question for pete. What i learned about pete is he is incredibly talented. He is whip smart, a very wellinformed whip smart, very wellinformed and quick on his feet. Ive had the privilege of not getting to know just pete, but getting to know all the candidates. I coached basketball. It is the 14th year in a row coaching at least one of my kids. Ive never met a basketball coach who came to me and said tom, i have a problem, ive got too much depth on my team. We have a remarkable amount of depth in this field, and the most important thing i think we can do is make sure we highlight that and leave it up to the voters to decide. That is exactly what is happening. Financial times. I read your poll. When the candidates are asked about china, they criticize trumps approach on tariffs, but ive heard very few ideas about what they would do to tackle china and the trade issue. What should the democrats message on trade being going forward, to win back, not the people who have made up their mind, but the people in the middle who have not decided an outcome . Our northstar is the worker. Our northstar look at trade. Donald trump walked into wisconsin eight weeks ago and said, farmers are over the hump. Farmers are over the barrel in wisconsin and eslewhere. Wisconsin is the farm bankruptcy capital of america. One third of farm bankruptcy, mostly in dairy, were in one state, wisconsin. They had the audacity to go in and say, farmers are over the hump. To add insult to injury, his agriculture secretary goes there and says oh, the big are going to get bigger and the little guys, youre out of luck. There is an emerging not only a bankruptcy crisis, but an emerging suicide crisis among farmers. This president has not put farmers first. The ethanol subsidy exemptions in iowa, he is putting big oil ahead of family farmers. People are starting to see it, another example of broken promises. And what they want to see in the trade policy is a president who is truly putting them first. When you put them out of business, as he did with farmers in wisconsin and elsewhere, youre not putting them first and thats the reality of this trade policy, and he has to understand when you put tariffs on china and on canada as well, i mean, that is ludicrous. You need to work with our allies. We need more friends in the world, not less friends and his policy by tweet you are saying why trump is wrong, but what should the democrats say they will do we need to put workers and family farmers first. The problem he does not understand is that a tariff is a shortterm measure to obtain a longterm solution. China is the problem. There is no doubt about it. They cheat. There is no doubt about it. They cheat. If we want to create a Green Energy Economy in this country and build solar panels and Wind Turbines here, we have to address the fact that china dumps solar panels into the united states, making it hard to pay our workers a fair wage, and so we have to take on china, but his approach and his policymaking by tweet, that is not how you get it done. The way you get it done is to engage allies in this, and when you alienate your allies and you betray workers here, which he has done, and when a tariff becomes an end in itself, that is reflective of bad policymaking, and democrats understand that. Christian science monitor. I spent last week talking to voters about the governors race and there was a lot of apathy after bevins comments about voters and they were frustrated with his divisiveness, but there was also a lot of political apathy and comments around the same thing from the democratic side. They felt like both the republican and democratic candidate in the race were leading campaigns with an unnecessary amount of vitriol and no other word than divisiveness. And i wondering when you think of 2020 and beyond, will the Democratic Party, will they is that a party that will fight fire with fire, or i think back to Michelle Obama, when they go low, we go high. It seems like there are two. Take at odds there two at odds there. Something else i learned, i am not going to go to a knife fight with a spoon, and at the same time, you know, Michelle Obama said when they go low, we go high, my variant on that is when they go low, we go vote. When they go lower, we make sure everyone who can is around us and eligible to vote and thats exactly what we have done as democrats. When you look at the turnout in places like nevada and elsewhere. Look at the turnout yesterday, young voters in virginia, the vitriol of this president is there is a trump fatigue that has set in. We do not need a candidate that is going to match of divisiveness and vulgarity with more divisiveness and vulgarity. We won in wisconsin with tony evers by contrasting vision of scott walker with the politics, inclusion, and optimism. We did that yesterday. Andy beshear, if you read what he said last night, he wants to take care of the least of kentuckians. He has a proven track record of doing that, so what were going to do moving into 2020 is again, when they go low, we go vote. The reason why there is so much Voter Suppression of their is because they know in texas in response to your question look at the remarkable opportunities with latino, africanamerican, Asian American voters. They cannot win on merits, though. They make it harder for their perceived vote to win. We will make the win by getting everyone out there, leaving clearly what our value is and not taking the bait. Distracting donald will create distractions. The distraction now is going to be socialism, and that is the oldest trick in the. When we enacted in the book. When we activated medicare and social