The Press Box - Ep. 85: 'Keepin' It 1600' With Tom Perez

Episode Date: April 8, 2016

Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer recap the week in politics, react to the Republican race in Wisconsin, discuss Trump vs. Cruz, debate Bernie's long-shot odds, and examine Bernie Sanders’s new aggressive tone. Then, Thomas Perez joins to offer his insights into the 2016 election, his path to becoming secretary of labor, and his top White House perks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Keeping at 1600. I'm Channel 33. I'm John Faberow. I'm Dan Piper. All right. See, we're going to get that done, Dan. So we just want everyone to know that we're sticking with the name, keeping it at 1600.

We have not changed it. So by popular demand, that is the name of this podcast now. Yeah, and I want to shout out, which we should have done last week. I know. At the Logan Trent, who I believe was the originator of keeping it We should have listened to him the first week. We've been better off, but someone should hire that guy. He's good at branding.

We've got a future. Okay, let's talk about the week. We had a race in Wisconsin that ended up with Bernie Sanders winning and Ted Cruz. So the question is, has anything really changed? We'll start with the Republican side, obviously. Now, Ted Cruz was supposed to win Wisconsin. And they had predicted that for quite a while, all the, like, 538 and all these other people. So the question is, you know, did he win it by so much that it's changed the momentum of the race or not?

He definitely won by more than he was expected to. Yes. And did better in the delegates than I think people projected. Yeah, we should say that he – so Ted Cruz walked away with 36 delegates to Donald Trump's six delegates. So it was a big haul for him. It was a very good night for Ted Cruz. The problem for Ted Cruz is the next contest is New York, which is obviously, Trump has his name on many of the buildings in New York.

It's his home state. It's its home city. And can Ted Cruz prove to do better than the polls there, which would give us some indication? I think it doesn't, to me, signal the collapse of Trump. I don't think Trump was going to do poorly in Wisconsin, even if he had not had this horrendous week of a abortion positions and campaign manager getting arrested and all the other things that happened. But it did. Just your usual week in a campaign.

You know, you've got a few tough things. Your campaign manager is arrested for battery. It's just things you have to deal with. Yeah, right. What campaign hasn't had to deal with their campaign members are being arrested? Who among us? But it does. Who among us?

What it does mean is past the 1237 is still plausible, but I think maybe no longer probable. And we'll see in these coming weeks whether he's going to get there. But I think we're a little closer to the cable TV network executives' dream of a contested convention than we were a week ago. And they're even wetter dream of Paul Ryan, the White Knight, riding in to save the day, which I think is completely absurd, if you want my opinion on it. Right. And we do. Right. Well, I just think, I mean, I think on the Paul Ryan thing, just to quickly go on that in that direction, I mean, you're going to have a bunch of delegates who are pledged to Trump, right? And there's a great argument to be made that on the second ballot, when people aren't pledged to anyone, that they don't vote for Donald Trump. But Ted Cruz has been quietly and effectively building an organization where they've been reaching out to delegates, they've been selecting the delegates they want. So you're going to have a lot of people who aren't just pledged. to Ted Cruz, but actually who like Ted Cruz and want him to be president. So to get those people plus the Trump people to all say, no, we're good, we'll take, we'll

take immigration reform loving, Medicare privatizing, establishment darling Paul Ryan as our nominee. It just, it's like, it seems like something that, you know, is only, as only possible among the the minds of the D.C. chattering class, as they're often derogatory called. The most absurd thing that anyone has suggested in a long time. He's been walking, talking embodiment of why the Republican base hates the establishment. Everything that they don't like, he is for. He's friendly to Wall Street. He wants to get Social Security and Medicare.

He was one of the people pushing an immigration bill. He is the leading proponent for TPP in trade, which I applaud him for, but TPP in trade. Everything that Trump is for, Paul Ryan's against. It's like the latest sign that the people in Washington, he embodies the disconnect between the leadership and the establishment of the base. Them thinking that Paul Ryan is going to come out of this convention as the nominee is the exact same reasoning that got them into this, they got the Republican Party into this mess on the first place.

Right? Yeah, it's the people who thought that Jed Bush was a perfect candidate. Right. Exactly. So that's, so anyway, now I think the interesting thing about Wisconsin is the prediction was that Trump would get. around 35% of the vote there. And so Trump actually did as expected in Wisconsin. The story there was that Cruz did way better than expected. And so the question is, is Cruz consolidating

effectively the anti-Trump vote? He's clearly got a lot of the Rubio vote because Trump has been stuck around 35% in almost all of these states or in a lot of the states where there's a close contest, right? So I guess, you know, and part of this is what happens with John Kasich, right? Kasich got 14% in Wisconsin. He was supposed to get more in all the polls. I think he was polling around 20%. So you go to New York and I guess the test there is, does Cruz hold Trump under 50%? Because if Trump is over 50% in New York, I think he wins almost all the delegates,

or at least a huge number, right? Right. I mean, this has raised the question of, like, what is John Kasich doing? Like, why is he still in the race? How bad does John Kasich feel? that all the people who are saying maybe it's not Ted Cruz or Donald Trump, but it's Paul Ryan. Like, why is everyone passing over John Kasich who actually got votes and delegates? Not very many of either, but yes.

