Tom Perez: If you blow out your neighbor's candle, it's not going to make your candle shine any brighter. Democracy is not a spectator sport. And when people get engaged, good things happen. When people come together and make their voices heard, you can get a lot of things done. It pains me to no end to see what is taking place there today because so many dedicated career professionals there are in a bad place. I have profound respect for people who take a shower after work than before work.

Dan Koh: Let me paint a picture for you. Donald Trump is president. The entire country gets fired up about the midterms. And two years later, Democrats win back 41 seats. Two years after that, a Democratic president takes back the White House. Sounds like a long shot, but in 2018 that happened. And the person who was in charge of the Democratic National Committee at the time is our next guest, Tom Perez. Tom tells us his story, explains what the Department of Justice is, what the Democratic National Committee does, and how we make 2026 2018. Let's welcome to the People's Cabinet, Tom Perez. Secretary Perez, welcome to the People's Cabinet.

Tom Perez: Great to be with you, Dan.

Dan Koh: I have the stationary of the Secretary of Labor.

Tom Perez: Whoa.

Dan Koh: Just to make you feel at home.

Tom Perez: Bring back memories.

Dan Koh: But listen, sir, you have been a county counselor, Maryland Secretary of Labor, Assistant Attorney General, Secretary of Labor, Democratic National Committee Chair, gubernatorial candidate, White House senior advisor, a loving dad and husband, according to your family.

Tom Perez: That’s the most important one. I was waiting for that one.

Dan Koh: But we can talk about all that, but I want to take you back to 1974. I'd love for you to tell a story about your upbringing in Buffalo. Your father died of a heart attack unexpectedly. Your mother fell ill. What inspired you to public service?

Tom Perez: Well, you know, I am the immigrant story. So many people across America. The quintessential American dream story is the American immigrant story. And my family came here from the Dominican Republic. My was speaking out against a brutal dictator. My grandfather, my mother's dad, spoke out and was declared non grata. That's Spanish for get the heck out of here. You're not welcome. so speaking out against autocracy and totalitarianism put their lives in jeopardy. And so that's how they got to this country. My mom was the second youngest of nine. All of her male siblings fought as part of America's greatest generation. They were not yet United States citizens. When they put the uniform on, they were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. Same thing with my dad. He was not yet a U.S. citizen when he first was in the Army, but this country gave them freedom. And when my dad got out of the Army, they moved to Buffalo because he got a job at the VA hospital. He loved working with service members. He was a doctor. And that's how I was born in Buffalo. My sister and I, we were the caboose. I'm the youngest of five. And as you correctly point out, when I was 14, frankly, if you had said to us January 1st, 1974, that one of our parents is going to die that year, the consensus would have been my mom, because my mom had a series of chronic health problems. And she went to New York City. January of 74 to have some major surgery that couldn't be done in Buffalo because they didn't have the There wasn't a doctor who was sufficiently versed in how to do it And so when she was recovering that's when my dad my dad had his first heart attack Easter Sunday of 74 and then he had Yeah, I was home we were all home and he was in the ICU intensive care unit before a number of weeks and I was the youngest because I was 12 at the time and my family didn't they wanted to didn't want me to get worried so they said it's not a big deal yeah you had a heart attack but it was a mild one so you know no need to worry and so okay I trusted them and and then he had his fatal heart attack in the basement of our house 29th of June and we had the funeral service down in the Dominican Republic and then came home and then my mom got sick and my siblings told me when she was in the hospital this would have been August of 74 that oh she's gonna be fine and you know fooled you once shame on you fooled you twice shame on me so you know it's 1974 wasn't our best year but you know what what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Dan Koh: Did you grasp the enormity of that when you were 12 or 14 at that time?

