Pete Buttigieg
Appearances
The Dan Bongino Show
The Golden Age Of Republican Politics (Ep. 2428)
We cannot go on like that, we cannot. I also think that we believe in the values that we care about for a reason, and this is not about abandoning those values. It's about making sure we're in touch with the first principles that animate them. What do we mean when we talk about diversity?
The Dan Bongino Show
The Golden Age Of Republican Politics (Ep. 2428)
Is it caring for people's different experiences and making sure no one's mistreated because of them, which I will always fight for? Or is it making people sit through a training that looks like something out of Portlandia, which I have also experienced?
The Dan Bongino Show
The Golden Age Of Republican Politics (Ep. 2428)
And it is how Trump Republicans are made, if that comes to your workplace, with the best of intentions, but doesn't actually get at what actually matters here, what's actually at stake.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Glitches Out on Live TV as His Mind Deteriorates
But again, air crashes happen, but they were more under Biden than Donald Trump. But the point here is, We want to get to a place where we have zero crashes. We don't want people to die in aircraft, which is why what I've done is focus on how do you upgrade the system? But, Will, you look at what's happened. The airspace around DCA, that was allowed to stay open under the last administration.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Glitches Out on Live TV as His Mind Deteriorates
The inspections that were done of the aircraft that have crashed, that was done under the last administration. So it is rich. that they would come at this administration for the mistakes that they've made and blame us for the crashes. We're going to fix what they refused to fix over the course of their four years. And that's the mission of this department.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
VA staff, right? But the stuff they're not going to cut, like national defense, has to get paid for somehow.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
So how are you going to do that? Well, if less of that is being funded by taxes on the wealthiest and on corporate profits, then more of it, at least proportionally, will be funded by everybody going to the store and paying more because of tariffs, which is happening literally this week.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Why bother with that? Right? I mean, for them- I tell the people. It's not their problem. They don't view an honest conversation about the finer points of policy as something they need to slow down and do. They're right. Move fast and break shit. Do it our way. And if some people get hurt along the way, okay, but it's all in the service of the bigger vision. But-
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I don't think, honestly, I don't think they believe that they have to justify what they're doing to the American people, even to the people who voted for them. All right.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
We're back. Pete. They just don't think that that's their problem. Why do you think they're so hostile to the media, right? Hostile to the press. Are you talking about the fake news, lamestream media? Yeah, right? I mean, there's very little interest in working through, you know, one person admitted a mistake, right? Where they like sent the wrong guy to El Salvador. Yes. And what'd they do?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
They fired the guy who admitted it. The lawyer who admitted, I don't know if it was a man or woman, but that person got fired, right? So as they screw up along the way, they fire the wrong people at the national, the NNSA that keeps our nuclear weapons safe, and then they hire them back real quick. FAA, same thing.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Accidentally send a buyout email to all the air traffic controllers in the middle of an air traffic control shortage, right? Insane. Right? They send the battle plans to the wrong guy on the wrong text app, right? And they randomly put a tariff on a country. It doesn't have anybody. It's not even a country. It's just an island with some penguins.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
These screw-ups are not something that causes information. To be clear, every time I've been in government, whether when I was mayor of my hometown or when I was secretary of transportation, obviously, there were things that we did not get right. Always, there are things you don't get right. These are human beings doing their best. Sometimes you don't get it right.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
If you believe that the press will hold you accountable, then you know that when you don't get something right, you have to talk about it, think about it, learn from it, do better next time.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