Right. But it's like what I don't understand, I don't understand the logic of the case of things, but he should have done well in Wisconsin. He is the very popular Midwestern, pro-working class son of a mailman governor of Ohio. and he got clobbered by evangelical Christian, right-wing, Harvard lawyer, Ted Cruz. But I think my joke about this... The only rationale will still be in the race. The only rationale for...

...that keep getting paid. There's no other reason. No, see, I think my joke about this is actually his strategy, which is you get to a convention and they all decide Trump is too crazy. We don't want Trump as the nominee. It's dangerous. and then they also would decide, well, you know what, we really hate Ted Cruz too. And Kasich standing there and saying, well, before you go to Paul Ryan or any of these outsiders,

you know, I did win some votes and I want to state and I have a few delegates. So, I mean, maybe that's the strategy that if the whole thing falls apart, he's the third most prominent person that has been running, you know, in the Republican race. And in two more months, we'll, you know, we'll think better about him. And I guess there's also some northeastern states. Pennsylvania is his home state and also next to Ohio and then some of these New England states where the Kasek people probably think he can do well. But it seems doubtful to me.

Yeah, I think, I mean, I think it's hard to imagine that they're going to pick as the savior of the Republican Party, the guy who got his ass kicked by Donald Trump and Takers. Yeah, I just, I don't think it's going to happen. There was a poll out today, a Monmouth poll, that shows Trump's at 52% in New York. And he also won the endorsement of America's mayor, Rudy Giuliani. The least surprising endorsement ever. I know, right? Rudy Giuliani was saying quasi-racist things that Donald Trump says years ago when he was saying Barack Obama doesn't love America.

That was a great one. I'm not sure what the Rudy endorsement is worth, even in New York anymore. Meanwhile, Trump has now hit 69% unfavorable rating in the latest poll, which is, I mean, not even Dick Cheney at his least popular came close to 60%. 99% unfavorable. Trump is now probably the least popular politician that has ever been measured by modern polling. I think he's probably won that award. And they, in the same poll, 63% of all Americans said they would never vote for Trump. I mean, those numbers are just, I don't know how they nominate him.

I don't. I don't. I don't know. I mean, if he hits 1237, they do, but beyond that, I don't know how they do it. Yeah, I've come around to your way of thinking that after these. last two weeks. I was a bit proponent, and our previous guest, Tim Miller pointed out to me that we, that I was pushing Trump as a stronger general election nominee than Cruz. I think Cruz is a absolutely historically horrendous, unlikeable, probably unelectable nominee, but I think Trump is actually worse. I think these last few weeks have done even more damage to him that was

possible. I think there is significant, there will be 50 numbers probably because he won't vote for him. Now, interestingly in the exit polls from Wisconsin a third of Republicans said they would not support Donald Trump if he was nominated and about the same numbers said they wouldn't support Cruz so I know it seems like it's going to be a challenge for them now do you think that Trump can still hit 1237 because I do think

look if he if he he gets numbers in the in New York and in these northeastern states that match sort of like what he got in Massachusetts right That's his best state improbably where he hit 49%. If he gets a whole bunch of delegates from the Northeast and then I guess does fairly well in California, I don't know. I think he gets close. I mean, and I still think if Trump gets to June 7th and he's like at 1,200 or 1190 and he needs like 30, 40 delegates to make it over the top, I don't know. That then becomes hard to take it away from him.

Maybe. I don't know. Yeah, I think it's still doable. I just don't, I think, hard. It's hard. And because he's going to have to do very well in California to, in a large number of congressional districts to get there. But I think more and more they are likely to take it from him if he doesn't get there. I thought it was impossible to do that a few weeks ago, but these last few weeks have just, I think, been a tipping point in the way the establishment would, I think, would be willing to lose the election.

in order to keep Donald Trump from being the nominee. I think the main reason would be for fear that they've lost the house over it. Right. Hashtag never Trump crushing it. Yes, hashtag never Trump. So should we move on to the Democratic race since we've not spent a lot of time on that and a lot of our dozens of our dozen of followers has been asking us to talk more about Bernie and Hillary, who have been, that that race has heated up quite a bit in the last 24 hours.

to back up a little bit before we talk about the recent events. In Wisconsin, Bernie won. It was 5643 because the Democrats do proportional delegates and not win or take all or win or take most like the Republicans. You know, even though he beat Hillary by that margin, he still only netted 10 delegates more than she did in Wisconsin. And so, you know, before Wisconsin, he needed 57% of the remaining pledged delegates to win.

to overtake her in the delegate count, and after Wisconsin, I don't know, it's like 56 now. It's still, it's almost the same exact number. Right, and it's 56.7% of the pledge delegates remaining to take the link, which is basically impossible, particularly given the states that are coming out. We have run out of, or close to running out of these, and other states with open, less of our states with open primaries like Wisconsin. And so it's very, very, it's impossible. Let's just be honest.