Tom Perez: Oh, yeah, your dad's not around anymore. You know, my main memory of him is going to my baseball games. You know, the two sports in DR are baseball and politics. know, baseball, you know, politics is what brought us to this country and baseball, you know, was and continues to be an avocation of mine. so, yeah, I mean, things were challenging, but Buffalo is called the city of good neighbors for a reason. You know, a lot of folks had my back and the help of Pell Grants and, you know, siblings who were always looking after me. You know, I feel very, very blessed. And I had a surrogate father growing up who was a teamster and he had, I think, a 10th grade education. I often think, Dan, that often wonder whether there's an inverse correlation. between the number of years of formal education and your wisdom. Because he was 10th grade educated, and yet he was one of the wisest people I ever met. when times got tough in Buffalo, times got tough for them. They lost their house and lost his dignity, because that's what work is about. It's about dignity. It's about more than a paycheck. And that was a real challenge. And those are the things you remember. And when I think about my career doing civil rights work and doing labor work, it really is a function of my family experience. You know, as Dr. King said in 1963, the March on Washington was a march for jobs and a march for justice. And really growing up in Buffalo and growing up around the labor movement growing up in an immigrant household where I was taught that the latter must always be down for others. That's really what inspired me to pursue a career in civil rights and labor rights.

Dan Koh: And so you go to college, you graduate from Brown University, you go to Harvard Law School. Then what? What was the step into public service? What do you see that big, crucible moment for you?

Tom Perez: Well, I always wanted to change the world. I know that sounds a little kitschy, but that's really what I learned from my folks and my family. And I looked at who change makers were and it just seemed like lawyers were the ones doing a lot of work in that context. so, and I had some opportunities. My work study job in college, I worked at a place called the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights. And I was... 20, 21 years old and I was helping people that had lost their jobs because of their age.

Dan Koh: You were also a garbage collector at one point,

Tom Perez: That was one of my summer jobs in college, absolutely. you know, I've learned a long time ago that I have profound respect for people who take a shower after work than before work. And that is something that is really meaningful, making sure that folks who are working second shift, third shift, folks who are, you know, working then at the end of the day, working up a sweat can come home with dignity. And those experiences were really formative. And when I was in my senior year and I had the job at the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights, I remember vividly there was a 55-year-old guy who got terminated. And it was pretty clear he got terminated because they wanted to hire a 28-year-old guy at half the cost. And just to... to listen to him, and I was like 20 years old, barely shaven, and to be able to help him regain some dignity, that's inspiring. And that was a big part of what inspired me to pursue a career in the intersection of civil rights and labor rights.

Dan Koh: And you served on the county council and then became Maryland Secretary of Labor. What was that like for you? And did you know that this was going to be the start of the career that I outlined in the beginning or you had?

Tom Perez: No, mean, I think planning is overrated. And I've said that to students that I've interacted with. What I mean by that is I didn't plan out to have a career in local government, state government, and the federal government. If someone told me, if I told you when I was 20 years old, yeah, I'm going to work for Barack Obama or someone like that someday. I mean, that's la la land. What I did know is that I wanted to change the world and I wanted to work on issues that were really important. mean, everything I did professionally was built on the foundation of learning how to be a civil rights lawyer, a civil rights prosecutor. I spent the better part of the first decade of my career prosecuting neo-Nazis, prosecuting cops that did unspeakable things, human traffickers.

Dan Koh: You have a story, an anecdote you can share with the listeners on that?

Tom Perez: Well, there was a case in Texas involving a group of neo-Nazis. They called themselves the South Bay Nazi Youth. And they went on a racially motivated rampage one evening. were three of these idiots in the car. And they passed around the shotgun. And they would lure black people to the car. and they'd roll down the window asking for directions and then they would shoot them at point blank range with a sawed-off shotgun. miraculously, only one of the three died, Melvin Johnson. This case was 30 years ago, but I'll never forget Melvin. I never met him, but I sat at the kitchen table with his dad and he said to me, remember, I never thought that the federal government would care. where we care about my son. And while we couldn't bring Melvin back, our goal was to bring some modicum of justice back to him. And I was proud to be part of that case and be one of the lead prosecutors there. I spent a couple years of my life down in Lubbock, Texas. You know, and I remember one of the defense attorneys was probably more than twice my age, and a very good defense attorney. And we got to be friends over the course of the case, know, friendly adversaries, mutual respect. And I remember him telling me at one point that the most, one of the most formative moments of his life was in the late 1940s when Harry Truman issued an executive order integrating the armed forces. When I look at the most important moments in our nation's civil rights journey, and it's a journey that continues, and it's a journey that's not linear, I think that that executive order integrating the armed forces was huge. And he said, I had so much racism in me. I'd never interacted with a black person before. And suddenly, I'm side by side and I'm realizing that we both have the same values, the same goals, including staying alive. And it really transformed my life.