If, on the other hand, you think you can just beat your chest and say it's all fake news, don't believe your lying eyes, no problem, you know, the leader knows best, then why bother going through the finer points of, you know, making sure that all the places you're putting tariffs on are actually countries or like checking your math once or twice before you throw the markets into total turmoil, right?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I don't get it. There's a logic here too, right? On the trade deals, especially if you make it completely chaotic, then the only organizing principle is the man himself. And then all that matters is which country, which industry, which company got to the man and convinced him or flattered him or whatever it took, got him to give them some mercy. So the countries are all deciding, right?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I mean, if you think about it, this is part of how consolidating power works. Like there is a sort of logic to this, right? The more messy you make it, the more like they can't appeal to you saying like, oh, you published this guidance on how the tariffs were going to work. And if you really interpret it the right way, you should give us a break. It's going to be, I'm going to find Trump.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I'm going to find him. I'm going to appeal. Whether it's a country, a company, or an industry. And think of a way to say, you want to make an exception for us. And the more it works that way, the more it's total chaos, except you get to the man, you get to the king, right? The more power he personally has. But I've got to believe... First of all, obviously, that's a terrible way to make policy.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And it's terribly unfair, obviously. Really? But also, like, I got to believe definitely most liberals, I think most conservatives, thoughtful conservatives I've ever talked to, and any libertarian gets that literally the entire point of this country is that we don't have a king, that we don't have some guy.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
how he feels in the morning or what he decides to do or whether he got off the wrong side of the bed this morning is going to decide your fate. But actually, we have rules and we have things we all have to negotiate over and fight over and there's winners and losers, but we come together in this process. Now, to your earlier point,
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
about people who look at this and shrug, I think the process we inherited sucks. Let's be clear. This is not about going back to what we had before. When you destroy something, you destroy everything that was good and everything that was bad about it.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And that's part of what I'm thinking about as I think about the giant federal bureaucracy that I operated in for four years, trying to get stuff done as a secretary of transportation, right? I'm not here to say that everything should be put back the way it was in 2024 or 2015 or 2020. 2000 for that matter, it is maddeningly difficult to get something actually built in this country.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
It is difficult across the federal government to properly reward your best performers and to remove your worst performers. These things are real, right? I'm not saying they're not. And to incentivize progress. Totally, right? These are real problems. The challenge now becomes, especially for my party,
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
which is transfixed in horror by what we see all around us, is to have an answer that's better than, this is terrible, let's just go back to where we were before.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Totally. I mean, look, the amount of time that it has taken in this country to build a mile of subway, a stretch of road, a clean energy project. Rural broadband.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
It's indefensible. Now, it got the way it is for lots of reasons, many of which are reasons that I think are noble. But it's still the outcome is indefensible. And that's what we've got to rewire as a country. We've got to get back to basics.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Yeah. I mean, look, I think it's right to pay attention to those things because we know that how you build a road or where you put a train could make those things better or it could make them worse. Of course, you're going to pay attention to fairness. You're going to pay attention to climate. That should be part of the picture.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
We've reached a point now where any one piece in even a process that has thousands of steps and billions of dollars, any one piece can wreck the whole thing. This is why it's hard to get housing built. This is why it's hard to get transportation infrastructure built. I mean, without getting into all the guts of things like the Administrative Procedures Act, right?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
There is a sort of a- Oh, let's get into the guts, baby. Come on. I mean, there is a paperwork machine, right? That, again, with the best of intentions. And look, the basic intention is to make sure everybody can be heard. So in order to build a complicated project, you have to go through a process where everybody can weigh in. And then you got to go through all of that before you can move.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
There are ways to work through that, though, where people get heard and it doesn't delay everything. We did it. We started doing things like, again, I don't want to get super weedsy here, but pre-award authority. If you're trying to build a high-speed rail or something...