It's not going to happen. There's no scenario where he is going to get the pledged delegate lead before this is up. It is over. I know. I want to say the same thing. And I don't want to – I mean, some people have said, you know, you shouldn't say that because you shouldn't dissuade people from voting who they want to vote for. If you want to vote for Bernie Sanders, you should definitely vote for Bernie Sanders. If you believe in him, like, that's great.

But the fact is he has to win New York, Pennsylvania, California, and New Jersey, which are the four remaining delegate-rich states, with roughly 60 percent. of the vote, which is something he has only done in two states in the country, New Hampshire and Vermont. And those states do not look like New Hampshire and Vermont demographically. No, no, they do not. And so I just don't know. And you can talk about the super delegates too, but look, if Bernie somehow overtook her in pledged delegates, or if he even came within, you know, 10, 20, I don't know, you could see a bunch of super delegates switching, right? But if he's behind her by a hundred or so delegates, 200 delegates, by the time they get to June 7th, why would the superdelegates switch at that point, right?

Like, they're not going to go against the popular vote, the pledge delegate count, all of this other stuff. No. No. Look, let me stipulate a couple things. One, super delegates are stupid. Yes. There's no point in it.

No offense, all of you super delegates out there hanging on every word that we say. Yeah. I think we can guarantee that you party elites can get convention four passes still. But there was a reason for the pledged delegates. First, the superdelegates before that, that time has passed us by, right? We have, and I can never see a scenario. And we face it a little bit in a way when we have fears because of the Clinton's connections to the party that we would have the pledge delegate lead.

And then a bunch of superdelegates who thought that maybe a guy named Barack Hussein, Obama, with a Reverend Wright problem may not be the most electable Democrat, would overturn the wall of voters. It was a very, it's sort of somewhat analogous to the Trump convention situation. because that would have done huge damage to the party's relationship with African-American voters. Absolutely. Stupid delegates are dumb. We should get rid of them. Also, they have no role in this right.

No. Right? This will be decided by who the Pledge Delegate leader is. And there were a handful, a couple dozen maybe superdelegates that flipped in a way, but they all flipped to the guy who was winning. And most of them were members of the Congressional Black Caucus or other African-American. I think because they thought Barack Obama couldn't win. And when he could, people like John Lowe was flipped back.

But the idea that a bunch of members of the Democrat establishment that Bernie Sanders has been bashing for a year now or all of a sudden you're going to decide that he's the more electable guy and split from Hillary Clinton and overturned the world of voters is also a pipeline. It ain't happening. And so Bernie wins Wisconsin. He gives this speech that I thought was one of his better speeches. And he doesn't attack Hillary almost at all on the speech, certainly not. You know, at the very end, he said, oh, she's getting a little nervous, but we're going to win this thing and all that. Fine.

But he gives a very inspiring speech, and I'm watching it and thinking, you know, maybe Bernie Sanders is thinking to himself, okay, I'm not going to overtake her in pledge delegates. I don't want to tear the party apart. I'm obviously, I've said before that I'm going to support her if she's the nominee because she'd be better than any of these Republican candidates on their worst day, was his quote. And so I kind of thought But you know, he wants to get his message out And he wants to keep running and he wants to run to the end And that's important and he's got a movement so great So I'm thinking like okay great

You know he's finally figured this out And then the next day He decides that then there's this whole qualified Not qualified fight that pops up Which you know So the whole thing started when Was Hillary on Morning Joe? Is that what happened?

Yes, first mistake I know So she's on morning Joe And they start talking about, they ask her about Bernie Sanders' interview with the New York Daily News, which did not go super well. And, you know, he was, you know, he was sort of back and forth on a bunch of different issues around Wall Street and how you break up the banks. And so they asked Hillary, like, you know, do you think he's qualified? And she said, well, he clearly hasn't done his homework on these Wall Street issues, even though that's what he's been talking about the whole campaign. So she doesn't say anything about qualified, not qualified anything else.

The Washington Post runs the story and says that Clinton challenges Sanders on his qualifications for president. Someone in the Sanders campaign, Bernie, I don't know, other people running the campaign, see the headline. And then Bernie goes out in a speech and says all these reasons why Hillary Clinton is not qualified to be president. You're not qualified to be, you know, if you supported the war in Iraq, you're not qualified. If you support TPP, which is something that many Democrats as well as the President of the United States support, you are not qualified. to be president of the United States. And I'm just like, where is this coming from? You know, like, it just, it seemed like, it's just not like,

it doesn't seem like a smart move to me. I don't know, what did you think about it? Right, I have so many thoughts on this. First, here's how I think this happens, right? People are, at this point in the campaign, they are tired, they're stressed, they're pissed off. We've been there. The Sanders people are pissed off because they're not winning.