Dan Koh: And so you ended up running that Civil Rights Division. Is it associate or assistant attorney general?

Tom Perez: Assistant Attorney General. I actually held, I think every position a lawyer could have. I started out as a law clerk during the Reagan years. I then began as a career prosecutor under Bush one and ultimately led the division under President Obama. And the reason I bring that up is I'm proud of the service I had under President Bush. the the assistant attorney general at the time for civil rights testified at my confirmation hearing when I got nominated in 2009 and I really appreciated that and and that's the tradition and it's a proud tradition at the Justice Department that tradition of independence and It pains me to no end to see what is taking place there today because So many dedicated career professionals there are in a bad place.

Dan Koh: One of the things that I said we do here is make sure people understand the agencies themselves and what they're supposed to be doing. So will you tell our listeners, first of all, what does DOJ stand for? And tell us about the different departments and what well-functioning

Tom Perez: Yeah, the Department of Justice is one of the most important departments in the federal government. We obviously prosecute cases and we also, not just criminal cases, but we do civil cases. I was a criminal case is someone who robbed a bank or someone who, as I discussed before, shot someone, killed someone because of the color of their skin or where they worship.

Dan Koh: you explain the difference for people?

Tom Perez: or who they love and so there's a large criminal docket. We also protect consumers and when you have fraudsters who are bilking the American people, the Department of Justice brings them to justice. When I was the head of the civil rights division, we settled the three largest fair lending cases in the history of the Fair Housing Act. And what does that mean for your listeners? There was a company called Countrywide and they were a lender. You're looking for a mortgage. Well, they were out to screw you. OK, that's a term of art. And what we were able to demonstrate is that they targeted communities through unscrupulous practices that were illegal. the fine print ended up screwing a lot of people. And so we recovered literally hundreds of millions of dollars for consumers.

Dan Koh: And I'm sure there's a, we could talk all day about the different divisions of the DOJ, but can you just give a very brief overview of the different divisions and, you know, how our listeners could think about it and where they could go to learn.

Tom Perez: Sure. Well, the department, could go to usdoj.gov. Again, I talked about the Civil Rights Division already. We have a civil division who, when the government gets sued, they defend them. And then also the civil division goes out to recover money when, if a bank has engaged in fraud that isn't criminal in nature, but they've done something wrong, the civil division. can come in and do that. have an antitrust division. When there's a merger of one company or another that may create a monopoly, the antitrust division has the authority to step in to protect consumers. We have an environmental division that deals with making sure that we're enforcing our environmental protection laws across the country. And they have a section that does criminal cases. If you have engaged in conduct that is sufficiently egregious that it's considered criminal They can investigate that but there they work very closely with the environmental protection agency Which is a separate agency that as its name implies is working to protect our environment and Work with communities that are often disproportionately impacted by factories that are emitting a lot of pollution, things of that nature. And so the department has a lot of tentacles. Obviously the Federal Bureau of Investigation is a subset of the Department of Justice. when I was the head of the Civil Rights Division, my office used to be the office that was occupied by a guy named J. Edgar Hoover a few decades back. And so people... have often noted the irony that the head of the Civil Rights Division had J. Edgar Hoover's office.

Dan Koh: And so what do you think President Trump's approaches to the DOJ macro? Is it to eliminate certain career people to defang it? And what is the alternative vision that you see as if there were a Democrat here and what we should aspire to in the future for the DOJ?

Tom Perez: Well, mean, respecting the independence of the department is a critical component in the department's ability to function. Let's remember, let's take our listeners back to Watergate. Richard Nixon wanted the Justice Department to take certain actions to protect him. person after person after person said no, and that person got fired. that person got fired, that person got fired until he found someone who was willing to do that. Congress, in the aftermath of Watergate, took other measures to protect the independence of the executive branch. This is really important. The difference between democracies and dictatorships are independent courts, independent prosecuting agencies. Again, when I was the head of the Civil Rights Division, we had very, very clear protocols about contacts with the White House. Same thing in the Biden administration. Same thing in the Bush administration. So this wasn't a partisan thing. was, again, I started, Ronald Reagan was president when I started working at the Justice Department. And these protocols were quite clear. And so, This is why this is a very, very scary moment right now, because our democracy truly is at risk when one person can dictate everything.

