the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, charity declares the house in recess until officials from twitter, facebook and google will explain how russian organizations purchased ads and spread fake news. again, that starts at 2:30 eastern. earlier today, d.n.c. chair tom perez responded to russia's

investigation at yesterday's special council indictment of paul manafort. this was part of a discussion on the future of the democratic party. we will show you as much of this as we can until the russia hearing begins at 2:30 eastern. >> our guest this morning is tom perez, chairman of the democratic national committee. this is his first appearance at one of our events, although we've been meeting with d.n.c. chairs since larry o'brien in 1968. we also appreciate having the d.n.c.'s chief technology officer with us today as well. thanks to both of you for being here. chairman perez is a native of buffalo, whose parents were immigrants from the dominican republic. he earned a bachelor's degree from brown university where

he's now teaching, working at a variety of jobs, including working on the back of a garbage truck. he went on to earn both a law degree and a master's in public policy from harvard. our guest began his career as a civil rights attorney at the justice department in the clinton administration, served as deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights. and later led the civil rights office for the health and human services department. he wanted to be elected montgomery county councilmember and serve as its president and then led the state of maryland's labor department. in the obama administration he was assistant attorney general for civil rights and later secretary of labor from 2013 until 2017. and thus ended the biographal portion of the program. we're on the record here. please no live blogging or tweeting. in short, no filing of any kind while the breakfast is under way, to give us time to actually listen to what our guest says. there is no embargo when this session ends promptly at 11:00.

to help you are curb that relentless selfie urge, we'll email several pictures of the session to all of the reporters here as soon as the breakfast ends. as regular attendees know -- do you have a question? [inaudible] sure, sure. it's raffi -- let's see if i do t correctly. raffikirkorian. >> actually it's k -- >> all god's children need a proof reader. back we are to being on the record bument no live blocking or tweeting. no filing until 11:00. sending out pictures tomb here of the session. and as regular attendees know, if you'd like to ask a question, please do the traditional thing and send me a settle nonthreatening signal. i'll happily call on those when the time is available. we'll offer the guests an opportunity to make opening

comments, then we'll move from questions around the table. thank you for do doing this. >> thank you. it's an honor to be here with you. good morning tomb. good to see everybody here. it's great to have my colleague and our chief technology officer, one of the many reasons i'm very bullish about the hopes of the democratic party moving forward. because personnel and policy -- is policy. when you have people like raffi onboard, capacity to move forward is limitless. i was going to jump right into what we're doing at the d.n.c., but i can't help but reflect for a moment as someone who spent 13 years of my life at the jupt department, including -- justice department, including time as a career prosecutor under both president bush one and president clinton, before i transitioned later on to a noncareer position, the seriousness of what we observed yesterday cannot be overstated. we know the facts at the d.n.c. the facts are the russians hacked us and they did so with

the intent of trying to help donald trump get elected president. nd what we saw yesterday was a guilty plea from a person who was referred to by donald trump as a great guy. mr. papadopoulos. it's clear the russians were trying to traffic in the email and present them to the campaign, the trump campaign, so they could help donald trump get elected. and you see what the indictments of manafort and gates, that the rot went all the way to the top of the campaign. t's clear to me that the investigation will continue and this is not the end of the criminal charges moving forward. it's troubling to me to see such appalling silence from so many republican leaders. because the silence isn't simply deafening, it's appalling. because we are americans fist.

and this was indeed an assault not simply on the d.n.c. but on our democracy. and i'm happy to answer any questions about that. i want to turn to the d.n.c., though. because we walked into a d.n.c. that absolutely needed to up our game. there's no doubt about it. i've said that many times. we fell short on many levels. and being the sports fan that i am, when you play a football game or coach a football team or a basketball team, and you don't do well, you watch game film, you learn from your mistakes, and you build a better mousetrap, a better game plan. that's exactly what we have done at the d.n.c. we didn't just look at what happened last year in 2016. we looked at what happened over the last eight years that resulted in the loss of over 1,000 seats in state legislatures. we went from 60 seats in the senate to 48. we went from 30 governorships when barack obama took office into the teens. and we lost a number of critical seats in state attorneys general, secretaries of state. so we took a very broad look at

what went wrong and what we have to do. number one, is we have to change our mission statement. we've done that at the d.n.c. democratic national committee is not simply the party that helps elect the president every four years. we are the party that helps elect people -- democrats up and down the ticket from the school board to the oval office. when you are focused on every democrat, and when you do that by design, we do so by making sure we build strong state party apparatus uses and strong partnerships with our friends in the labor movement, with our friends in planned parenthood, with emerging organizations in the democratic ecosystem. that's how we succeed. and that's exactly what we are doing. we learned that we weren't organizing everywhere. and we have to be present and competing in every state and every zip code. and our new partnership with the 50 states we call it every zip code counts. because we have to make sure we're competing everywhere. we have to organize, organize,

organize. not simply mobilize in the three months up to an election. we need to organize 12 months a year. we've taken the term off year out of the lexicon of the democratic party. because we win in 2018 by organizing in 2017. and we win by making sure we have a technology infrastructure that's second to none. with the addition of raffi, we're well poised to do just that. we win by making sure we're investing in other forms of infrastructure. our millennial engagement infrastructure, our voter protection and empowerment infrastructure. i met with the lawyers counsel yesterday. we're building a 50-state voter protection operation that understands that voter suppression is a staple in the republican playbook. it's been that staple for a while. nd we have to understand that. by building that infrastructure that's a 50-state infrastructure. and we also have to make sure that we're connecting with people.