The Clinton people are pissed off because it's not over. They thought this thing, they had a giant party in the campaign headquarters, captured on several social media platforms a few weeks ago. And here they are still flogging through dealing with Bernie Sanders. And people are pissed. So I'm sure, you know, a hardcore, you know, Jeff Weaver, Tad Devine, someone showed Bernie Sanders that headline. Like, go out there and get after her, right? And they did it. And I think it's a mistake on so many levels.

Put aside what it means for party unity with the effect on the general election. One, it's very off-brand for Bernie Sanders. to be traditional hackish attacks, right? That's what I'm saying. It's not, but whether this was right or wrong, or like, you know, did he cross a line or not, which, you know, I think you can argue that he did. But it's not politically,

it wasn't politically smart for him to do that. And it's also a bad, even if it's a totally, if even it was totally on brand, there are all kinds of arguments you can make against Hillary Clinton in a primary general election that would work with voters. One of them that will absolutely not work,

if Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, former New York Center, former Secretary of State, is not qualified for the presidency. Like, no one would believe that. Attacks have to ring true. They have to fit with some pre-existing belief within the electorate. And this was an absurd. So now he's going to spend the next few days all over the news today. Every time his staffers went out, he did a press conference, all he's going to do is get asked about this. Instead of carrying any momentum coming out of Wisconsin, he needs to take into New York.

If he has any chance, and I think there's no chance, he has to, he has to, shock the world in New York. And so in the run-up to that election, he's debating the veracity merits wisdom of his attack. Yeah. It is interesting to think about how this happens inside a campaign, because you and I have been there. We were there in 07 and 08, and the Clinton campaign would say things and do things that pissed us off every single day, and increasingly more so as we got towards the end of the race, right? And, you know, the attacks got very nasty and, you know, Mark Penn's writing memos, you know, telling Hillary to go after Obama for his lack of American roots, right? Like, we can list off a million of the awful things that made us so

pissed off. And there were plenty of us on that campaign who would probably want to, you know, do a riff like Bernie did, right? And go off and have Obama like pop off on Hillary and say that she's not qualified or this or say something really harsh. But we had people like David Pluff and David Axrod and most importantly Barack Obama who would sort of pull us all back, right? And say that like these things happen in the heat of the campaign. You can get pissed every day, but you've got to step back and look at the bigger picture and sort of play it cool, you know, and really think about the attacks that you level against

your opponent because when you say, a lot of words you say, it's hard to take back. And I think the biggest problem with what Bernie said is, I mean, if he has decided that he might not support Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, that's one thing, right? Then he should just say that. But if he's going to ultimately support her at the end, it's pretty hard to say that you support Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, but don't actually think she's qualified to be president. Like, that's just a hard thing to walk back. I am less, there was a lot of high dudgeon on Twitter last night. about this. You know, did he cross a line?

Like, you can say terrible things about your opponent, but you could never say, you know, they're unqualified. And that's a line. Hillary Clinton never crossed with Barack Obama. I'm less worked up about that. Right. I'm concerned about festering negativity, hurting party unity in the long run.

Me too. But, like, there's a, Bernie Sanders every day for a year and a half now has made a very, I think what is a much more damaging and malicious argument against Hillary, which is that she's corrupt. He says that she takes money from Wall Street and therefore can't solve the problems of Wall Street, which is essentially accusing her of being bribed out of helping the middle class. That, to me, is a much more dangerous attack. It's one that's probably more believable in the sort of anti-establishment moment we're in.

I do think that there was a little too, you know, and I'm saying this was not the worst thing of all right. I'm sure it's going to get me in trouble with the hashtag I'm with her. friends on Twitter, but I think it's problematic. I think it was unwise for Bernie Sanders. I don't think a particularly effective ad in the general election that, you know, Cruz or Trump or someone will run will be video of Bernie Sanders saying this. I don't think that will matter that much.

I think you're always in the safe zone when your attacks are comparative, right? Like when you say, I'm more qualified than you for this job. Or because you took money from Wall Street, I'm going to be better at attacking the special interest than you are, right? So you don't say that the person is unable to do those things or is going to be unqualified to be president, but you just say that you're better, right? That's why you're running for office. And so I just think you have to keep it in that zone, right? Like, you can attack her for the Wall Street stuff. You can attack her for anything you want, but you just have to say that because, you know, I, Bernie Sanders hasn't done these things, I'm going to be a more effective

president. But you can still say, yeah, like I think what he said originally in this race, which is on her worst day, Hillary Clinton would be a better president than Ted Cruz or Donald Trump or any of those guys. Like that, he has to remember that because he said that, that's the zone that you want to be in, I think. Yeah, well, I think the end of the days is not going to be, end up being the biggest deal in the world. And look, I am sympathetic to staff in the sense that I'm not sure how I in particular would have behaved if we had gone through that whole race against Hillary and found ourselves on the losing. Yeah, that's good point. You know, I might have started if Twitter had been around, hashtag Barack or bust. You know, like, in the heat of the moment when you are angry and tired and pissed off,