security, what it all had in common, republicans called it socialism. I call those policies the anchor of our social contacts. At the end of the table, you are, i want you to make clear that you see immigration as an opportunity to best hit him on what you see as negative policies on immigration. Do you have any concern that some candidates, particularly on the more progressive side, would go in an a direction that is perceived as too far, or and things like that . In the abolish i. C. E. Area, for example . Our democratic nation believes firmly we can be a nation of immigrants and the nation of laws. That is what you will see from democrats, we need to make sure we pass comprehensive immigration reform, that we do not demonize them, and what this president is doing on immigration is the quintessential divide communities against one another. You can only succeed if immigrant fails. Thats never been the case. We never said bring us your rich, largely european masses, we said bring us your tile and huddled masses, and so many people who came here with pennies in their pockets have become millionaires and job creators in this country. And well continue to fight for an enforcement policy that is sensible, and we will continue to fight for and immigration policies that are sensible. He is not only against undocumented immigrants, he is against immigration. Look at what he is doing with refugees and legal immigration. This is quintessentially american and its going to make america a lot less competitive. That is why the values of the Democratic Party, i think, they are the values that command the respect and support from the vast majority of of the American People. Another one from texas todd gillman of the dallas morning news, the president last night boasted that before his rally in kentucky, he had a massive impact and the increase in the governors race was at least 15 points, maybe 20. Is that plausible . No. My instinct just says no. My other point, you talked about how critical hispanics are in the 2020 race, but its kind of remarkable that the only hispanic candidate for president is going to get shut out of the next debate and probably the one after that and is barely making a dent. How do you square those . I think castro has run a great campaign. We do not know who or who is not going to make the debate stage. I do not know what is going to happen and i do not want to prejudge it. What i do know, i have had the privilege of working with just about every candidate in this race, and the differences between every single candidate running for president and this incumbent president and the party of trump, on immigration and why is the hispanic not getting traction you look at latino voter turnout, in 2018, and it was increasing remarkably. I was in Prince William county last night. Latino voter turnout is remarkable and increased substantially, and is one of the reasons why we flipped the county board of supervisors. Latinos are always i am proud of the fact that i am the first latino chair of the dnc, but i am also equally aware of the fact that you do not have to be latino to fight for latino issues, and the Latino Community understands the difference between people who are fighting to defy them and cannot even speak out when their brethren are in cages and every candidate whos fighting to build an America Opportunity for them, so i think this campaign has been remarkable in its breadth, depth, and diversity. And candidates of color are more numerous than other and have made more progress than ever, and they lay a groundwork, whether they succeed now, they lay a marker for future campaigns. That is why i am so proud of our field and every single candidate is going to be running, to make sure that not just the Latino Community, but communities across this country have access to the american dream. One more quick one, sam stein from the daily beast . Hillary clinton mentioned her fears that Tulsi Gabbard was being groomed by republicans it got confused as russians were groomer her to be a thirdparty candidate. One, do you share those concerns . Two, have you talked to gabbard about this, or hillary clinton, for that matter . Three, generally speaking, how fearful are you of a thirdparty candidacy doing something akin to what jill stein did in 2016, which was siphoning off votes in critical states . We worked with every Campaign Including the gabbard campaign, and she has told us and the American People, i am not running as a thirdparty candidate. We asked every candidate to take that pledge, that was the first or second question, and tulsi took it enthusiastically. I invite you to look at posts she did on social media. One party one year, and that was, that is our , and she took an unequivocal pledge in that regard. Tulsi gabbard and every single candidate running for president understands that it is not about them, but something much bigger, which is the strengthening and preservation of our democracy. Did you say you talk to tulsis campaign after the clinton comments . We spoke to every Campaign Last week regarding the pledge and every campaign took that pledge and took it with enthusiasm. Yes, absolutely. We have reached the end of our hour. Thank you for coming and i hope you come again. And last year you were sad when i mentioned the patriots, but now i think, the bills they are a better team now. Yes, but now they are 62. Good evening and welcome to tonights event, everybody. My name is thomas, im dean of the humanities and sciences here at smu and im pleased to welcome you. Tonights event is sponsored by the center for president ial history and im pleased to announce that just recently