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Start getting things built and getting the dollars moving even while we're working out the finer points of the contract as long as we can agree on a certain amount of risk between, let's say, the state Department of Transportation is building something and the federal government that's providing the money, right? And there are ways to do that, agreements within agreements or other arrangements.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
But look, some of it's going to take – it is going to take some introspection in my party. And in our country, to come back to what are the priorities? Because it can't be, I mean, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, I think has cost us in the extreme in many ways as a country.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Yeah, I agree with that. I think the challenge there is it does take some political will. Because the more risk you take, the more there will be some mistakes.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
One of the first things I said to my staff when I came in, when we're trying to move a trillion dollars, about half of that is the Department of Transportation, so half a trillion dollars through the economy. We've got 55,000 people working on every facet of transportation.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Everything you do is important, which means when you make mistakes, which you will because we're people, some of those mistakes will matter. And the most important thing will be to make sure that that mistake is not repeated. It won't be beating everybody up, it won't be a blame game, it won't be finger pointing, but
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
You have to be ready to spot those mistakes and be very transparent about them right away so that we can figure out what happened, learn from it and move on. That does take political will because the moment there is some fuck up somewhere, there will be press stories and grandstanding politicians Wait, what? A whole, I don't know, perish the thought, right? I don't understand.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I think there might be. And that's what I'm getting at when I say that this is not about going back to what we had. Right. So the FDR era kind of New Deal federal government, as we have known it our whole lives, is gone. Or at least it will be gone by the time these guys are done with it.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
The international order, economically and security-wise, the post-World War II transatlantic security framework, the assumptions around how alliances work and how the U.S. fits in with them, and obviously assumptions around trade, as we've known it for my entire adult life, is gone, or it will be gone by the time these guys are done with it.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
So it's time to take a breath and say, okay, are we really, if and when we get a chance to put it back together, are we just going to scramble back to create the closest copy we can to the thing they just smashed? Or are we going to design something a little bit better? And to me, what that looks like is starting with an understanding of what government is for.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And for me, government is for making you more free. And it does that in three ways. One, it provides services from national defense to sewage. Two, it gets in the way of anybody who might make you unfree. Let's say a bank, a cable company, a railroad, your neighbor, anybody who, if there wasn't- A segregator. Yeah. If there wasn't somebody to stand up to them, they would harm you. Okay.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
So that's number two. And then three, really important, is to constrain itself. So if government does those three things, it provides basic services, it constrains people who can hurt you or harm your freedom, and it constrains itself from hurting you or hurting your freedom, then you have a government that actually works for people. And around that, you can build an economy that works for people.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Well, I actually think that's where the common ground starts. Because, again, if you're so libertarian or conservative that you thought the Clean Air Act was tyranny, right? Right.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I got to think whether you're saying it out loud or not, you know, if you're in Congress and you're afraid of being primaried or whatever, on some level you get that when a White House official suggests that TV reporters be imprisoned because they covered the administration unfavorably.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Or when some student gets stuffed into a van because she wrote an op-ed, may or may not agree with that op-ed, but she gets stuffed into a van because... When government agents pick up the wrong guy and send him to El Salvador, right? Right. That is the kind of thing that is the behavior of a government that is not constraining itself.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And that should horrify liberals, conservatives, and libertarians in equal measure. Principled. Principled ones. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, that's obviously when you look to Capitol Hill, that's a problem right now.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Yeah. So to me, it's like, where's the liberty? Right. Let's let's start with that. Right. Where's the freedom? And of course, you're going to start with with a disfavored group that it's OK to always, you know, and it's often not always, but usually it's immigrants. But over history, it's been gays. It's been Jews. I mean, you know, the hits, all the hits, you know. It never stops there.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Anyway, I think that you start with some common ground there. But then let's be real and let's have some introspection in my party about where we could be doing a better job on the services part, that people are actually getting what they expect out of their taxpayer dollar, that the roads are getting built, that the power stations are getting built. It's just like stuff works, right? Yeah.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I mean, to me, even some really nerdy stuff about digital citizenship. The fact in the 2020s, the way that you prove who you say you are is to send a letter to get something out of a file cabinet in a drawer in a county office where they keep your birth certificate, right? I mean, we got some just basic work to do there.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And then there's the other one, which is constraining other parties that can make you unfree. In my view, this is the part where we're actually largely getting onto a better track in the last few years because we had a government that was standing up for people. You had Rohit Chopra over at CFPB making sure that if a bank screwed you on overdraft fees, that they would actually be held accountable.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I worked on this in the airline regulation. We said that if an airline gets you stuck, they have to cover your costs. And at the very least, they need to be telling you what they're charging. These kinds of things, click to cancel, this rule out of the FTC, which I think the Trump administration is trying to get rid of. But this is one that says, you ever sign up for gym membership?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