and like we know this. Like we made ourselves basically hate Hillary Clinton in 2008. Oh, for sure. Right? Because you just, it's the only way you can motivate yourself to make all the sacrifices in your life that you need to do to do a campaign to get up every day when you're exhausted. Because by this point, you are on like mile 38 of a time. 26-mile marathon. You were limping to the finish line. People haven't had a day off in like

eight months. And you're in such a bubble that all you hear is this. Yeah. And you're in a bubble and all you hear is you're watching cable all day and you're looking at social media and you're seeing all these attacks and everything is made worse by the way the way it's covered. And it's it seems like your opponent is the worst person in the world. And it's not until you take a step back and have some perspective that, you know, that that gets better. And the Clinton folks, I think, also probably didn't respond to this in the best way either. Like, she is going to be the nominee. She is going to win New York, and she's going to win it strongly, I think, is respond, but, like,

don't lose your, and we made the same mistakes in 08. We knew we were going to win. We knew who the Republican nominee was going to be. And, like, out of anger and frustration and just being pissed off, this person still running against you, you'll, you know, react. You know, there are,

you know, some people going to think and be like, take your words back is this it's like the worst thing in the world.

You know, no, respond, but don't, don't get pulled down in the mud with them. Her response was great, which is,

she said, you know, I think he's, he's much better than Ted Cruz or Donald Trump would be, right? Like,

I thought her response was very measured. But, you know, the campaigns, the, the outrage machine gets cranked up pretty, pretty fast as we,

right, and we've done it. We've been part of that We've been at fault for that. We know it. We do it all the time. Yeah. Not here on keeping it 600.

We're self-hating faux outrage people. Okay. So we are very lucky today to be joined by Tom Perez, who is a longtime civil rights advocate and a lawyer in the Department of Justice, Assistant Attorney General, and now the Secretary of Labor, and also on, rumored to be on a possible vice presidential pick for if Hillary Clinton wins the nomination. So we will be talking to Tom about his thoughts on 2016 and beyond. Tom, thank you for joining us today. Here at Keeping at 1600 where we're going to interview all of the potential VP candidates.

Well, then I guess I'll get up and leave now. That's the last I'll say about that. But I just wanted to start. How did you get into politics? You have a very interesting background, interesting story. I'd love to hear it. When you grow up in an immigrant family whose lives have been upset by politics, it kind of gets in the blood. My parents came here from the Dominican Republic.

My maternal grandfather was the ambassador to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic until he spoke out against the ruthless dictator, a guy named Trujillo, after... the massacre of, after he ordered, the massacre of roughly 20,000 Haitians. My grandfather spoke out. He got kicked out. And my mother, they came to New York City, settled in Washington Heights. My father was part of the student movement. They, he had to leave. My folks met, got married. My dad served in the U.S. Army as a legal immigrant. Two of my brothers were born in Puerto Rico, one in Atlanta, and then he got out and worked at the VA hospital. And the upshot is, our lives were all about politics. My mother tried to rearrange dinner every night

around the nightly news. And then my dad, well, okay, if you moved it to seven, then he'd watch McNeil Laird. And if he moved it to six, he'd watch something else. Did you guys have debates as family as a family about different political issues? Oh, my dad was a hardcore Democrat. He used to say in his very broken English,

a Rockefeller Republican is still a Republican. is still a Republican. And that was, I remember it well. And, you know, they taught us all to, you know, to whom much is given, much is expected. And all my siblings are doctors. And I went and watched my brother operate once. And after they peeled me off the ground, I realized they needed another line of work. And, you know, I always thought that if you want to change the world, being a lawyer was a good way to do it.

And I've had a great set of privileges and opportunities as a civil rights lawyer and a labor lawyer to help people who need a fair shake. That's great. Well, you obviously spent a lot of time thinking about the plight of working Americans. What do you make of the argument that Trump's candidacy has been fueled by, largely by economic anxiety? Because obviously some people say, oh, it's economic anxiety among all these white working class voters. and some people say, well, no, it's a lot of racial resentment. And where do you think about that? Well, I mean, there's undeniably angst out there.

We've come a long way, thanks to the president. He inherited a mess, and he helped to fix it, thanks to the two of you and many others. I don't know about that. And he did it notwithstanding the unfailing opposition of Mitch McConnell and others. But there's still a lot of unfinished business. And the angst that you see, and it's angst that's reflected on the left and on the right is the sense that the American dream is slipping away. And he's exploiting those fears.

It's undeniable that he's exploiting those fears. And this is not a nation that should manipulate fears. This is people, when they're struggling, you get these politicians who want to say, hey, it's not your fault. It's the immigrants' fault. It wasn't your fault. It was somebody else's fault.