Dan Koh: And how could we have built off that if there were a President Harris, the next Democratic President? What would you have seen as the further incremental step with the DOJ to make it as empowering as possible to people?

Tom Perez: Well, mean, we'll have to, we'll see what unfolds now. I mean, there's a lot in the courts right now. The efforts to just unilaterally eliminate USAID and other agencies, that is in the courts. There are a number of independent agencies that were established by Congress. There's an organization called the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the EEOC. And there's another agency that the National Labor Relations Board. When Congress created both those agencies, they wanted them to have independence. And so in the statute, it says you can have only a certain number of people from one party or another. So there are five member commissions. And you have to have three from one party and two from the other. When there's a Republican president, three Republicans, and then two Democrats. And their terms are staggered. And by staggered, for your listeners, what that means is we don't want every time there's a new president, for the president to be able to fire all of them or a subset of them and just replace them. This president fired the two democrats on the national labor relations board and same thing at the eeoc and literally days ago listeners EEOC and LRB National Relations Board do what The National Labor Relations Board, if you want to form a union, you go to the National Labor Relations Board. If you think there was an unfair labor practice in your organization, you can file a claim with the NLRB. If you feel like you've been discriminated against in the workplace, you go and file a complaint at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and they will process those complaints. And Congress, in its wisdom, and I think it was wisdom when these were created, they wanted to have that bipartisanship and they wanted those agencies to have that independence. So you're not looking over your shoulder every fourth January 20th to see is the whole place going to get cleared out. And what is going through the courts right now is that the president is saying, You know what? I'm the executive branch. This is an executive branch agency, so I can hire and fire whoever I want. That has been rejected in the past. What this Supreme Court does in the future, we'll find out. But again, what's at stake more broadly is the notion of independence. That's really, really important in a democracy.

Dan Koh: Take me through what that must be like if you were a career person at Justice right now and seeing everything going on with the administration. How do you think morale is?

Tom Perez: I mean, if you look at, I mean, a number of the cases that have really gotten the public eye, I mean, the people who stepped up were people who were appointed in Republican administrations. And that just didn't matter because they understood that when you are at the Department of Justice, your goal is to do justice. and Lady Liberty, you know, is blindfolded for exactly that reason. And I have a number of friends who have decided to retire, others who have been sent to reassigned, quote unquote, to other places. And it is unfortunate because there is so much important work that needs to be done. and work that has been done in Republican and Democratic administrations. And the mark of a mature democracy is the independence of our criminal justice system and our Department of Justice. It saddens me to no end.

Dan Koh: So if that was your dream job, what was Secretary of Labor?

Tom Perez: Well, I've had a number of dream jobs and I always say to students when I talk to them or others, I want you to love every job you've ever had. I feel very blessed that I had so many jobs that I've really, really enjoyed, whether it was Maryland Labor Secretary or U.S. Labor Secretary. Both those departments are what I call the Department of Opportunity. There's so much you can do, helping people get a job, helping people upskill. One thing that I think we learn in this moment of warp speed technological transformation is that everybody needs to have those nimble skills and be able to adjust to the changing face of the workplace and the changing demands. And the beauty of the Labor Department is we help people not only get good jobs, but be able to to move ahead. You Wayne Gretzky said, you know, don't skate to where the puck is, you skate to where the puck's going. And that's true in the workplace too. And we want to make sure that folks can get that job and then keep that job and evolve as the job demands because so many jobs that enable us to punch our ticket to the middle class and, you know, President Biden invested so much time, effort. in making sure that we were growing these middle class jobs. And when you go across this country, whether you go to Phoenix or you go to Ohio or you go to New York and you see these new facilities that are going to be making microchips. We used to make microchips. We invented them. We were the world's leader and then we abdicated that and now it's coming back. And these are six figure jobs that don't require a college degree.

Dan Koh: I think that is something that we need to continue to do and that's what I loved about being at the Maryland Labor Department and the U.S. Labor Department. But somehow after all that you wanted or had more to give and you were on the obviously the administration side but then you decided to go on the political side of the Democratic National Committee. Tell us about your path and what that was like for you.

