Pete Buttigieg

Let's play it.

The tariffs, at least the IEPA tariffs, are not trade policy.

They are about power.

They are a means for, precisely because they were, not really, but supposedly something a president could unilaterally do, a means to flex a kind of power such that any country, company, or industry needing relief would have to personally appeal to one man in order to survive.

Obviously, the fact that that was illegal has complicated that strategy, but that strategy has already done a great deal of damage.

In practice, America first has really meant America alone.

Every country puts itself first.

So no one should expect anything different from any national government, but what has actually been behind this slogan has of course been a process of alienating friends and poking allies in the eye and dismantling some of the partnerships and friendships that in fact helped to keep America in first place, which I think is the real aspiration of the American people.

And for our country to be leading, whether it's leading economically, militarily, or socially, it is important that there be an atmosphere in which people want to follow and find the following is in their interests.

And you cannot bully people into that.

Our department, the Department of Transportation, has generally not gotten involved in these merger cases, but that's changing today.

It is so important to make sure that passengers have choices, that they have access to low fares, that they have access to competition, and yet we've seen less and less and less of that competition over the years.

We are taking a step that, again, is unusual in terms of recent years, but we think is the right thing to do,

supporting the DOJ's lawsuit and independently using our own authorities, which are a little bit different from the DOJ, starting our own investigation and taking other actions.

We all live in Oklahoma, or a lot of us do.

Lots of people that are on the other side.

What's your advice to engage them when we seem to be in such echo chambers and are so divided?

The problem is that Jack Cittarelli knows that standing up for New Jersey

would require standing up to Donald Trump.

And he just doesn't have the backbone to do that.