I mean, we've lived this time in our nation's history. I mean, when I think of Donald Trump, I think of the no-nothing movement of the mid-19th century. And it angers me to no end because that's just not who we are as a nation. And we're stronger together. And when more people have more, we all succeed. And the anger that he taps into is frankly anger that he excels. exploits. And that is just not consistent with our values as a nation. Yeah. So you mentioned immigration. In addition to focusing on jobs and the economy,

you know, you also dealt with immigration issues when you were the assistant attorney general, most famously in your suit against Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is, you know, a birther Trump supporter. I think now he's a consultant on the wall, the Trump wall. What did you learn from that? I'll note, parenthetically, Joe Arpaio is also Donald Trump's principal surrogate in Arizona and elsewhere. I will note that what I'm looking forward to is the VP debate between Tom Perez and Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Rematch. Well, let me say this about Arizona.

Arizona was a full employment act for the Civil Rights Division because it wasn't simply Joe Arpaio. And by the way, Joe Arpaio's method of policing was. was quintessentially dumb policing. You, the best currency you have as somebody who is a police chief or a sheriff is the trust from the community. Without trust, you have nothing. And what was remarkable about the case that we did against Joe Arpaio was not the things that he was, what was included the things that he was doing to Latinos. Right.

But we also learned that there were something like 400 cases of sexual assault and child abuse that went uninvestigated. Because he was just busy racially profiling. Focus on getting, you know, Aweita and rounding her up. Remarkable. And then the SB 1070 was a really ill-advised effort, again, to divide the community. and to take the fact that the immigration system is broken, and we need comprehensive immigration reform, but again, to give license for racial profiling.

And so I spent a lot of time in Arizona, and it's all about making sure that, you know, we are a nation of immigrants, and we're a nation of opportunity, and the people that I worked with down there, they were beleaguered because this is so inconsistent with our values as a nation. And I'm glad that we kind of,

I was about to say we won handily against Joe Arpaio. I was going to say something a little less flattering, but I think I'll just stick with that. Safe on this podcast. How do we, how do we? Yeah, I'll say for you, you kick your sheriff Joe Pio's ass like that happens. I'll say it for you so you don't have to do it. I mean, with all of this heated rhetoric from Trump and people like Arpio, especially over the last year, how do we get back to a place which we were so close to of passing immigration reform in this country?

What do you think the prospects are for that going forward? Oh, I feel very confident that in 2017 we're going to pass immigration reform because I think in 2016 we're going to elect the Democrat. And I think that Democrat, quite frankly, is going to be Hillary Clinton. And I think Hillary Clinton is going to win with an overwhelming percentage of the Latino vote. Because I remember vividly being down in South Carolina recently in my personal capacity. and I had lunch with a group of Latino business leaders. And these were folks who were self-described center right.

And one of the guys said that my nine-year-old asked me last night, Daddy, why does Donald Trump hate Latinos so much? And he didn't have an answer for him. And this sort of rhetoric and this sort of abusive behavior, behavior is something that is not only inconsistent with our values as a nation, it is a really dumb political strategy. And so I really believe that next year, the dam is going to break and we're going to be able to get through because, frankly, it's a national security imperative. It's an economic imperative. It's a moral imperative. And for Republicans,

it's going to become a political imperative unless they're comfortable with being forever out of the executive branch. Yeah. Yeah, you think that maybe two elections in a row might do it. Might take a couple more. One question I would have on that is, do you think that that sort of of a huge win with the Latino vote is, I think that's definitely true if it's Trump? Do you think that's also true of Ted Cruz is on the top of the ticket? Absolutely. The first ever Latino nominee?

Well, yes, his name is Ted Cruz. And he is a nominee. He would be if nominated a nominee who is Latino. Latinos don't look for surnames. They look for what you stand for. And he doesn't stand for anything that Latinos want, which is they want opportunity. They need comprehensive immigration reform. Dreamers want to continue to dream, and what he wants to do is send him back home.

People who want to get access to jobs that pay a fair wage, minimum wage, he won't be involved in that. So you look at all the issues that Latinos care most about, and he's on the wrong side. Yeah. Now, you are one of the most progressive members of President Obama's cabinet. You're taking on Wall Street, predatory lending. Elizabeth Warren has said you'd make a great VP. Why did you endorse Hillary over Bernie? Well, now again, I'm speaking in my personal capacity.

Just you. Just talk. You know, it took me a long time to get. confirmed you may recall I do not only for this job but for my job as a AG for civil rights and it took a long time because the the indictment against me was that I was a progressive I had taken on the mortgage industry I had gone after states that did these odious voter ID laws and I had worked against Joe Arpaio and other police chiefs who were doing the wrong thing and frankly I plead guilty to all

that and so it took a while I'm a proud progressive. I'm proud that my political mentor is a guy named Ted Kennedy. And what I see in Hillary Clinton is someone who's exactly like Ted Kennedy, someone who's exactly like Barack Obama in that she's a dreamer and a doer. She dreams a world in which every child can have access to all the dreams that he or she wants to pursue. And she's a doer because after college, she went right in and did that with the Children's Defense Fund and beyond the Children's Health Insurance Program. She dreams a nation where universal health care is part of the equation. Before we had Obamacare, we had Hillary care. And she's a doer.