that we communicate and live our values day in and day out. we've been doing that in special elections across the country this year. in oklahoma there were three special elections in state legislatures that -- where donald trump had done overwhelmingly well in the 2016 cycle. we won all three elections. new hampshire by way of example. there was a state senate see the that has been republican since 1984. we won that election. florida most recently, another special election for a state senate see the that republicans won by double-digit margins last year and we won that seat. what was the key to success in these areas? what was the key to success in iowa where we won the special election there as well? the key to success was the same. organizing, boots on the ground. making sure we have good candidates delivering a good message and we were able to win. and win in trump country. because, again, the new democratic party is competing everywhere. we're leaving no zip code behind. and that is what we're doing.

we're invested right now very heavily in virginia and in new jersey. because virginia and new jersey are the two biggest prizes of 2017. 2017 to me is shaping up a lot like 2005. in 2005 you had a very unpopular republican president, as we have now. engulfed in a culture of corruption. as we see right now. governor with -- governing with a very unpopular republican majority in both houses. and imagine what would have happened if social security had been privatized right before the great recession. hat would have been absolutely clam to us for the american people -- clam tus for the american people. in 2005, that was the last year that the democratic party, the democratic candidate, won the race in both new jersey and in virginia. and we are investing in new jersey, we're investing in virginia. and by way of example, 0% of

our investments in virginia are on television. 100% of our investment is in building, organizing capacity. we've doubled the number of organizers on the ground shortly after the primary ended. we've located them in areas where we're not only helping ralph northam and others, we're helping candidates for the house of delegates because we need to take 17 seats in virginia to turn over the house of delegates. ordinarily there's only about 40 or 50 democrats running for those house seats in at least the last 10 years or so. this year there's 88 candidates running in the house of delegates. we are strategically situated so that we can help them as well. that's the new d.n.c. working from the school board to the senate and in the case of virginia, helping to make sure that we're helping people at the house of delegates level. because we can do work there, we can make real progress and we communicate our values. one of the big values in

virginia is people care about health care. whether you live down in roanoke or whether you live in northern virginia. people care about health care. they understand that ralph northam is fighting to make sure that people have access to health care. while ed gillaspie and donald trump are fighting to take away people's health care. those are the issues that people resonate with. this job is fundamentally at the d.n.c., it's an infrastructure building job, and it's a messaging job. in virginia and new jersey, with the candidates at the top, up and down the ticket, and in these special elections that i mentioned, we're playing hard in washington state, 45. because if we take over that senate seat we flip the senate and the old d.n.c. probably wouldn't have been active in that race. the new d.n.c. is all in. e effort in nevada to recall three democratic senators who were elected last year, actually two are democrats, one is independent, who caucuses with the democrats. they won last year fair and square.

what are the republicans trying to do? they're trying to recall them. even though they've done nothing wrong. where we've made a six-figure investment in a race as well. because the new d.n.c. is active everywhere. and when we elect democrats up and down the ticket, that is how we prevail and when we are invested in this infrastructure and leading with our values, hat is how we succeed. look forward to your questions and thank you for your time. > thank you. my one is just this. do you expect the two indictments and the one guilty plea yesterday to have any major effect on your ability to regain control of congress? or is it -- are local issues going to predominate and the investigations not so much? tom: i think yesterday was a somber day for america. because we now have pretty

clear evidence that there was an undeniable attack ourn democracy. -- on our democrat sifment what we also see is that -- democracy. what we also see that yesterday was the beginning. when you look at the history of watergate, it took way too long for all too many republicans to recognize that they need to put ountry over party. you look at the deafening silence from leader mccomand speaker ryan and that is unfortunate -- mcconnell and speaker ryan and that is unfortunate. i spent the majority of my career at the department of justice. i have great respect for the institution. director respect for mueller and the work he is doing. so my number one goal is to make sure this never happens again. because this was an assault on our democracy. you read the revelations today about the volume of propaganda that was put in on facebook. you couple that with the clear

evidence that the trump campaign and the russians were colluding to affect the results of the election. and if the tables were turned and that had been president hillary clinton aided and abetted by the russians, you'd have articles of impeachment filed probably before the inauguration by the republicans. so i'm concerned about our democracy. i hope that republicans and democrats alike, and there have been a few republicans who have courageously spoken about it, but i hope more do so. because this is serious business. >> we're going to go to chuck from the st. louis post. reporter: thank you for doing. this senator mccaskill was on the "meet the press" on sunday and was asked about the democratic party and leadership in the party and she said, quote, i'm one of the few senators that's left that's not afraid to call myself a moderate. and then she was asked, well, why is the democratic land so toxic in missouri? she talked about president trump being able to connect on

