This is the cbs weekend news. Ninan good evening. Im reena ninan. Hes the life of the party, and one thats recently shown few signs of life until today. Democrats reached into president Barack Obamas cabinet and pulled out their new National Party leader, former u. S. Labor secretary, tom perez. Hundreds of d. N. C. Members gathered in atlanta for their most dramatic leadership vote since the 1980s. Perez, the first latino chair of the d. N. C. , is now in charge of rebuilding the party and turning opposition to President Donald Trump into votes for democrats. As for the president , he tweeted that he could not be happier for perez or for the republican party. Heres tony dokoupil. Pass your ballot in, please. Reporter the future of the Democratic Party came up for a vote on saturday. A united Democratic Party is not only our best hope. It is Donald Trumps worst nightmare. Reporter and former labor secretary tom perez won the day. Thank you so much. Reporter perez is now the new chair,
This is the cbs weekend news. Secretary tom perez won the day. Thank you so much. Reporter perez is now the new chair, narrowly defeating minnesota congressman keith ellison, a charismatic progressive in the second round of voting. And the motion i would like to make to the body is the motion suspending the rules, if i may, to appoint keith ellison, deputy chair of the Democratic National committee. cheers and applause reporter in his First Official act as chair, perez offered ellison the job of deputy, hoping to build a crucial alliance with ellisons younger, more activist wing. Ellison accepted. We dont have the luxury, folks, to walk out of this room divided. applause we dont have that luxury. And i just want to say to you that it is my honor to serve this party under the chairmanship of tom perez. Party at its lowest point of power in 100 years. You want to give me a good sendoff, go vote . Reporter under president obama, other party lost about 1,000 state and federal elections, in
Narrowly congressman Keith Ellison for the top spot. But they perez appointed ellison as his deputy. Sparking words of praise from former president obama and words of caution from senator bernie sanders. Were going to have more on that in a moment. But first were learning more about communication between the white house and officials in charge of investigating President Trumps ties to russia. Cnn wars the first to reveal that the fbi and the white house reports contact between Trump Campaign staffers and senior russian officials and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said he had contact with the white house on this story and he engaged with reporters on it. I want to turn now to White House Correspondent athena jones. I want to go through the details with you on this. Before we go to that, we actually have some breaking news from President Trump. This is what he just tweeted. He said i will not be attending the White House Correspondents association din they are year. Ple
Reporter Donald Trumps new National Security adviser wants a more moderate approach than the president himself. And general h. R. Mcmaster held a meeting with his staff at the nsa several days ago. According to several people who attended the meeting, he said the term radical islamic terrorism is unhelpful because terrorists like isis are perverting the religion and their behavior is unislamic. Both the president and flynn frequently used the term to describe jihad terrorists. Mcmaster made the comment that this plays into their propaganda. And this is a religious war against islam and that hurts u. S. Efforts to work with muslim allies to defeat terrorist groups. We are told mcmaster had a strikingly different tone than mike flynn who was forced to resign last week after the controversy over his discussions with the russian ambassador. Now in contrast, President Trump who has praised vladimir putin, mcmaster said russia was an adversary. So all of this repudiation of President Trumps
A russian cloud hangover his pick of Rex Tillerson for secretary of state. A pick cheered by Mitch Mcconnell and condi rice and jim baker would set to sail through confirmation. In a normal world we would be talking about the merits as secretary of state for having not having government experience and things like that. This is not a normal world. The nomination is likely going to be a referendum on trumps russia fixation and his denials on what russia wanted to do in this country. Till errsons ties to putin are not going to help. Lifting them would have meant billions at the time. He did north a deal and they said they were an order of friendship. The state gives it him out to foreign civilians. He said i have concerns about what we do with a butcher, a murderer and a thug. Marco rubio said i have serious concerns about his nomination. He noted a friend of vladimir is not part of his secretary of state criteria. Lindsey graham said if you received an award from the kremlin, we will hav