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Perez: Need To Investigate Whether Presidential Election Was 'Rigged'

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- One day after his election to the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, former Labor Secretary Tom Perez came out swinging on a popular political talk show. Perez beat out Progressive favorite Keith Ellison, and early Sunday morning, President Donald Trump sent out a tweet claiming the "DNC race was totally rigged" in favor of Perez.

On CNN's 'State of the Union,' Perez fired back at the president with a quip about the presidential election and the resistance of Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from any probe into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

"Frankly, what we need to be looking at is whether this election was rigged by Donald Trump and his buddy Vladimir Putin," Perez said in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper. "And I'll tell ya, having Jeff Sessions oversee such an investigation, it's really unfair to any foxes across America, to say that would be the fox guarding the henhouse."

READ: Trump Declines To Attend White House Correspondents' Dinner

Perez said despite the President's claim that the GOP is now "the party of the American worker," it's Democrats who walk the talk.

"The facts are, Democrats grow the middle class, Democrats protect economic security, and we need to do a better job of communicating that everywhere," Perez said. "When we lead with our values as Democrats, and talk about what we've done to make sure we're protecting social security, protecting Medicare, growing good jobs in this economy -- if you want good jobs, elect a Democrat. That's the message that we have to communicate."

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