Tom Perez: Well, again, planning is overrated. If you had told me in 2015 or even in the spring of 2016, Tom, your next job is going to be at the Democratic National Committee, I would have laughed because that was not the plan. We won the popular vote, but lost the election. And we had to rebuild our political infrastructure and equally importantly we had to rebuild the trust of the voters. And I had a lot of loyalty to President Obama and you know after the election he asked me to come visit him in the Oval Office and asked me to consider this and frankly I had given zero thought to it prior to that because I genuinely enjoyed my career in you know the enforcement side and in the job creation side and being part of his economic team. And so I came to realize that if we want to be able to be in a position to do those things again and help people, we had to start winning elections again. And so that's what inspired me to run and had the good fortune of getting elected in February of 2017.

Dan Koh: know, one of the things on the people's cabinet that we try to do is to be able to explain in layman's terms what things are and demystify government, demystify politics. So taking a step back, first and foremost, what does the DNC stand for? And then tell us a little bit about what it does and how, your learning process and learning this yourself.

Tom Perez: Well, the Democratic National Committee is about helping elect Democrats up and down the ballot from the school board to the Senate to the Oval Office. And what we do day in and day out through our party system, not simply our 50 states, but our territories, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, et cetera, making sure that they have the infrastructure they need. to win races. There's a lot of blocking and tackling. It's everything. mean, why did we lose in 2016? Well, people lost faith. We weren't talking to enough people. We got to do a lot more listening and a lot less talking. Did you think we going to in 2016? No, I thought Secretary Clinton would win. And I was mistaken. And when you are mistaken, one of the things you really have to have early on is humility. and a listening ear. I used to teach trial practice and one of the things I would talk to lawyers about, young lawyers, was one of most important skills you have as a lawyer is your ears. know, mama gave you, the good Lord gave us two ears in one mouth for a reason. And a big part of what we needed to do at the Democratic National Committee was more listening. And so we... did listening tours around the country. We formed, we also knew that there was a divide within the party, people who supported Secretary Clinton and people who supported Senator Sanders. We were not together and we needed to acknowledge that. And I can't say enough good things about my friend and colleague Keith Ellison because we were running for, we were both running to be chair. And literally about four nights before the election, Keith and I had dinner together. We've had a long-standing friendship. This was not an acrimonious campaign. And we had dinner because we knew that the race was coming down to a two-person battle between the two of us. And we also knew, Dan, that it wasn't about us. It was about something far more important than us. And we couldn't have half the people or almost half the people walk away from that election disappointed. So we agreed, whoever wins was going to immediately move to have the other person appointed as the deputy DNC chair. And so right from the outset, we were setting a tone. And that's a big part of what you do at the Democratic National Committee, to set that tone that, you know, we may have some differences on this issue or that issue, but on the overall values. We are aligned on so many things.

Dan Koh: And so tell me a little bit more about the process. So who elects the DNC chair? And are these the local officials, local heads of the different states? Is it also like the super delegate system we hear about in the convention? Like, how does that work?

Tom Perez: is about 450 or so people who vote. consist of, in every state, you have a chair and a vice chair. Every state has a minimum of four people, a chair, a vice chair, and I think two, I forgot if they call them at large or what, but every state has about four. That's about 200. Then you have Puerto Rico and all the territories, Democrats abroad. There's a group called Democrats Abroad. These are Democrats who are eligible to vote living abroad. And that's a big part. Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire, when she first won her Senate seat, she won by a couple thousand votes and she had something like 4,000 Democrats abroad who voted. And we ran a, you know, ran a active campaign out there. So, and those are the people who are the voters. There's also a group of what are called At Large. members that are appointed by the chair. A lot of them are folks from the labor movement, critical constituencies, folks who really know democratic politics and are a big part of our success moving forward. So those 450 or so people are the ones who elect the chair. When I ran, when Ken Martin just ran and won, and same with Jamie.

Dan Koh: And how does someone who lives in Massachusetts or lives in New Hampshire become one of those people?

Tom Perez: Yeah, you can run you run for those seats. So the chair of Any state is is is elected the governor often has a really big role because the governor is really the chief executive officer of that state so When the governor is a Democrat that governor Typically plays a very important role in helping to recruit members who will not only lead their party, also be their emissaries to the DNC.

Dan Koh: And if one of our listeners is in his or her town community and is interested in getting involved and eventually maybe one day being chair of the DNC but doesn't know where to start, what do they think about it? Where do they find that?

