We would love to answer your questions, so please tweet us questions using the askedpolitico, and we will try to get to them throughout the conversation. Anna lets get started. Chairman, thanks for joining us. We are all super focus on the coronavirus pandemic. We are coming, each of us, from our own respective homes. How do you grade the federal response so far . Mr. Perez well, the response of this administration has been one of gross incompetence. It is an utter failure of leadership. This president knew, around the first of the year, that this was a pandemic in the making, and because he is always so concerned about himself, and he wants to be the center of attention, he exhorted the he ignored the advice of seasoned professionals, like dr. Fauci and so many others, and those eight weeks that were lost during this period of time were eight precious weeks that cost lives. Other actions of preparedness, preparedness on getting ppe, this is personal for me. I have four siblings they are , all doctors. Two work in ers one is a pulmonologist, working on a covid ward right now, and the failure of National Leadership i worked with team obama. I remember being in the room during the discussions on the ebola crisis, because we had osha at the department of labor, and we were concerned about safety. Barack obama and joe biden led the world, they lead with multiple response, and this utter failure of leadership is causing chaos around this country, and it is so preventable on so many levels. Anna we talk about that. I mean, there have been a lot of stories recently really delving into the administrations response, kind of that eightweek period and the lives that have been lost. I think we will be counting those in the coming weeks and months. This is life and death, and as he said, how do you capitalize on that, i mean, you do not want to be crass. Mr. Perez it is not about capitalizing, it is about making americans are safe, doing our best to mitigate the challenges that we have right now, and we need leaders that are honest with the American People. Crisis management is about speaking clearly, it is about speaking accurately, it is about speaking compassionately, and this president is 03. So what democrats are doing, and you see members of congress doing this, the Vice President has outlined, Vice President biden has outlined a plan Going Forward where we would lead the world, lead the global response. It should not be up to mayors and governors to be competing against each other and bidding up the prices of critical ppe. It should not be up to the mayor of detroit, as he has done, to figure out a way to test his first responders, but mayor duggan had to do that, because there was no leader. Democrats we are being honest with the American People. We are not going to be opened by easter sunday, we are going to level with you. It is going to be a while. That is how we do it. That is how president obama, Vice President biden handled the ebola crisis, how they handled the great recession, they worked together, they summoned our better angels, and they were not looking out for themselves, unlike this president , they were looking out for the wellbeing of the American People. That is exactly what we are doing right now as democrats. Jake a Large Campaign organization to try to win back the white house, win back the senate, governorships around the country. Is there a 30second pitch we thought we understood the outline of the Campaign Month ago, now we are less than seven months out. I am wondering if you have a sense, what kind of pitch, what it is . Mr. Perez the American People need leadership that is competent. Any leadership that is fighting to improve their lives, they need leadership that is not say, in the middle of a pandemic, we are going to go to court invite to do away with access to health care, and as we sit here in the middle of a pandemic, this administration wants to undo the Affordable Care act. The American People demand, and they need, leadership that will understand their challenges, that will have their back and not have a knife in their back. You need leadership that is competent. This president has been chronically ineffective time and time again, and the American People are tired of the chaos that surrounds this administration. Vice President Biden is a steady hand at the tiller. He has the experience and the character and the respects to restore american honor, to move us to a level where everybody has access to opportunity, and to lead, not only here in america, but around the world. Jake and how does i mean, we usually look at polls throughout the campaign, the convention, all sorts of milestones to break through, do have some sort of balance. Do you have a sense in your head about when those moments are and how does a candidate like joe biden break through when the president has two hours of airtime every day and is so prominent and prevalent in peoples lives because of this disease . Mr. Perez well, i think the president s two hours of airtime every day, he has succeeded in violating what i call the the doctrine of holes. When you are in a whole you stop , digging. Every day, he keeps lying. We are 33rd or something in the world in per capita testing, and he gets out there in keeps bragging. It is not the quantity, it is the quality, and this administration is incompetent. President obama, Vice President biden, they understood the magnitude of the challenges when they got into office. Vice President Biden oversaw the implementation of stimulus bill, the recovery act, and he did so with great, great success. He has fought throughout his life to make sure that average americans have access and opportunity. That is what we are talking about every day. What we are talking about is what democrats are fighting for, and we had to change our tactics, because we are not knocking on doors, but we are using our digital engagement. The Vice President , his team, the dnc, state parties, we are talking about issues that are most important to people, and right now, safety is one of the most important issues that are confronting people, and we saw the abject disconcern for safety when in wisconsin, they put people in harms way. 100 difference i think between