or like a newsletter or something.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Yeah, you have to get there on a Tuesday and pay in quarters only. Even though all you had to do to sign up was an email, but you have to find somebody on the phone or go somewhere in order to cancel. You've got to drive there and do it in person. That got addressed, and now they're trying to take it back. The Trump folks are trying to take it back to where you're vulnerable there.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
So the sticking up for people part, I think, is really important because that's another way to show people that government can be in their corner. Look, the bottom line is if the economy and the government were working the way they should for most Americans, a guy like Donald Trump and a movement like Trumpism would not have been possible.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
We are here because the system we inherited is at best showing its flaws and at worst is just no longer up to the task of what it takes to help people live free and thriving lives in the middle of the 21st century. Right.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Absolutely. I mean, talk about the biggest thing that can make you unfree, right? It's when you don't have resources. And what's happening to, or what's about to happen to poor and low wealth people in this country
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
is horrific, the threats to Medicaid, the threats to SNAP, the food aid being cut, to say nothing of what could be happening with VA, Social Security, that, of course, the less income you've already got, the more that matters to you, right? And again, look, the folks in charge right now, they're not sitting up at night worrying about this kind of thing. This is not their problem. Right.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And look, sometimes it's provided literally, right? The government provides a service like air traffic control or national defense or wastewater. Sometimes the government just needs to make sure certain things can happen. So we continue to live in pretty much the only country, not even the only rich country, which is the only country, period, that doesn't have some system for national child care.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Or healthcare. Yeah, at least healthcare. We've at least gotten to where most people are insured. There's a lot more. There's a lot that's messed up about our healthcare system. But when I look at where we're at on childcare, where we're at on even just parental leave, right? And again, it doesn't have to be provided by the government.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
There has to be a policy by the government to make sure that you can get it. One of the handful of things the Trump administration did that I actually thought was good last time was they made sure that at least for federal workers, there was parental leave. But everybody ought to have parental leave. And that's one of those things.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
It shouldn't be just like something you get a voucher for if you're poor. It should be something that is a basic part of a functioning economy. And we know that it works because literally everybody else has done it at some level in the world. And there's no country that's like, you know what we ought to do next year? We ought to get rid of our parental leave. Right.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
You know, that was a big mistake. We shouldn't do that anymore.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Maybe we need a more of a fact finding mission over there. Right. And look, we're not Denmark and not everything that works here will, there will work here. Harder to do in a heterogeneous country with this many people. No question.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
But look, the really frightening thing is that in statistical terms, the American dream, as in born poor, wind up rich, you're more likely to live out the American dream right now in Denmark than in America. And as long as that is true, we've got profound, profound problems as a country.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Look, the year my mom was born, end of World War II, you had a 90% chance of finishing off economically better than your parents. 90%. By the time I was born in the early 80s, it was a coin flip. And that kind of uncertainty is only growing because, again, we have not been taking care of the basics.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Basic things around affordability, around protection, around what it's like to get through everyday life in this country, obviously have been leaving a lot of people out or we would not be here. And that's where I think my party needs to be very realistic about what our project is. Obviously, part of our project is to stop the cruelty and the chaos and the horror show that's emanating from DC.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
But if all we have is an account of what it is we're stopping or what we're against, it's still going to be pretty hard for people to hear us. Maybe we can win the midterms. Maybe we can even win the White House. But when I think about it once, but when I think about a generational project of really transforming the country,
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
and transforming the country for the better versus transforming the country into whatever it has been plunged into in the last 100 days, that's going to require a deeper level of vision and a greater readiness to walk away ruthlessly from what hasn't worked and to stand up relentlessly for what has worked, even if it's unpopular.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Well, it's a really hard thing to absorb when it could mean you need to move along. But let me point to a couple of really interesting examples, right? Yeah. One, Nancy Pelosi. She excused herself. I mean, I worked with her after she was speaker and she was still a formidable leader and member of Congress delivering for her district, doing things for the party.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
But then when she was weighing in on questions around generational change, she had a lot of moral authority because she could say, hey, I stepped away. Another example I think of, we keep talking about Europe. This wasn't Denmark. This was the Netherlands. Mm-hmm. My counterpart came over for a meeting. This is something you do a lot as Secretary of Transportation, right?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Your equivalent from another country comes in, you have a bilateral meeting, you discuss areas of cooperation, any issues that you need to kind of resolve or negotiate. And I have this counterpart who I had met and dealt with on a number of things, came in, we had a nice conversation and meeting. And toward the end, he said, by the way, this is the last time that you'll You'll see me."