Tom Perez: I'd call your state party chair because you can go to dnc.org and there's a whole list of the state party chairs online and you can figure out who your party chair is and then get involved. I was inspired by so many people I met, not just the elected party members, but what I call serial activists, know, folks who've been making a difference after Dobbs, they were out there marching, after so many other moments, they were out there leading the charge. Again, they were our heroes. That's how we turned things around in 2017, 18, 19 and 20. That energy translates into turnout.

Dan Koh: every state has its own committee is that

Tom Perez: Every state yeah every structure right that you have the Massachusetts party you have the Maryland party you have the northern Mariana Islands and Everybody our goal is to support each party because again, we want to help elect that state delegate We want to help elect that mayor We want to help elect that county executive and we want to help elect that US Senator from the school board to the Senate to the oval office and so there's a very important repository of information called the voter file. And the more you know about someone, the better you can communicate with them. The more you know what they care about, then the better you can talk to them. And so we spent a lot of time and we hired a bunch of folks who were really seasoned in building out technology and also very seasoned in cybersecurity. I mean, to be real blunt, you know, we got hacked because our cybersecurity system was really, really weak. It was like stealing candy from a baby for the Russians to hack our system. And once I learned that, we made sure that we brought in the best and brightest talent to build a cybersecurity network so that everyone would be safe. And so, There's a lot of blocking and tackling, as I said, non-sexy work, building out what we call a voter file, which has all that information. Dan Coe has two kids. These are the things that he cares about. The more you know, the better you can communicate. When that person knocks on your door and has another conversation, you enter that into the voter file so that I just learned something else. blocking and tackling enabled us, starting in 2017, to win elections up and down the ballot. The real heroes in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 were folks who stepped up. One of the most frequently asked questions I'm getting right now is, who's that one leader? Who's going to be our one leader? There isn't one leader that emerged. The reason we did well in 2017 and into 2020 is it started January 21st, 2017. Women across the country, you know, descended here in the US Capitol and elsewhere across the country. Others said, you know, I'm going to be part of retaking our democracy. And it was so inspiring to see. And as a result, we started winning. Local elections in 2017, we won two governor's races. There's only two governor's races in 2017. And by the way, there's only two governor's races in 2025. We won both of those. And when you start winning again, you know, I coach sports for 15 years. And when you lose time after time, you start losing your mojo. And when you win and you've done things differently, know, winning begets more winning. And so we were able to build that momentum. Thanks to women, thanks to labor unions who stepped up, thanks to ordinary folks who did extraordinary things. And we were able to work hard to bring the party back together because we were divided. There's no doubt about it. But we came together because we understood that there were bigger things at stake. And what unites us far exceeds what our differences are. I'm very proud of what we were able to accomplish and I just simply applaud folks who stepped up in communities across this country.

Dan Koh: But the bottom line was 41 seats, right? Gained by Democrats.

Tom Perez: Yeah, I mean 2018, 2018 for instance, the midterm election, we flipped more governor seats than any time since 1982. We flipped a number of state legislative chambers. We ended up, and why is that important? Because as people are seeing now, know, states can be forces for good and forces for opportunity. And they can also do the opposite. And by the way, we were winning governor's races in places where people said we could never win. know, Kansas, great example, Laura Kelly, spectacular governor. What's the matter with Kansas? Not a damn thing. They're electing people like Laura Kelly and Cherise Davids to Congress. She's one of my favorite members of Congress, a Native American mixed martial arts gay woman. who got elected in the state of Kansas because you know why? Because her values and the values of her constituents are totally aligned and she's authentic. So you've got.

Dan Koh: An amazing success story there, and the parallels are pretty eerie considering the fact that we have the same president, that the morale is low right now in the Democratic Party. And how do you look at the structure of the DNC under your leadership? And obviously, I know you have a relationship with Chair Harrison and Chair Martin. How do you look at the state of the DNC now compared to when you were there?

