hearing happening ahead of the vote tuesday. will i don't know about that. lost in some specifics and the pentagon has tried to set this list as a tentative list as opposed to a common here is what is on the chopping block. shanahan will try to fudge that. everyone's position islam on. the democrats voted against the declaration and the republicans voted for the most part to uphold it, even though they lost some republicans in the boat in house and in the senate. >> accu daily covers congress for "the associated press" and you can follow him at @matthewdaley. thank you so much. >> "newsmakers" is pleased to welcome tom perez to our program this week. since february 2017, he has been the chairman of the democratic national committee. prior to that, he served as the secretary of labor during the obama administration and was also assistant attorney general for civil rights.

thanks for being our guest. two -- being our guest. two political reporters will be asking questions this week. elana schor of "the associated press" and reid epstein of "the washington journal." we will start with questions. reid: chairman perez, you set up the debate system for the democratic presidential primary. to allow candidates to qualify for the debate if they get 1% of the polls or 65,000 donors. for the last few weeks, we have seen candidates for president making pleas to their email lists to become one of the 65,000 donors. john delaney, the former maryland congressman, even offering to make contributions of two dollars for every one dollar he receives for his campaign. are some of these candidates who are already qualified for the debates gaming the system, particularly mr. delaney by offering to make contributions that match ones to his campaign? tom: our goal in putting this

together was to get multiple pathways to the debate stage for candidates. to give everyone a fair shake. 18 months out from an election, if the only pathway to a debate stage is polling, we thought that was potentially unfair so i think the grassroots pathway is a very viable pathway and it is important to empower the grassroots. we took this by looking at the 1971 campaign finance laws. we tried to modernize them, and we came up with a formula that i think is not a layup for any candidate but also not a full-court shot. i think it is wonderful that so many candidates have understood that what we are trying to send to voters, the message is that you need to engage with grassroots so i see candidates who are out there doing that and that is good for the process. elana: for the next round of

debates after the june and july summer debates, are there plans to change the criteria we have now for candidates, potentially as the field itself? tom: in all of the primaries, we saw the threshold involved as the campaigns -- evolve as the campaigns evolved and this will be no different. as we get closer to the first caucus in iowa, it is important for candidates to show they have made progress so we haven't made firm decisions on what those thresholds will be, but it is absolutely undeniable that as we move forward, that we will s tost the threshold reflect the fact that we are closer to the caucus and voting, and people have been in the race in a while and they have to demonstrate to have made progress. we will do that thoughtfully and make sure we give candidates ample notice.

we announced these thresholds a wild back so everyone knew they had a few months either to go when the grass root -- grassroots setting or make sure they were reaching the polling threshold. reid: what is your timeline of when those thresholds for subsequent debates will be announced? tom: as possible, but as thoughtfully as possible. our first two debates are june and july. prior to those debates, but i am not certain because i want to make sure we get it right, so we are actively now thinking about what these next thresholds should be. at the moment, it is premature for us because we don't have thegh data in part because field isn't fully informed. we want to make sure we have a good sense of is everybody who is going to enter the race entered the race? thosee can answer questions. we want to do it as soon as possible but we want to get it right and as thoughtfully as possible. elana: given what you said

earlier about polling as full criteria seeming unfair, can we expect these new standards for later in the year will be more than polling? tom: when you get closer and closer to an actual election, the criteria can evolve with that, simply because come first of the year, there will be new requirements such as qualifying to get on the ballot. that might be a requirement. i'm not saying that will be one, but new criteria emerge. as you get closer to iowa and the other primaries and caucuses that ensue, now you are moving beyond simply name id to who is starting to make an impact. that is the point when polling kenmore probative of who is --

can be more probative of who is getting more traction as opposed to who is known. our northstar is to make sure we are giving everyone a fair shake and the closer you get to the actual elections, the more datative the polling becomes. elana: can i ask, when you emphasize fair shake, looking back to republicans the last cycle with so many candidates, it seemed in the early days, no one was happy with the debate stage. how are you talking with the networks about making this fair for the candidate? tom: what we are doing is unprecedented because as was pointed out, there has never been a grassroots fundraising threshold to get on the debate stage. especially early on in a primary season allowing an alternative threshold is important.