And she dreams a nation where gun safety is something that we do. And we can do it compatible with Second Amendment freedoms. And the thing that's most important to me, John, is what Ted Kennedy taught me more than anything was that an effective progressive is someone who is passionate, principled, and pragmatic. They understand that idealism and pragmatism are not mutually exclusive. And I've seen that in the president, President Obama. I've seen it with Senator Kennedy, and I see it with Hillary Clinton. She understands that dreamers don't want revolution.

they want results. And that's why I like her. Why do you think Bernie Sanders' movement has caught on? Why do you, what do you think people are? I mean, I'm with you on the idealism and pragmatism thing. Clearly there's a bunch of young people out there who have, you know, found something to really admire and like about Bernie Sanders and his message. And, you know, what do you say to a lot of young people who are, you know, who are for Bernie now?

and, you know, but we want them to be part of the, you know, if Hillary should win, we want them to vote Democrat. I have great respect for Senator Sanders and for what he stands for and for the message that he has communicated. And I have my oldest daughter's in college and I've had this exact same conversation. She's a Hillary person. She's a Hillary person. And, you know, I want, we want to be a nation of dreamers.

And Hillary Clinton is a dreamer. But we need to be a nation of dreamers and doers. Again, the dreamers that I talk to, they can't wait another 20 years for immigration reform. The people who don't have access to health care, they can't wait 30 years for maybe having a single-payer system when the state of Vermont a year ago became the latest state to try and give up, especially when the Affordable Care Act, I will remind your listeners, is the most important addition to the social compact since Medicare. in Medicaid, and we are on our way. So she dreams a world of universal health care, but she has a pathway to get there. And so what I would say to young folks is keep dreaming. But let's also make sure we understand when November comes around that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, they both have solid values. And you may be a Bernie person. But you know what? Assuming that

that Hillary is the nominee, and I have every confidence that it will be, she shares your values as well. And let's get together because I remember vividly 2000. I remember it like it was yesterday. And there's a danger in year eight of a presidential cycle when you've been in power for seven or eight years for people to sit there and say, well, you know, unless I have perfection in my candidate, as defined by me, I won't vote for them. And when I hear people, frankly, like Susan Sarandon say, you know, oh, goodness, I couldn't vote for Hillary.

She's the same one who said, you know, go vote for Ralph Nader. And with all due respect, look where that got us. Yeah. Well, and look, I mean, it's great to have you on because you're someone who I think has maintained your progressive ideals, but you've been in public life for a long time now. And, you know, I guess what keeps you going and what would you tell people about what you can really accomplish when you sort of stick it out, right? Because I think a lot of young people look at the political system and there's a lot of cynicism out there that there's big promises during a campaign, right? This is, Obama still gets this criticism, made a lot of big promises during the campaign,

and then it's not everything that I imagine we got there, you know? And how do you fight against that, that sort of narrative? You know, what gets me going every single day are the people who are struggling and the people who were helping. It's a nice week when at the end of the week you can say, when your son asks you, what did you do this week? I helped two million home health care workers, mostly women of color on food stamps, get access to minimum wage and overtime. It's a nice week when I can tell my son and daughters, we just help tens of millions of Americans who are struggling to get a good retirement to get access to the advice that they deserve. It's a good week when you can say I helped up to five million Americans get a raise by using our

regulatory authority. There are so many ways where we help people realize those basic pillars of middle class security. And I am just as passionate and motivated today as I was 20 years ago or 25 years ago when I had hair and no replacement parts because I see the opportunities out there to really complete the unfinished business of this recovery and make sure that the rising tide lifts all the boats and not just the yachts aside from being able to help so many people working people what you can't say that what will you miss most about the white house what is there anything on your bucket list that you want to achieve non non for before you before you well I mean I what I what I love most and so what I will probably miss most is helping

people at scale. That's what this job has been about. I mean, two million home health workers. We did a rule recently on silica dust. We have known for 80 years that when somebody at a construction site breathed silica dust, that can kill them. And we've quite literally studied that issue to death until a few weeks ago when our policymaking finally caught up with the science. And so I'm going to miss that ability to help two, three million workers who have a brighter future because they have a safer future at the workplace. And that's been an unmitigated group. Isn't that one cool thing, though, you want to do? Like, I don't know, like meet Kanye West or like, I don't know, find the secret bunker or, you know, like, what's the cool thing you want to do?

Well, I'll tell you one thing I did recently, which was really cool, which was hard to do, was I. I was able to get some tickets to go see Hamilton. Oh, yeah. And that's the hottest ticket in America right now. And just for the record, we paid for the tickets, okay? Tom, who's here in his personal capacity, paid for the tickets. Yes, exactly. And then met Lynn Manuel Miranda, because his previous show that won of Tony was in the Heights,

and that was basically the story of my family, you know, going into Washington Heights where my mother grew up. and I've memorized all the words to those songs, and I've already memorized most of the words to Hamilton. Because Hamilton is about our nation's journey. It's about the journey to form a more perfect union. And after my wife and I went, she said to me, you know who Hamilton reminded me of?

