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 h
had to cancel everything for getting covid and she is so freaking impressive every time i speak with her, i can t stand it. i just kept thinking about what she said, the lowering of the our of elected officials. we need to raise the bar. it should be there making people s lives better, not just that they are not breaking the law. and to be clear eyed about what this is, what public service is and what heroism is, and these two things don t go hand in hand. she s a very very smart person and i m looking forward to her being act in office at some point. she has not ruled that out. politics is in her blood, that s what she said. thanks. thanks for joining us, i do apologize for not being here in this chair this time last week, i was out sick, i finally got covid, i think i m one of the last people in the country who have never had it before but i finally tested positive for weekend a half ago. i m vaccinated so i think that helped make it an easier bout. i rested up, i
In the Virginia Statehouse and senate on the ballot. You might remember in 2017, so two years ago, right, the last year we had a big offyear election in virginia, there was a huge blue wave in virginia. Remember that . The Democratic Candidates running for statehouse in virginia two years ago got more than 200,000 more votes than their republican opponents who they were running against. But it was a fascinating thing to watch Election Results two years ago in virginia. Because getting the most votes didnt translate into democrats getting the most seats in the Virginia House that year. Because the republicans had gerrymandered the state so badly to make it easier for them to win more seats even when they didnt have more votes, when the results came in virginia two years ago tonight, republicans even though theyd had 200,000 fewer votes than the democrats, they had won 50 seats in the statehouse while democrats had only won 49. It was nuts. It was like a perfect distillation of how gerry
Impeachment investigators saying that other witnesses have now refreshed his recollection about certain conversations. He now confirms that he made clear to a top ukrainian official that military support was contingent on ukraines plans to deliver on trumps demands. According to stoppedlands updated testimony, he now recalls telling a u. S. Aide, i said that the resumption of the u. S. Aid would likely not occur until you crane provided the public anticorruption statement. With this relevation, sondland has become the fourth witness to afirm a quid pro quo. Military aid in exchange for political dirt. And this comes with the release of sonlands testimony last month, which paints a damming pick how the president extorted ukraine, through his personal lawyer. Sondland says that trump repeatedly ordered him to quote talk to Rudy Guiliani last month, saying ukraine is a problem. He portrayed their squeeze of ukraine as an escalating set of demands, which became conditions for american supp