we also learned from the last cycle that the varsity jv undercard format in my judgment didn't work so well and wasn't well-received. that is why what we are doing is unprecedented in the sense that, let's assume for this conversation that 14 people qualify for the debate stage in june. we willare doing is have consecutive nights, seven and seven, and we will be random assignment so there is no varsity and no jv. we will do the same in july and i think the upside to that is know most of these candidates, i have worked with most of these candidates. i think it is spectacular. i don't worry about a big field. i welcome a big field. it is a world-class challenge to have and these candidates have a story to tell, a record to talk about, and a vision to share with the american people and i want to make sure they have that opportunity, and by having no jv

varsity on these first two debates, i think we will have record viewership and for our first debate, we are partnering with nbc. it will not only be nbc, but msnbc, telemundo, there will be digital platforms so however you consume your news, you will be able to watch this debate and i'm hopeful we will have record or near record viewership because there is certainly a ccute interest. about buzz feed reported the state of cyber security planning in february and the degree to which the dnc may or may not be sharing its own tips for how campaigns safeguard cyber resources. canhe interest of fairness, you talk more about how those planning steps may or may not have advanced in terms of cyber security sharing of information, consulting on the 2016

experience? cyber security is front and center and it starts with hiring the right people. our chief security officer is a guy named bob lord who was the chief cyber officer at yahoo! and before that at twitter. he knows his stuff. before he got the yahoo!, he uncovered a hack that had been there before he got there that was a russian hack. he understands this. in theat the dnc's role upcoming cycle -- i use the public utility metaphor. we are here to help everybody and literally a few days ago, we did another training for presidential campaigns. we bring everyone in together. we talk about the basics of cyber security. two-factor authentication. there are basic things every campaign must do. is when youear

start a campaign, you want to get the fundraiser, grassroots people and the comms you may not pay attention to cyber security. the bad guys will penetrate you at the outset and be there throughout. conductedy we have multiple sessions with presidential campaigns and we will continue to do that and we will continue to provide information and training to folks. that is why we have on staff at -- wec a full complement could use more, because this is a very important issue -- we have people who spend their entire day on the internet nd othering bots a nefarious actors who are trying to weaponize the internet to andeminate misinformation,

we are contacting whether it is facebook or twitter or whomever we need to contact, we are doing that and it is not simply for the benefit of a presidential campaign. it is for the benefit of issues because we have seen the weaponization of the internet starting in 2016. we've seen it in space races that state races and throughout -- state races and throughout. i'm appreciative you ask that question. providing a service to every candidate and we will continue to have regular briefings of campaigns, not just the next couple months but throughout this campaign cycle because we want to help everybody make sure that they don't hinder -- endure what happened at the dnc. reid: you talked about and a lot of the candidates have talked about president trump as a threat to institutions of democracy in this country.

at the same time, we've seen many candidates talk about eliminating the electoral the number ofase justices on the supreme court, fundamental changes to the institutions of democracy. do you support some of these efforts, and do you think it is appropriate for democratic presidential candidates to be proposing them on the campaign trail? tom: first of all, it is important not to try to draw what i would respectfully assert our false equivalency's. no democratic candidate using words like "the press is the enemy of the people." there is none that is proposing a cabinet that has the culture of corruption that has engulfed this president. there is none on the democratic side who says they love kim from north korea. there is no presidential candidate that is going to propose exiting nato. there is no presidential candidate who has taken on the editions of our democracy in the way our president has done.

the electoral college -- let's get to the specifics of your point. reforms of the electoral college have been debated a number of years. the constitution says that each state can decide how to apportion its electoral votes. that is what the constitution says. nebraska and maine apportion their electoral votes differently than other states. every other state has a winner take all. nebraska and maine do it for me. we can and should have a robust conversation about how we deal with the apportionment of electoral votes in this country. there are a number of states, including my home state of maryland, that have passed a provision of state law saying that when states totaling 270 electoral votes choose to apportion their votes to the winner of the national popular vote, that state will also do the same.