democrats and republicans in this moment of great crisis. Anna a practical question in terms of the dnc, does your role change at all . Obviously, you are working at home, but are you at all pivoting in terms of maybe being more digital, raising money in a different way . Can you talk a little bit about the fundamentals behind the scenes, kind of machinations and how this pandemic has changed your role or the job, leading up to the election . Mr. Perez tactics have changed, but our goals have not our goal is to win elections opened on the ballot, starting with the presidency, but going through the statehouses and taking the senate back and expanding our margins in the u. S. House, winning governorships. Peer is how our tactics have changed. We have always had a robust digital presence, but we have gotten more muscular over the last few weeks, maybe four weeks, we have trained literally 7000 digital organizers. Some of it was digital organizing 101, some of it was digital organizing 201, but we continue to these trainings because there is a remarkable demand, and, frankly, a lot of people who do have time on their hands, because they are at home, and they want to volunteer. We started the battleground build up long ago, so the people that were knocking on the doors, we are simply transforming them into digital organizers. Last year, working with the Democratic Party in wisconsin, under their very able leadership of ben wikler, we knocked on over 20,000 doors in wisconsin in 2018. We are not knocking on doors, but we build those relationships as a result of that interaction, and now what we are doing is we communicate via different methods. Because we have different phone numbers, we buy up social media handles, we have a really robust capacity to communicate with people where they consume their news. For the vast majority, that is on their smartphones. Anna i want to ask you about key issues, but clearly the coronavirus is the dominant issue that, you know, impeachment is a distant memory, right . We thought that would be a big issue in this campaign. Is there anything else that is going to breakthrough in terms of either may be subplots from the coronavirus or just other things that are on the voters minds that you are hearing from people in terms of, you know, where you might be able to pinpoint other issues . Mr. Perez i think this issue will be about character and competence. Who has the ability, who has the leadership capacity to improve my life in meaningful ways . And this president now has a record. What we have seen over three to half years as he has been chronically ineffective at every turn, he has been the chaos president , too much tweeting, not enough problemsolving. Every time, how many people have left his administration . And those chickens have come home to roost now, because you have all too few people with competence handling critical problems. So what we are talking about is voters across america, and now we are doing it more digitally than facetoface, obviously, but who has your back on these issues that matter most . Who can you trust to move the ball forward . Who can you trust to bring us through this pandemic . Who can you trust to build relationships around the world . Because this is a Global Pandemic that requires Global Leadership. That is what this election is about, and this president has been chronically ineffective on all of these fronts, and we have a Vice President in joe biden who has spent his entire career bringing people together, fighting for issues that Everyday Americans want to learn about and want to make sure that their government is fighting for. Health care is going to be, again, one of the top issues this november. Jake i am curious what you think. In playbook this morning, Morgan Stanley had an analysis this morning that indicated they dont believe theres going to be a vaccine widely available until march 2021, with waves of people returning to work both this summer and later in the fall and schools opening in september, i wonder, everybody we speak to seems to think the convention is not going to happen in person. There must be, at this point, you must agree that its unlikely who happen in an inperson fashion, correct . Mr. Perez i disagree. We moved our convention back five weeks because we wanted to maximize our opportunities to have an inperson convention, to have it muscular convention. The setting of the convention, im completely committed to milwaukee and wisconsin. At the same time, were not going to have our Public Health in the sand unlike the other side which is why we continue, jake, to be consulting regularly with Public Health professionals. So were planning for the best, hoping for the best. But were planning for every contingency and we will continue as we get closer and closer to the convention to listen very carefully to what our Public Health professionals have to say. Jake you must be prepared for it to look significantly different if its in person than it has in the past. Mr. Perez were going to prepare for every contingency. How many people can we have in an auditorium. All of those contingencies are things we can discuss. Were going to make sure its safe, that safety is job one. Were also going to make sure the civil war, 1864, we had an election. There was an election in 1918 during the spanish flu pandemic. We will be having an election. Thats one thing i guarantee, well have an election on the first tuesday of november this year. And we are continuing, again, with different tactics, but were continuing to move forward to make sure that the American People understand what were fighting for, what our values are and a convention is a big part of that and thats why were forging ahead. Not with our Public Health head in the sand but with the advice and assistance of everybody involved including our Public Health officials. Anna remind folks to tweet their questions. Were going to shift here a little bit to talk about joe biden, the presumptive nominee. Theres a lot of talk about who he should pick. He said its going to be a woman. What qualities do you think are the most important for him to consider in that choice . Mr. Perez i think the most important quality is going to be can this person assume