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
There's just a different attitude there. And I do think we can learn something from that, right? Like there are a lot of countries and cultures where you have your time and service and then you go do something else. Or maybe you even do something in government. You know, another person I got to know, the Australian ambassador to the US, fascinating guy. He was the... Premier.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
He was the prime minister, I think it's called. He was in charge of Australia. Then he wasn't. Then he went and got a degree, a PhD. Wait, he didn't have a degree before he was in charge of Australia?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Yeah. Yeah. It's funny you mentioned it. I mean, redeployment's the only thing I could compare it to professionally that was so sudden and so total. I mean, this is a department with 55,000 people. Anything happening anywhere in the country or sometimes anywhere in the world could be on your desk in a matter of minutes. And then one day, you know, it's 12 o'clock and you're done.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
But he went and got a doctorate. And then he got elected again. And he was in charge. I think in between he was foreign minister. And then he became an ambassador. And he's got another job. And he doesn't feel the need to, you know, have his grip on the entire country.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Yeah, but think... It's the rigging. Think about it. I mean, what is one thing that even today most Republican incumbents and most Democratic incumbents have in common? It's going to be a desire to remain incumbent, right?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I apologize for that. It's a bias that is built into our system, but your system's supposed to have checks to stop that from happening. And look, I think some of the things that get thrown around like term limits are too easy. That doesn't get at the bigger issue, which is an institutional and cultural readiness to do your part and then let somebody else.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
You know, one thing I felt right away when I went to Washington was how inward looking it can be. And I don't mean to, look, a lot of people, especially in the other party, kind of constantly run against Washington. I don't mean to paint a negative brush on the incredibly dedicated, talented people and public servants who go there to do good work. But I did notice at the political layer.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
That's right. It's really true. It was really striking to me. I think because when you're a mayor, even in a big city, and certainly in a smaller city like I led in northern Indiana, you eat what you cook.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Whatever decisions you make, good or bad, you're making them for yourself and for your neighbor, and your neighbor's going to come find you and tell you what they think, and somebody's going to catch you at the grocery store and tell you what they think. You're getting a lot of feedback. all the time from friends, frenemies, political and non-political people, right?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Yeah, by design, right? And I think one of the reasons why you often see, like sometimes you'll see footage of a senator getting confronted in an elevator and they're just, they look like a deer in headlights, right? Because some constituent, some activist gets in their face. And look, that can be like, look, sometimes that's a shitty thing to do to somebody who's like not quite ready.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
As a senator, it's your job. I've done it to them. It's your job to be responsive. Literally, you're a representative of the people, right? And I've never met a mayor who wouldn't know what to do in that situation because it literally happens to them all the time. But I do think Washington creates these bubbles around people.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And you're just like, I guess I should, you know, feed the dog now. It's a strange feeling. You hadn't fed the dog while you were working? No, I was already feeding the dog. But suddenly all these things around the house start to loom larger, right? You realize all these things you've been neglecting. Obviously, I was leaning a lot on my husband, Chasten, the whole time.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And by the way, I suspect I haven't spent that much time in corporate America. I spent a couple of years as a consultant, but I... I imagine that happens a lot around very wealthy people too, right? I mean, we know that happens a lot around very wealthy people, right?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Part of what's frightening to me about this moment is you've got a lot of creatures of Washington who haven't had to be responsive to people in a while being coupled with creatures of enormous wealth who haven't heard no in a long time. And now they're just feeding off each other, right?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Yeah. And the answer to that, you know, not to sound pious, but like the answer to that is supposed to be democracy. Like the answer to that is supposed to be the fact that like all those people making decisions have to come check in with their boss, the American people, every couple of years, every four years.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I've had my ass handed to me in public meetings. Like, it's not fun, but like it makes you better because either you have a good answer and you get a chance to convince somebody or you don't have a good answer about why you're doing the right thing and you have to think of a better way to explain it. Or, most importantly of all, you might be wrong about something and you find out, right?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Like, that's how the process is supposed to work. But by virtue of these cocoons that we have around people, and of course, the other thing is the algorithm. Like... The thing about those town halls or about local processes is they're offline. Like you're actually in a room with other people. And yeah, maybe it's contrived. Maybe it's lopsided.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
All of that could be going on, especially in a town hall that happens right now. But you're offline looking people in the eye, talking to them. And we don't have a lot of that in terms of how most of us get most of our information. It's just the feed, right? I mean, even TV, right? like used to give us some sense.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
You would see a news story about some controversy and you'd hear from the one person on the one side and you'd hear from the other person on the other side. And maybe you'd be moved by it. Maybe you'd be, it would further entrench you in what you already believe, but you would think about it. You would think about it for a minute because you had to hear those sides, right?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
So very little of that is now part of how most of us get most information.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Look, there is a bias toward being defensive of everything you've done. That's human. That's not just politics. That's human. Sure. But you want to encounter people. One thing I did a lot is I sat down with a lot of Republican governors and often kind of going back and forth with them would...