And I said, no. She said, you. And I stopped and I said, well, he cheated on his wife. I've never cheated on you. Okay? But then what she said was Hamilton was chronicling. Hamilton was chronically impatient.

He was always trying to get things done. And, you know, when my life is done, well, I've done enough. That's one of the refrains of that movie. And I live my life with a similar sense of urgency because, you know, there's just too many people who need our help. And so people who work with me and have worked with me know that the thing that angers me the most is when I feel like we're wasting time because it's a precious commodity. Now, speaking of last year, you are a Red Sox fan with Dominican roots and Big Poppies last year.

Any predictions? Oh, we're going all the way. I mean, false hope is better than no hope at all. It must be interesting being a Buffalo Bills fan and a Red Sox fan. Now you've got your straddle, you're still half long suffering. So I know where I was on 9-11. I know where I was when the Challenger exploded. I know where I was when the ball went between Buckner's legs,

and I know where I was when Norwood went wide right. And I probably know where I was on my wedding date. That's it. The seminal events in life. And my son, when we were watching Game 6 in 2013, and people who've worked in the White House will appreciate this, he is sitting there watching television, and he had the good fortune of meeting the president's photographer earlier on.

Pete's a big Red Sox guy. And Big Poppy is on deck, and he's standing right next to the photographer as well. And my son yells to me because I was walking in the other room, Dad, that's Pete Sousa! And so what we did, and this gets to your question, Dan, about what are the cool things you've done? I mean, like, going to the day at the White House, my son had got every one of their autographs. And then Pete got, he'd be able to.

blew up one of his photos, a big poppy, and it's sitting in my son's room. So we died and went to heaven night. The one thing I haven't done yet is I got to go sit in the monster seats. Oh, yeah. I haven't done that either, actually, because I've been gone for so long. Yeah. Now, it's, I caught that virus when I was in college and I have it for life. And one of the things I'm you went to Brown, right? I did. And then I went to law school and graduate school in Boston. Got it. And one of the things I'm most proud of in my life is I have imparted all of my sports pathologies to my son. So he's an avid Bill's fan.

He's an avid Red Sox fan. And also a Green Bay Packer fan because I got married in Wisconsin and we go up there a lot. It's our second home. So he's been to Lambeau Field. That's a nice variety. People have been called child services for less than making your child a Buffalo Bill's fan. Well, the Bill's played the Packers and I took him to the game. And we got field passes to

go out there and watch them work out before the game. And he was a very entrepreneurial guy because my son had his Bill's jersey on. And when the bills were out there, one of the players called him over and literally played catch with him. So then the Packers come out to warm up and he strips his bills jersey off and he's got Aaron Rogers jersey under that. And a Packers player takes him over and gives him a fist bump. So he's an aspiring politician. I think he's got a future. He's got a future.

So what are tomorrow's jobs members? Yes. My lawyer will be in touch with. No one's listening. It's totally fine. Just let us out. 73 months in a row, a private sector job. Used to be days in the White House where Dan and I would just be on pins and needles every night before jobs day.

I'm glad we don't have to do that anymore, Dan. Well, you know, one of the frustrations in this job is there is kind of an E-Or caucus out there, because this is pretty remarkable. I mean, the two of you would know more than anyone. I mean, when Mitt Romney was running, he said, if you elect me president, I will get the unemployment rate down to 6% by the end of my first term. And here we are a year left, and we're at 5%. And we've had 73 months in a row of private sector job growth.

And I've met the folks who were kicked to the side of the road. You've met those folks and who've gotten back on their feet as a result of courageous decisions and choices that the president made. And I get frustrated in the campaigns when people kind of gloss over that because their theory of the case is I can't allow people to believe that anything good happened. I know. Well, and we dealt with this in the White House all the time because you'd have this tension between wanting to tout the job numbers, but also you don't want to say, oh, everything's wonderful and ignore the fact that millions of people are still unemployed or underemployed. And it's a tough tension, right? Well, and we're far better off than we were when this president took office on so many metrics.

But the EOR caucus out there doesn't want anyone to remember that. That's great. Dan, do you have anything else? Yeah, I have one final question for Tom. Excellent. Tom, what are you going to say tomorrow probably when Dennis McDonough asked you, why were you on this podcast? Because... Sam's fired.

Yes. I was on this podcast because David Axelrod called me and said, Tom, you're on mine. You know, they're trying to start up over there and do them a favor. Perfect. Thank you for the favor. We'll defend you to Dennis. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time.

I know you're very busy today. We appreciate you. It's fun to be with you guys. We appreciate you stopping by. Keep up the great work. And thank you for all you did to build an American. that works for everyone. You too, sir. You too. Thanks.

Absolutely. Thank you, Tom. You're the best. Take care. We want to thank Tom Perez for joining us. Tom Perez, our Sleeper VP pick. There is. There is. And thank you all for joining us. You can follow us on SoundCloud, Stitcher, and iTunes, and we will be back next week for another episode of Keeping at 1600.