New DNC chairman wastes no time going after Trump

by Rebecca Savransky - 02/26/17 1:06 PM ET

The newly elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Tom Perez, is wasting no time in going after President Trump.

One day after Perez defeated Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) to lead the DNC, Perez on Sunday attacked Trump, strongly criticizing him for his first several weeks in office.

“He hasn’t proposed anything but chaos and carnage from day one,” Perez said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”

“We’ve seen no evidence of anything constructive from this president.”

{mosads}Perez, who served as Labor secretary in the Obama administration, then ticked off a number of policies Trump has implemented since assuming office.

Hours after he was sworn in as president, Trump “made it harder for first-time home buyers to buy a home,” Perez said.

“A few days later, he tried to make it harder for people to save for retirement,” he added.

Perez also said the president has “governed from the far right in everything he’s done.”

“Look at the ill-advised and frankly racist executive action against Muslims,” he added, referring to the president’s order barring refugees and people from seven predominately Muslim countries from entering the U.S.

Perez won the party chairman election Saturday on the second ballot during a vote in Atlanta.

His first motion as chairman was to appoint Ellison, his top rival for the post, as deputy chairman.

The election pitted Perez, the party’s establishment choice, against Ellison, who represented the more progressive faction of the Democrats.

After the DNC race Saturday, Trump tweeted his congratulations to Perez for his victory.

“Congratulations to Thomas Perez, who has just been named Chairman of the DNC,” the president tweeted.

“I could not be happier for him, or for the Republican Party!”

In another tweet on Sunday, Trump claimed the race for the DNC chairman was “rigged.”

“The race for DNC Chairman was, of course, totally ‘rigged,'” he tweeted.

“Bernie’s guy, like Bernie himself, never had a chance. Clinton demanded Perez!”

Perez later shot back at Trump, dismissing the “rigged” tweet and emphasizing unity within the Democratic Party.

Perez said he and Ellison got a “good kick” out of the president’s tweet.

“Donald Trump up again in the morning, tweeting about us. Our unity as a party is our greatest strength and it’s his worst nightmare,” Perez said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

He then pivoted to talking about the allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential race, calling for an independent investigation into the issue.

“Frankly, what we need to be looking at is whether the election is rigged by Donald Trump and his buddy, Vladimir Putin,” he said.

Still, Perez said the Democratic Party has work to do if it wants to be successful in the future.

He noted that the Democrats need to rebuild the party and “redefine its mission.”

“We begin by building strong parties in the 50 states and the territories,” Perez told ABC’s “This Week.”

“We didn’t invest enough in our state party infrastructure. We didn’t invest enough in grassroots organization. We ignored rural swaths of America. We can’t do that. We need an every-ZIP-code strategy.”

Perez said he learned that a lot of people in this country feel forgotten and he wants to change that.

“We will not allow that to happen,” he said.

Since Trump’s inauguration, many Democratic lawmakers have come out strongly against the president’s policies and have opposed many of his Cabinet picks.

Last month, Perez was also critical of Trump, calling for Democrats to give the president as much respect as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) gave former President Obama.

“I think we should give Donald Trump the same respect that Mitch McConnell accorded to Barack Obama … which is not much of anything,” Perez said in an interview with MSNBC shortly after Trump was sworn in.

“You look at the actions of his first four days, and it’s been a series of broken promises.”

Tags Barack Obama Donald Trump Mitch McConnell Thomas Perez