Tom Perez: Well, I worked closely with both Jamie Harrison, who's from South Carolina, and Ken Martin, who's now the, Jamie was my immediate successor and Ken is now the current chair and he was the chair of the party in Minnesota and did a really good job in Minnesota. So these are two seasoned veterans. And what all former chairs, along with the current chair have in common is we have a shared mission and we want to make sure that everybody is helping everybody. And in this moment, it's not lost on me. And it wasn't lost on me in 2017. There was a crisis of confidence. And people were wondering, why did we lose? And how do we win? And one of the top lessons I learned in 2017, which has relevance, Dan, to this moment, was we needed to expand our risk tolerance threshold. What do I mean by that? Well, there were so many extreme things happening in 2017, whether it was the Muslim ban, whether it was other executive action to make health care less accessible. And we were learning in places like Oklahoma and Kansas, where there were these special elections that were taking place. And we were in a district where Republicans had been winning for decades and all of a sudden, we won or we lost by one point instead of 21 points. And that was remarkable. And then I got a call in 2017, and this is the best illustration of this point. I got a call from Kathleen Sebelius, who's the former governor of Kansas and my former cabinet colleague in the Obama cabinet, HHS secretary she was. And she said, Tom, we can win in Kansas. We can win the governor's race next year. We have a great candidate in Laura Kelly. We have great energy here because they are so extreme right now. There's a guy named Sam Brownback who was just decimating public education. But here's my problem, Tom. No one believes me. I need an angel investor. So you're asking, what does the DNC do? Well, one thing we do is we try to make strategic investments in places so that we can help candidates win. And she needed the DNC because if the DNC gave her money and we did, we invested, then she could go to other donors to say, look, the Democratic National Committee doesn't, they don't make investments willy nilly. They don't make investments in causes that are lost causes. And what happened? We did really, really well in Kansas.

Dan Koh: her in the beginning because I ran in 2018 so that was during the time and no one thought Laura Kelly at least the mainstream yeah was that she wasn't gonna win that race.

Tom Perez: No, and she's just a spectacular candidate. Remember, the one thing about Kansas to remember, one of my favorite things about being at the DNC is I learned a lot more about a lot of states. Kansas has a very long tradition of moderate forces. Nancy Kassebaum, her dad was Alf Landon, ran for president, very moderate. They understood that we need to identify those shared values. That was really helpful. The similarity between now and 2017 is the only way they can continue these tax cuts for wealthy people is to gut Medicaid. Medicaid is a lifeline in red states and blue states. When you are attacking critical infrastructure investments that have been creating jobs in red states, And I know in Biden administration, I went down to a lot of groundbreakings in rural Georgia, in Alabama, in beet red parts of the country. And those investments are in serious jeopardy under this administration. As Rand Paul has reminded us, a tariff is a tax. And people are starting to realize, and perhaps most importantly, you know, the Waffle House. There's still a 75 cent surcharge on eggs. There's a lot of organic opposition out there, Republicans, Democrats, independents, who simply are ... It's the cost of living.

Dan Koh: I feel like there's so many people out there saying, what can I do right now? How do I fight back? I'm exhausted and I'm dispirited, but I'm not defeated.

Tom Perez: Well, I heard that in 2017 as well. I recognize this on a certain level is even the stakes are even higher. I would have found that hard to imagine back in 2017. But when you see the attacks on the courts, for instance, and you see the efforts to simply to gut the USAID, if you want to gut USAID, that the way to do that is you introduce a bill in Congress and if the majority say that's what we're gonna do, then you sign the bill. We have a democracy. We don't have a king or an autocracy. And so I'm inspired by the number of people who are getting involved right now. I'm seeing a similar level of determination. It took a little longer, but it's, think you see it ebbing. And what we saw in 2017 was that people got involved, not solely in their immediate community, but they got involved through networks across the country in races where, you know, that postcard can really make a difference or that phone call can really make a difference. And 2017, and now 2025 are both fraught with opportunities right now. And again, as I said a while back, momentum begets momentum. We started winning again in 2017 and then we won those two governor seats in November and then we were off and running. And by the way, when we won in 2017, those two governor seats, that was the first time we had won both those races. It's Virginia and New Jersey. It's the first time we had run both since 2005. And what we know after 2005 was 2006 turned out to be a banner year again for Democrats. So we need to win both those races. And by the way, in Virginia, a lot of federal workers, as much as almost any state in the country. And they are really, really angry right now because they are being fired without cause. And people have neighbors all across the country. When 80 % of career employees are outside of DC, they're neighbors. They're people losing their jobs everywhere. The number of stories that I hear, 24 year old woman I read about in Michigan who voted for President Trump and she has her dream job and she worked at the US Forest Service. I think she was in upper peninsula or the upper lower peninsula. This was her dream job, boom, gone. And those jobs are needed. and doing really important things. mean, our national park system is in danger of being seriously compromised because of these firings. so again, this is affecting people across an ideological spectrum, a geographic landscape.

