Activists, who have been unfazed by the refusal, are prepared to stay outside the DNC headquarters until their demands are met. "Tom Perez has a lot of nerve to say that we should be satisfied with climate questions and not a debate, thank you very much," Zina Precht-Rodriguez, a 22-year-old activist who works on Sunrise Movement's press team, told Refinery29. "The media and the political establishment have not taken this issue seriously for the entirety of my lifetime. In the 2016 Democratic primary debates, I think less than 2% of the questions were focused on climate." She added: "We need to hear that the climate plans that all these candidates have been putting out and judge for ourselves which one we trust to elect to office. ... This is merely a matter of Tom Perez making arbitrary rules. He has the power to change these rules and host a climate debate."