that does not require an amendment of the constitution. that is not anything that is, other than trying to vindicate the one person, one vote construct that is a big part of who we are. the conversations the democrats are having are about electoral reform and frankly, a lot of them are about democracy reform and we'll continue to have those in the primary. reid: do you think it is appropriate to increase the number of justices on the supreme court or have the discussion? tom: i think i will come up in the primary, partly because what happened to merrick garland was unconscionable and unprecedented. there is no historical precedent for what happened to merrick garland, that i am aware of. what happened there was unconscionable and unprecedented so people are frustrated. reid: the proper response is to add more justices? tom: that will be discussed in the democratic primary and voters will make a judgment based on what candidates say

about whether they think that is a good idea or a bad idea, but when you have what happened initiated by mitch mcconnell, people are feeling like -- i understand this feeling because i share it, that seat was stolen. as the chair of the democratic party, my role is to make sure ideas have an opportunity to flow through the debate. i believe health care is a right for all and not a privilege for a few. my place as the dnc chair to say how do we get from 90% coverage to 100% coverage? every democrat running for president understands that is what we need to do. it is not my place to say we should either do single-payer or let's move medicare eligibility to 55, that will be for the voters to decide which candidate reflects their views. elana: about israel, obviously

the president has been repeatedly decrying allegedly anti-israel sentiment within the democratic party and there is a growing willingness among younger democrats in particular to voice criticism of the israeli government that are splitting the house democratic caucus. time, is it important for democrats to mount a more robust defense of the criticisms as valid and not indicative of any bias, merely criticisms of the israeli government? is it fine to let 1000 voices bloom on this? tom: the democrats have been clear in their support of israel. the obama administration, democrats, and our support of a two-state solution negotiated by the parties. at the table. has made thet possibility of a two-state solution that much more remote because he has lost credibility. we can support israel and still criticize president netanyahu,

just as i can support the united states of america and still criticize president trump. we want to make sure that people in israel, israelis, palestinians can live in peace. that's what we want. that's what we are fighting for, and that is what we will continue to fight for and i think the long-term solution is a two-state strategy negotiated by the parties. it is absolutely clear to me that this president has made that goal that much more elusive because he is not an honest broker in the debate. what he did most recently as relates to the golan heights is an obvious effort to help netanyahu win the election. elana: did you have any conversations with congresswoman omar or congressman cassio cortez about how to handle the debates? conversationsd

with stakeholders about this because this is an important issue for the democratic party and i think what we can do as democrats and what we should do as democrats is make sure that we are vigilant in calling out ofustice, calling out forms statements, conduct, etc. that are inconsistent with our values. that is what we will continue to do. reid: do you agree, and beto o'rourke has said president netanyahu has allied himself with racist in the government. do you agree with that statement? tom: i think his actions align himself with the one our right party that he needs apparently to win his election. exceedingly ill advised. i wouldn't do it. it reflects incredibly poorly on him and the ideals of inclusion that have always been a hallmark

of israel, and i think that was incredibly wrong. reid: would you prefer he not win his election next month? tom: i will leave that up to the people of israel because we saw, again, donald trump putting his thumb on the scale with his statement on the golan heights. that is absolutely not what a president should be doing, and that's exactly what he is doing. the voters of israel are going to decide. i just hope in the run-up to the election, there is discussion of issues. there is. whistle politics -- isn't dog whistle politics. that does a disservice to democracy that are the values of israel. back to cyberit security for a moment, every major democratic campaign in the primary at this point has pledged to not used hacked materials against opponents. the property election campaign

has not made a similar public pledge when asked by the press. would you encourage them to change that stance immediately and take the place right now, particularly given 2016? tom: they shouldn't use it at the reality is in 2016, and we filed a lawsuit about this, the dnc got hacked, others got hacked by the russians. they trafficked in this stolen information, found a willing partner in the trump campaign and use that information during critical moments in the election cycle to undermine secretary clinton and others. that is what they did. it should come as a surprise to to takehat they refused a similar about that democratic's candidates have taken. it helped them, so why wouldn't they want to do it again? i think it is unconscionable and the attacks on