Dan Koh: You've painted a pretty broad picture of the work of the Department of Justice, your work at Democratic National Committee. There's a lot of things I think that people are worried about, given all that you said about the importance of independence and what we're seeing today. But we here at the People's Cabinet podcast like to have a sense of optimism. And so I'd love, from your perspective, what gives you hope despite all of the craziness that we're seeing today?

Tom Perez: Well, again, as someone, I'm chronically optimistic. And I know this moment for a lot of people, there's a lot of fear and concern. And that's not simply among Democrats. know, that woman I mentioned in Michigan lost her job, age 24, voted for Trump. And from every account I could see, she seems like a really earnest, sincere, hardworking person. Those veterans have lost their jobs, et cetera. This is a challenging moment to understate it. And what gives me hope is, again, back in 2017, I was having similar conversations with folks. The collective power of we is still pretty darn powerful in this country. When people come together and make their voices heard, you can get a lot of things done. I'm a big believer in the importance of humility and good listening. And I know there's a lot of listening going on now to understand how did we lose certain voters and what do we have to do better to understand what people want. People can get involved in so many ways, shapes and forms. And what gives me optimism here is we're seeing it already and it's organic. red communities, blue communities, red, white and blue communities. And people need to continue that action. And I'm confident we turned it around pretty fast in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. And I think we can do it again, but only with engagement. You can't simply hope that someone else does it.

Dan Koh: And where do you think we did fall short in 2024?

Tom Perez: Well, I mean, we fell short in many ways. mean, we lost constituencies that we had been real strong with for a long time. We lost, we underperformed with young people. We underperformed with many communities of color, people who think that demographics are destiny. That's just plain wrong. And it's frankly insulting the notion that every community is a monolith. I find that very insulting. And so what we have to do is understand the fears that voters had. And again, it gets back to something I said at the outset of this conversation, which is that the basic bargain in America is that every generation is going to be a little better off than the preceding generation. And for a lot of voters, especially non-college educated, working class voters, people who are lot like my surrogate father who's deceased now. But I feel like I know folks like that because I grew up in Buffalo and they're not feeling it and it's not irrational. And we need to be sensitive to these economic concerns. And part of the reason you're seeing people standing up at town hall meetings is it's getting worse. I mean, look at the stock market. mean, the president said repeatedly, in its first term, the measure of our success is the stock market. That's one measure. You look at that, the reason we've seen that contraction is very simple. Investors want certainty and we're getting anything but certainty. He's not talking about making my life meaningfully better. If you're a veteran, thousands have lost their jobs. And in 2018, part of the reason we won is because they wanted to do away with healthcare. They're in the process of trying to do that again.

Dan Koh: So if I'm someone listening, maybe the first time listening to a political podcast or listening all the time, but I've never been to any town committee meetings or anything, what's the first step? What would you say to that person who maybe is feeling like they just need to do something right now?

Tom Perez: Get engaged in your community. Go to that town hall meeting, not just with your member of Congress, with your local county council person or your city council person or your mayor. Politics, democracy is not a spectator sport. And when people get engaged, good things happen. I'm a big believer in the collective power of we. When we get together and when we understand that what unites us far exceeds what our differences are. When we are working together, we can multiply in remarkable ways. And when we fight each other and divide, that's just not who we are. right now, I learned early on from my parents and frankly, my faith that if you blow out your neighbor's candle, it's not gonna make your candle shine any brighter. And right now, We need to understand that because I think candles can shine brightly across this country as long as we're making these critical investments in healthcare, as long as we're understanding those hopes and fears and dreams of folks. And we didn't do that well enough. And that includes the Democratic National Committee, the party, all of us. It's not one person or one entity. We're all in this. We succeed together. And when we are together, we do that much better.

Dan Koh: Tom Perez, thank you for coming on the People's Cabinet. You've already been a cabinet member for the President, now you're on the People's Cabinet.

Tom Perez: Thank you, Dan. Well, this is what it's all about, the people, because we the people can do quite a bit. Take care.

Dan Koh: Thank you, Tom. I'm Dan Koh and that's it for the People's Cabinet today. Follow us on social media, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and see you on Tuesdays for new episodes. Let's go.