the office of the presidency . When barack obama picked joe biden, that was the most important quality for him. I think that should be the most important quality every time around. And i think the bumper crop of candidates. And his commitment to put a woman on the ticket is exactly what we need at this moment and there are so many qualified women, governors, senators, house members so many people. I am really excited about this because ive known joe biden for a quarter century. I worked on the Senate Judiciary committee for senator kennedy in the mid 1990s and then senator biden was the ranking member. Ive seen his character at work from a front row seat in what hes fighting for and i had the privilege of working on team obama and ill tell you, every time we needed something, whether it was fighting for overtime wages for workers, fighting for retirement security, fighting to make sure workplaces were safe, fighting for women, joe biden was always there for me when i was advocating and hes always been there for the American People so hes going to want someone as a running mate who shares those values and im really, really excited about making history this november with the first woman Vice President in american history. Anna are you talking to his team . Have you put forth any names of qualified candidates youd like to see him look at . Mr. Perez im leaving that to him and his team. Hes got enough folks who are very qualified giving him that advice so im going to continue to leave it to him. I have a really Good Relationship with the Vice President and with dr. Biden, as well. Im just thrilled for them and im thrilled for the American People because the American People need competent leadership, leadership with values and character that have their backs and thats what theyre going to see in joe biden. Were going to restore honor and dignity to the white house and our place in the world as a Global Leader on pandemic response, on healthcare, on income inequality, on all the Critical Issues that keep people up at night. Jake one thing thats a subplot of your party and in this election is joe bidens need to bring together the bernie supporters and his supporters, new interview just dropped in the New York Times shortly before we came on here of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez who said shes not spoken with the campaign. I want you to react to that and talk about what is going to take to bring together two wings of the party. She said she wouldnt be in the same party with joe biden in another country. Im curious how you see those challenges . Mr. Perez i think we are really well poised to come together as a party. Eight weeks ago you were writing stories about conventions. We had eight people in the race. We started with two dozen and in april down to a presumptive nominee and every single candidate for president when they got in said if i am not the winner, i will support our winner with enthusiasm and energy and i have such respect for senator sanders and senator sanders and the Vice President have a really Good Relationship dating back years. Ive seen it up close and personal. They have a genuine respect for each other and as a result of that theyve been talking for some time. The Vice President understands that he has to earn the support of every voter and i think he is well positioned with the help of senator sanders and the other candidates in the race to bring people together and what we did at the d. N. C. Im very proud of, we created the most transparent and inclusive process that i think weve ever had at the Democratic Party during the primary process. Senator sanders and his team had a seat at the table when we made the rules and they were so constructive in that process and because of that i am confident that we can come together and we must come together and im confident that the Vice President will be in touch if they havent with congresswoman Ocasio Cortez because shes an important part of our coalition and we have to defeat donald trump. This is an existential threat to our democracy and everybody understands that and the energy out there if we werent in the middle of a pandemic right now, jake, what we would be talking about is the lightsout turnout and i have no doubt at the end of the day that everyone, and im confident that congresswoman Ocasio Cortez will be among them, that everyone will be fighting for joe biden and his running mate, whoever she is, this november, because the American People crave competent leadership. Our economy has tanked because of this president s incompetence. Our character and reputation around the world are in the tank because of this president s incompetence. The difference between joe biden and this president are night and day and that is why i am confident we can win and im proud of the work weve done to bring us together as a party. I recognize we have more work to do. The search for trust, the search for unity is a timeless journey. Weve worked tirelessly on this. I think were well positioned moving forward and were going to continue to work on that together. Anna you mentioned a lightsout turnout and i think a lot of folks predicted this would have been the biggest turnout in decades in terms of voting. Obviously an issue, weve discussed a couple of times in the conversation is safety in voting, what happens in wisconsin. Do you think people will physically be able to cast votes in nevada . Does that worry you . Dr. Fauci saying there could be a resurgence of the coronavirus in november that account impact that, people feeling safe to get to the polls . Mr. Perez there are a couple of aspects to that question. Things that happen in february sometimes seem like a year ago. In New Hampshire we outperformed in democratic turnout, outperformed 2008. In south carolina, the Vice President and others outperformed president obama from 2008. The turnout in the democratic primary and by the way in 2017, 2018 and 2019 in our elections has been remarkable and thats the momentum we have. I do worry about making sure this november we have options for voters to vote. What happened last week in wisconsin was unconscionable. I am in the Civil Rights Division of the justice department. I have sued a number of