democratic institutions -- i don't think there is any time in our nation's history where we had to deal with the issues we dealt with in 2016, so that's why it is so critically for thet moving forward democratic candidates -- and i applaud them for doing that -- that's not hard, though. that shouldn't be hard for this president but it shouldn't be hard to speak out after charlottesville against white supremacy. it shouldn't be hard to speak out after new zealand, but for this president, it is a different world. elana: it sounds like as critical as you are, you are a similar issue should come up, using materials obtained for their own benefits through hacking. it willt i am saying is not surprise me at all if they attempt to use materials obtained through hacking in the upcoming cycle. they will not surprise me at all if they continue, and not only will it not, i fully expect they

continue to engage in voter suppression efforts across this country. that will not surprise me. why? because they have been doing it for years and in the most recent cycle. that's who they are. affront to our democracy. reid: why should the democratic party disarm on that front if such a bit -- materials are made available? tom: we can win elections on issues. we can win elections by taking movingh road, by forward. when they go low, we go vote. that was how we won in 2018. we didn't win by going out and trying to obtain hacked information. talkedin 2018 because we about if you have diabetes, we are going to make sure you keep your health care. we will make sure we bring down the cost of insulin. a full-timeorking

job, you want to be able to feed your family. those were the things we fought for. that is what we will do in 2020 and that will enable us to win. >> more questions? reid: right now, i think there are 16 candidates. we are waiting from -- for vice president biden to see what he will do. you expect a nominee in place before the convention and summary milwaukee, or are you anticipating going into milwaukee without knowing who the nominee is going to be? tom: i think will have the nominee by milwaukee. the field will narrow pretty quickly. you look at super tuesday. it is basically a month after the iowa caucus. super tuesday now includes california, eight includes texas. people will be voting in california the same day they go to the polls in new hampshire

because of the early vote. i think you are going to see a narrowing of the field pretty quickly and another thing i have everybody about, running for president understands that our singularly most important goal is to defeat donald trump. this isn't about any one candidate, him or herself. this is about the democracy imperative, to make sure that we win november 3 of 2020. so we will have a spirited campaign. passions will behind. high. who we are -- be that's who we are as democrats and i'm proud of it. we will be talking about health care, not hand size. we will not be looking for a give ourickname to opponents. we will talk about how to give people access to health care and how we deal with climate change.

how we deal with all of the important issues confronting the american people. that is what i think will happen and every candidate who doesn't make it to the mountaintop will understand the democracy imperative to help the nominee when. reid: one question that has come up for men running for president, is it imperative the democratic party, that the ticket be split between a man and a woman one way or another? tom: one of the things i love about our field is it cyber city. we have five women running right now. that is unprecedented. look at the racial, geographic diversity and that is spectacular. i'm confident that whoever wins ensure thaton will the ticket reflects the diversey of america. we may have two women on the ticket. not sure, depending on the primary outcomes. what i know will happen is that whoever wins the nomination

understands what they have to do, which is to build an america that works for everyone and have a ticket that reflects who we are as a nation. that's why i have a lot of confidence coming out of these primaries that we are going to have a remarkable ticket of people, candidates who inspire america, who are going to appeal to our brighter angels. when you put hope on the ballot, democrats do well and we allow others to put fear on the ballot, they don't do so hot. we have a litany of optimists in the democratic field. i have a lot of confidence we can pull this off with a diverse ticket to reflect america. there final question, will be no democratic debate on fox network that how you feel about your predecessor taking a paid commentator spot on the network? tom: that is up to donna. i appear on fox news and will

continue to. i have colleagues who do the same. that is entirely up to her. i had a number of conversations with fox news about hosting a debate, thought long and hard about it, and the reason we didn't do it is because at the end of the day, i have an obligation to our candidates to make sure they are going to get a fair shake during these debates. these debates are going to be more important than any of the other debates we have done and what we have seen going on at ,ox news at the highest levels something that doesn't inspire confidence. >> that's it for our time. thank you for being our guest and please come back. tom: always a pleasure. >> we are back after our conversation with the dnc chair tom perez and elana schor and reid epstein. you had a piece in the paper on the 20th of march. it has been a generation since bill clinton to -- bill clinton