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Sometimes it would really make me dig in my heels because I would think what they had to say was not convincing. Other times it was the reverse. I mean, I had a governor from a Western state came in and said, look, you have this EVU rule that there's got to be a, you know, every 50 miles has got to be a charging station. in order to get the federal money.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I had a wonderful family that, anytime you're in a job like this, supports you and makes it possible. Then you realize you're kind of making up for lost time. Suddenly it's like...
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And I said, yeah, you guys should love this. Like it's, it's making sure that out in these, these rural areas where there's not a lot of like private sectors, not going to do it. Like we're making sure that there's charging. And then he starts walking me through how his road network works.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And he's like, look, here's a place where literally nobody would, if you made us put a charger here, like it would maybe be like very interesting to an elk that comes by from time to time. Could like, you know, rub his antlers on it. But it's not going to do much for EV users, even if you make us put it in.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And we talked about some flexibility we could have there, which was actually something we worked on together. So, yeah, there's so many times like you think you go in with an idea, you hope you're right, but you got to like be open to finding out that that's maybe not how you thought it was. And that's okay. That's how it's supposed to work.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
you know it's my turn to do the laundry for a very very long time after the last four years went but it's been great i'm i'm you know i'm spending a lot more time with the kids they're three and a half right now and it's a three and a half great time to be but it's a very hands-on time like it's you know yeah it's demanding so i'm living into that
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Yeah, we're not really top-down kind of people, right? Even bottom-up. The sooner we can accept kind of what we are and what we aren't, I think the better. I don't think we're going to have the equivalent of Project 2025 where, you know, I mean, don't get me wrong, there's lots of policy work going on.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
But the idea of us generating some thousand-page document and everybody kind of saluting and marching forward, that's just... You know, that's not really what we're about. I think what we do need to do is lay out a real reckoning of three things we need to rethink.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
What we have to say, the policies, the ideas, hold absolutely true to the ones where our values are at stake, but reconsider any ones that just aren't quite right. That's what we have to say, how we say it. A lot of that's the tone. It's the messenger. It's especially the way we talk to Trump voters we're trying to win over because I told you so is not a great way.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Anybody who's ever been married knows that, right? That's not a smart way. Even if you think you're being vindicated on something, and obviously we're going to have lots of moments. You're saying carry yourself with some humility, even when you're right. Especially when you're right. And be open to the possibility maybe you weren't right about some things. Don't be a sore winner. Yeah.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
So there's what we have to say. There's how we say it. And then the other big thing that my party is terribly behind on is where we say it. And by this, I mean what media spaces we are in. You know, I did a couple appearances, kind of almost last minute ideas during the campaign last year as I was working to help my party.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I did some things on online YouTube-based media outlets I had never even heard of.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
and had more people coming up to me, but different people than came up to me if I'd been on CNN. More likely to be a high school student or a server at a place where I was grabbing something to eat who had not gotten to know me, Through some of the other media that I was doing every day But did get to know me through some of these other media that the podcast thing, right?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
My party's all up in arms about who's our Joe Rogan We're not gonna have a Joe Rogan to the left.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
But we also, where they are there and where they are willing to give us a hearing, we should show up. Same as I made a habit of showing up on Fox News, right? Right. I think we're really struggling to find people where they are.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Exactly. To hear it laid out in that way. Exactly. I could be the 10th person to say roughly the same thing on a liberal show. Or I could literally be the first time somebody heard a certain idea if I'm in a more conservative space, which is why right wing spaces like X and like Fox News, I think, continue to be important for people like me to be in.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And at the same time, of course, you don't stop caring about everything you used to work on and everything you still care about as a citizen.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