social issues in ways that democrats haven't done in many years. chris matthews made sort of the same point today, hawking his book "bobby kennedy" and infered that bobby kennedy wouldn't be welcome in today's democratic party of the because of the stress on social issues over economic issues. can you address that point? is that a fair criticism? tom: i'm reading chris' book right now. it's on my bed stand. i think bobby kennedy and all of these remarkable democrats would be very welcome. because bobby kennedy's book is about moral leadership. moral leadership means that there are no such things as alternative facts. moral leadership means you're the president of the entire united states. you're supposed to be out there trying to help everyone. and so the moral leadership of bobby kennedy, i think, is absolutely the heart and soul what have the democratic party is. i'm a huge fan of claire mccaskill's and we're going to -- we already are working hard

to make sure she gets re-elected. because -- what she has been doing is something that the democratic party needs to do more of. she has been all over the state, in every zip code. we didn't pay enough attention to certain parts of all too many states. and we have to do that. and again, by way of example, in virginia, we have a presence everywhere. we are out there talking to people because, frankly, the message that health care is a right for all and not a privilege for a few, it resonates in roanoke and it resonates up in fairfax. it resonates in rural missouri and it resonates in st. louis and kansas city. people want to make sure that they have retirement security. they want to make sure they have a good job that pays a decent wage. they want to make sure that the democratic party and their leaders have their back. and that's why claire mccaskill continues to get elected and that's what we have to do as a democratic party. demonstrating through our

actions that we have people's backs. reporter: along those same lines, there are even other democrats that worry that the party will become the mirror image of the republicans, just as extreme and intolerant of internal dissent. where do you stand on welcoming democratic candidates who might not be for abortion rights? like in that marle race in omaha. it seemed like you were using a litmus test. tom: when i think of a litmus test right now, i think of the republican party. jeff flake voted with donald trump 91% of the time and that apparently wasn't enough. the democratic party, i mean, the best example i can think of to illustrate what i see as an emerging unity in the party is what happened in virginia. when tom perriello got in the race, frankly the media with hindsight wrote the exact wrong story. they wrote the story of the

bernie sanders-hillary clinton redo. and if you look at the arc of all the stories leading up to that primary election, because senator sanders and senator rren had endorsed tom, and tim kaine and mark warner and others had endorsed ralph northam, that was, again, another example of how the democratic party forms a circular firing squad. we know what happened. you have two really qualified candidates who agree on just about everything. their emphasis might be different. they ran a spirt, high road campaign. when -- spirited, high rod campaign. when tom didn't make it over the top he immediately pivoted and endorsed ralph wholeheartedly. i've campaigned with tom perriello and ralph northam. and they came out of their campaign united as opposed to the republican primary where they came out of that campaign divided. unity doesn't mean unanimity. it doesn't mean we agree on

every issue as a party. unity doesn't mean that you have to be a rubber stamp for the party. and we have areas where people may not agree. but at the same time what unites us far exceeds what our differences are. and that is buy i think the democratic party is well poised moving ahead to win both next week in the races i've described, and to win moving forward. because -- reporter: just a quick follow-up. is it start for democrats to focus on imbeachment? tom: again, we're focused on making sure that robert mueller can do the job he needs to do to figure out if there was an attack on our democracy. we know from -- we know that we were hacked by the russians at d.n.c. e now know from yesterday that the trump campaign and the russians were in regular contact.

they weren't getting together to trade vodka recipes. they were getting together to affect the outcome of the race in 2016. and so our focus is on this attack on our democracy and making sure we hold accountable who was involved and then equally importantly making sure e never let it happen again. >> rich from -- richard from the daily caller. reporter: thank you for joining us. you've now had a week to investigate the d.n.c.'s relationship with fusion g.p.s. and i would like to know, first of all, if you would confirm how much money the d.n.c. paid the law firm to pay fusion g.p.s. second, who authorized it within the d.n.c.? and third, who were the people within the d.n.c. who actually got the information and interacted with fusion g.p.s.?

tom: as you know, i wasn't working at the d.n.c. at the time of this contract. when you do opposition research on another candidate in a presidential cycle, i would assert especially in the context of what we know now, that opposition research is not simply something that ought to be done. it would be malpractice not to do it. especially when you have a presidential candidate who blew convention out of the window. he didn't disclose his tax returns. first time that's happened in decades. didn't -- he has a very shady relationship with russian authorities. so absolutely. the research that was done, opposition research, initiated, a understand it, by conservative organization, and then when their work was done, it was given to -- then it was

ontinued by the democrats. what we know from the research is that donald trump or the trump campaign and the russians were talking to each other. and their conversations, again, as we know from yesterday, were about serious things. nterfering with our democracy. it was done by the law firm that was hired by the campaign. i don't know how much of the opposition research was the fusion opposition research. i have not disaggregated that amount. but what i do know is the issue at hand is whether the trump administration, trump campaign, and the russians were conspiring to affect this election.