declared the era being over. now socialism is the word and how the government can be more involved in making life better for americans. what are the biggest factors that have moved to the party misdirection? reid: certainly if you look at what the presidential candidates are running on, a lot of these ideas are things that were on the fringe of politics before bernie sanders campaign in 2016. he has pushed ideas like medicare for all and free college into the mainstream of democratic politics. you have a number of candidates who either cosponsored this legislation with him over the last two years or have adopted as theyme version of it build out their presidential campaigns and a lot of what the next year will determine is how far left has the party moved? our democratic primary voters willing to put their

faith behind a candidate who is much farther to the left politically than anyone they have before? >> you had a piece this friday morning about joe biden and his days as he contemplates getting in the race. what are the challenges for a candidate with his long pedigree in the party versus where the party is today? biden has said he has "the most progressive record of anyone running." no allies define that as other person in this field has done what he has done in terms of getting obamacare past, for lgbtqprotections americans, but these were obama era achievements and there is a rising young vanguard of liberal activists who have increasingly huge sway over the message and agenda, who are not impressed by that. they say joe biden is a relative of a past age. we'd seen his comments about

diverse a fine schools in the 1970's, in trying to atone for advocacy in passing the 1994 crime bill which has been blamed for increasing mass incarceration in this country and hurting minority communities. thatlity after liability is a factor of joe biden serving for so long that will come back to haunt him once he gets in this race because don't liberal activists are displeased. about theou both talk advantages and disadvantages for the two parties announcing this presidential campaign, democrats widee one side with a field of candidates, and the republicans with an incumbent president who is a combatant, who has the soapbox of the presidency and his twitter feed? reid: you would always rather be the incumbent that the challenger. incumbent presidents rarely rude -- lose when they run for reelection. h w bush lost, jimmy carter lost. both of them had primary challenges before the reelection

campaign but if you look at presidents who were unchallenged in a primary, you have to go back a long time to find someone who didn't win reelection. had a primary challenge in 1976 and ronald reagan social. -- too. donald trump can spend the next year raising lots of money. he has the biggest megaphone. millions ofs to people on cable television whenever he wants. the democratic candidates are really speak smaller slivers of voters. democratic primary voters in early states, the expectation is there will be 250,000 or 300,000 people participating in the iowa caucus. you are really talking about a small slice of the country that these candidates are honing your message to, or president trump can spend his time trying to talk to everyone. host: the other thing -- elana: the other thing he has going for him is the economy.

democrats tout rising income inequality and the dollar doesn't go as far as it did and that is true, but president trump can point a strong numbers in terms of joblessness and he is doing that which frankly, promises to increase the power of the incumbency. when it comes to democrats, no one has gone negative yet. and irobably can't hold will really be waiting and watching what happens when and startse candidates picking at each other to whatever degree they do because disability toct come back together at the end and prioritize defeating trump. we saw from 2016 that a lot of the divisions are still persisting. what if you are tom perez, is your biggest worry at this point in the process? reid: it is raising money, frankly. president trump will have an unprecedented amount of money for reelection campaign. the democrats with the exception

of jay inslee, have sworn off super pac fundraising. farabeth warren has go so that's gone so far as to say she won't do any private fundraisers in order to track support from grassroots donors in the democratic primary. electorateferent from the primary to general election and if candidates then't built networks with types of fundraisers who would subsidize a general election themselves at put a significant disadvantage potentially come the general election next summer. host: anything to add? elana: i agree, but the secondary worry is he identified the potential, he can say voter suppression, but tv cannot do the job it did. suburban women were what power to the 2018 victory the democrats had in the house. we will need higher latino and african-american turnout to get democrats where they need to be

in 2020 and that takes investment and real cooperation. we don't know if it will happen. host: it is early in the process, but certainly interesting at this point. thank you for being our guest questioners and we will have you back as the year progresses. tv was simply three giant networks have a government supported service called pbs. in 1979, a small network with an unusual name rolled out a big idea. let viewers decide on their own what was important to them. c-span opened the doors to washington policymaking for all to see, and you unfiltered content from congress and beyond. can the age of power to the people, this was true people power. in the 40 years since, the landscape has clearly changed. there is no monolithic media, broadcasting has given way to