But we've also got to be finding folks who are not always looking for politics.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And that should be exciting and empowering, but only if we know what we're doing and we can't be naive about it, right? So on one hand, things are, you know, ideas are spreading and compelling voices are emerging and are spreading in this space. But also, let's be clear, the right has a very sophisticated infrastructure to amplify some of those voices.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And it feels organic. It looks organic. They have these things, many of them propagating through spaces that I barely understand like Discord, but that reach people and feel real. And so we need to be as savvy about the mechanics of that kind of stuff. In the same way that 30, 50, 70 years ago, a DNC operative would need to be smart about
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I don't know, how to buy radio ads in the new radio era or a bunch of stuff they probably hadn't thought about a generation sooner.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
No, they think that's fair game. And we have some decisions to make on my side of the aisle about how to maintain our integrity and also not get outgunned in these spaces where you have that kind of money flying around. Because something doesn't just show up in your feed just because.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Yeah. I mean, it cuts both ways though, right? I mean, the other thing is you don't have, I no longer have to turn the ringer of my phone on, you know, off of Vibrate so I can get the call in the middle of the night.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I would say the, to shift metaphors, I'd say the- From primordial, who's? Or buds. Buds, all right. The pieces are there. The pieces are emerging. I see it everywhere. I see conversations. I see folks iterating, trying, which is part of how this has to work. Again, we talked about risk aversion earlier. Like we got to try lots of things, some of which will fail and be okay with that.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I see that happening. I don't think that it's been consolidated in any meaningful way. But I think it will. And I will do my part to help. Well, that done.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Yeah. Yeah. Which it took me a while to realize that I was actually allowed to do that as long as I knew where Chas and the kids were. But yeah, of course you still feel a huge ownership of things. I mean, just After dropping off the kids, I saw a road project going on here in Michigan and stopped to talk to the guys because it was one of the projects that we funded.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I want to see how it was going. And yeah, I'm very invested in it. But on the other hand, if something goes wrong with it, that's not on my desk anymore. I care about it.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
So, you know, but I think all of us are at the same time, obviously, just very, very alarmed about what's happening around the country. And I think the strange thing for those of us who've left the cabinet or left government is being just as concerned as ever, but obviously having a very, very different role.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Oh, yeah. There's a whole fight this morning because the kids were fighting over how many toys they were allowed to bring in the van with them while I was taking them to school. And it turned out to like, Dad, I'm Papa, Chasten's dad. I was informed that Dad had established a clear policy on this. Ah! And they were litigating it between each other.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I was not helping with my intervention until I understood that there was a rule. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff. Turns out the standard operating procedures were not written down. That's right, man. But the kids will remember.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
They will never let you forget anything, any daylight between one parent and the other, right, on the teeniest policy thing about, I don't know, it could be anything, toys, candy. Yeah, they hold you accountable.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Yeah, of course. Look, I grew up in northern Indiana. I live in Michigan. I get what the wrong kind of trade has done to the industrial Midwest because I grew up surrounded by collapsing factories. And part of that was because of technology. Part of that was because of automation. Part of that was because of trade. and the way it was handled.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And we spent the last 30 years coming to a new understanding as a country about what we need to do. And sometimes that means tariffs. Look, the last administration, there were tariffs. But tariffs are supposed to be a tool, a political and economic tool in order to get some kind of advantage for the people you serve. This is not that.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Because in order for it to work, first of all, you have to know what you're doing. I mean, it was a conservative think tank just found out that there was just a basic,
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
That's it's not It's not it turns out Oh oops that that actually matters when trillions of dollars depend on first of all what you do and secondly how you do it is it consistent to people understand we people are making decisions right this minute. Small businesses are deciding whether to go through with an order or not.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Businesses of all sizes are deciding whether to make an investment or not, whether to hire somebody or not. I already talk to a lot of people. I spend a day a week at the University of Chicago talking to students. A bunch of them, these seniors are graduating, got job offers. Then they got the job offers withdrawn. There was already tons of uncertainty about hiring. That was before the tariffs.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And that's true whether you're a college graduate looking to get a job at a bank or something. It's true whether you're hoping as a construction worker that a project is going to go forward near you. Investments are not just numbers on a page. These are decisions that very quickly go to our everyday lives.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