states texas, south carolina, florida, arizona for Voter Suppression tactics that they put into place. What happened in whether its voter i. D. Or whatever what happened in wisconsin, though, was putting peoples lives at risk and doing so deliberately and that is why its so critically important and republican and democratic governors have said, votebymail is not something that is going to leaded to fraud. Look at what governor dewine in ohio said, governor of New Hampshire, governor of iowa we must ensure that come this november voters have options. If you want to the vote by mail or vote no excuse absentee, you should be able to do that. We should be expanding as Governor Northam just did in virginia, early voting options for people. We should make sure that if you want to vote that day that we make it as safe as possible. When you have choice like this, that is in the best interest of the voters and thats in the best interest of our democracy. That is not a partisan issue. The right to vote safe and sound shouldnt be thats not a right versus left issue. Thats a right versus wrong issue. Its a false choice to suggest that you either vote in person or you have to put your safety at risk. Thats unconscionable. Thats exactly what happened in wisconsin last week and that should never happen again. Republicans in wisconsin should be ashamed of themselves. Jake how do you see the down ballot races . Do you think congress is going to be gone presumably for much of the rest of the year, at least for the foreseeable future. Which is an odd dynamic in a lot of states where you would be campaigning against the actions of somebody like a cory gardner or Martha Mcsally or whoever the downballot candidate is. How does that change now that these people are going to be out of action, so to speak, or able to talk about Emergency Response for months and months at a time . Mr. Perez im bullish about all the races. I think we have a great chance of taking over the United States senate. You mentioned senator mcsally. Mark kelly is a spectacular candidate in arizona, a hero, an american hero. And is working hard and were proud to be working in concert with him. Our mission is to elect democrats up and down the ticket. One the things im most proud of, when i got to the d. N. C. , we had 15 democratic governors. Now we have 24. We have helped flip 10 legislative chambers from red to blue. Im not only bullish about mark kelly taking that senate seat in arizona, i think we can win the state house in arizona. We have 28 seats out of 60 in the state house. We need three more to get to 31. We can take the state senate there, as well. If we win about 41 seats in eight state legislative chambers, we take over those chambers. Thats critically important because were getting to redistricting cycling again so i think we are well poised, even in this pandemic situation where campaigning is different, to tell the story of the stark difference between democrats and republicans. Republicans have become the lap dog of donald trump and his failed policy, his chronic incompetence, his economy that he was bragging about that has fallen off the cliff. And thats what were going to focus on, how democrats are going to improve your life, make sure if you are diabetic, you have access to care, you dont get denied your healthcare, were going to continue to talk about these issues and im confident we can win up and down the ballot across this country. Anna were running out of time but i want to the get to one audience question that zooms out a little bit, on many peoples minds. How do we rein in the polarization of american politics . How do we move back to a society of civility . What are the things that maybe the d. N. C. Is doing to try to lead the u. S. To form a more civil discourse with the r. N. C. And independents and republicans in general . Mr. Perez it starts, for me, by electing joe biden. Joe biden has spent his entire life building bridges, bringing people together. I worked for ted kennedy in the u. S. Senate for a number of years and ted kennedy understood that idealism and pragmatism are not mutually exclusive. Joe biden and ted kennedy are cut out of the same cloth. Theyre dreamers and doers. They understand that were not, as barack obama famously said in his 2004 Democratic Convention speech, were not red or blue america. Were the United States of america. And thats what we need. We unfortunately have a president right now who puts fear on the ballot every day. He is an advocate of zero sum politics. I only win if the immigrant fails. Thats not who we are as a nation and i think what we need to do is come together again and summon our common values. Weve always been a nation of immigrants. The last speech that Ronald Reagan gave before he left office in 1989, the last speech in the white house he gave was about immigrants and how immigrants had transformed this nation for the better and how our immigrant heritage is what has always made america great. I think we can summon those common values again. Weve got hard work ahead of us. What i love about joe biden and respect so deeply about joe biden is he understands that im not just the president of blue america or the states that i will win in november. Im the president of the United States of america. And that is why i think you see the Energy Around this country, around the Vice President s candidacy because people are tired of this chaos presidency. People are tired of incompetence in the white house. They want someone whos going to bring us together, not drive us apart. Thats what joe biden will do. And he will make everyones lives better in the process and he will restore that honor and dignity and our reputation as a nation. I really think he can do that and thats what were going to fight to do as a Democratic Party working together. Anna unfortunately we are out of time. Thank you so much for joining us, chairman perez, we appreciate it. For all of you on the livestream joining us for this virtual briefing to kick off the week. It has been great spending time with you. Jake if you enjoyed this briefing and you dont receive playbook, please text pb to 66866. Stay safe, have a great week. 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