So the biggest things I'm watching is, one, of course, how hard is this going to hit us in terms of prices? That's the immediate thing. I mean, a tariff is a tax. The price we pay goes up.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Drastic that gets you to number two. The other thing I'm really watching is the jobs fire, right? Well, what's this gonna do to people's jobs? I And, you know, it's hard enough to have those price increases if you continue to have a full employment economy, right? One where more or less it's true that if you want a job, you can get a job.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
It's a whole other thing to deal with that kind of elevated prices, inflation, at the same time as you're dealing with a recession. And now a recession has gone from being viewed as pretty unlikely. a year ago or even three months ago to being viewed as better than a coin flip by most of the people who have spent their lives figuring out whether we're likely to go into recession or not.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
It is a frightening cocktail, especially for people who are living close to the edge, who are paycheck to paycheck, who weren't sure whether they're going to be able to move forward. Look, if you're a billionaire, if you're like most of the people in the president's cabinet right now, or a multimillionaire like most members of the US Congress, then okay, this may not be your problem overnight.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
You'll probably be OK, right? Yeah, maybe. But for so many people, this is not a game. This is not just something that's of interest because you like watching the news. This is people's lives. And obviously, with the stock market taking the turn that it has the last few days, that's people's retirements. And that's not just people sitting on giant trust funds. That's
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
That's ordinary people have been saving up all their lives.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Well, I think the spirit of it is they want to turn back the clock, right? That's the motto, make America great again. I think the reality is it's never about again when you're talking about how to survive and thrive in an economy that's changing like it is right now, when you're facing the way China is right now, when you're facing AI and things like this.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
But I think their spirit is about, yeah, let's just get things back to where they were. But the mechanics of it are all over the place, I think, because you have a bunch of people in the same White House, same administration, same team who ferociously disagree with each other. Right.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
I mean, you see the latest things is fight between Peter Navarro and Elon Musk, but it's going to be some new version of this every day. Look, part of what you have is very old fashioned Republican policy even now. It is about tax cuts for the rich.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And quietly, that is still probably the number one in dollar terms, the number one economic policy that they're working on right now is the trillions of dollars.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
Yeah, it didn't get a lot of attention. The $5 trillion, that's still going through. And let's be clear, there's a relationship here. Right. And they've a few of them in moments of weakness have admitted it because you might think, OK, tax cuts for the rich. That's old fashioned Republican policy. Sure. The dogma that trickled down there, baby. And then tariffs.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
That's the populist Trumpism that's blowing it all up. Right. And those two schools of thought are duking it out. But there is a certain connection here, which is tariffs are a tax. Taxes bring in revenue.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And there are clearly some people in this White House who think that they can use the money they're going to get from the stuff that we're buying at Target that costs more, that have that tax on it, right, to substitute for some of the revenue we're not going to get. out of the taxes on the wealthy that they're moving to cut, right?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
So I would not regard these things as totally- Oh my God, it almost seems like they have a plan. Right? There is a relationship here. There's a reason why some conservative Republicans who never liked tariffs might swallow them right now because if their number one priority is tax cuts for the rich, And they can look to Trump to deliver that. They know he will because he did before.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
And you got another group who are saying, look, our priority is tariffs. They can get that through. Maybe the grand bargain that's being made here. And, you know, some of them, again, have talked in these terms is, OK, basically, if you look at the tax burden of how the things they're still willing to have. I mean, look, obviously, they're cutting a lot of stuff.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg
They're cutting the cancer research and the people who answer the phones at Social Security.