- As you may or may not know, sometimes I just hang out
with the live audience at the show.
It's called Between the Scenes, 'cause we've down the scenes
and we are now between them.
(audience laughs)
So, I'll just throw something at you,
and really this is just a preamble.
If you have any questions for Mayor Pete,
please think about what the question is.
Think of really an idea that hopefully can move
a conversation forward.
Just to spark that,
all these ideas that you have,
that you speak about in interviews,
I've been fascinated by.
You know like reparations.
It's not an easy question to answer.
People make it seem like it is, but it isn't easy.
Implementation, the conversation,
all of the facets in and around it,
and you have an answer on that,
and you speak about racial injustice,
and you speak about, people in the Heartland, et cetera.
How do you have these ideas?
I know it sounds like a stupid question,
but are you constantly trying to engage
in these difficult issues and then learning
how you think you would tackle them
or are you just a by-product of your age
and the time that you live in?
- Hmmm.
That is really profound.
I think it's gotta be a combination of those things right?
I mean, there's the philosophies and the values
that guide you, but then it gets sharpened
into a particular question you realize
you're gonna have to answer,
and the questions that are coming at us in this process,
I think, are forcing us to think in new ways.
I mean, the reparations things was not a serious,
or at least not taken seriously, in presidential politics
until this cycle, and suddenly it's something
that everyone one of us has to have a thoughtful answer on,
and then, of course, to some extent, there are questions
where they're trying to trip you up, right.
- Of course, yes.
- And that can happen to.
Does medicare for all mean abolishing
private insurance or not?
Things like that, and so the best thing
I can think to do is to explain where I come from,
explain what I believe, and then see what people think,
because sometimes, I'm not going to change my values
based on feedback, but sometimes you learn something
you didn't think about or at the very least
you learn the best vocabulary to convey what you care about.
- What is one thing you learned about today
hanging out with Reverend Al Sharpton?
- Well one thing that really interests him is the...
- Fist, sorry to interrupt you, first things first,
did you eat the hot sauce?
(audience laughs)
- I did.
- 'Cause the hot sauce is always on the table,
and I've seen candidates there, and I'm like
"does anyone actually use that hot sauce?"
- I decided to save that until the cameras
didn't seem to be watching us 'cause
nothing good can come of putting on hot sauce
when cameras are watching you.
- So what did you learn?
- Well he seemed to be very interested in
the relationship between the LGBTQ community
and the black church.
- Oh interesting.
- Which I think is really interesting
and really problematic right.
I mean here you have two different communities
that have had different but real patterns of exclusion
that could be fantastic allies where, by the way,
the most vulnerable people among the LGBTQ community
are people of color, especially trans women of color,
who, I think, would benefit from black faith
communities that were...
- Right.
- And so he took a stand that I thought was interesting
for someone of his generation to take today
on why there needs to be more solidarity there,
but he also encouraged me, and I have to admit
that I know as I go into some of these churches,
for example in South Carolina, that this may be
a source of tension or at least discomfort.
- Right.
- The best thing I can do is just get out there
and talk to people and make sure they understand
who I am and hope that that can be the grounds for
coming together.
- I'll give you a piece of advice that maybe
Al Sharpton wouldn't give you.
Before you go to a black church,
listen to some of the songs so that when you get there
you can stay on beat.
(audience laughs)
No, because a lot of white politicians in America,
they go to the black church and then it's just like
(claps)
(audience laughs)
I promise you now, half of the campaign is just
staying on beat.
You stay on beat, and then we're like "no, you respected
us enough to just follow the music."
Take that lightly, but let me tell you something now.
You move to the beat,
you see what happens to your poll numbers.
(audience laughs)
Let's take some questions from the audience.
We'll take one from this side, and then we'll move to one
on that side.
Yes ma'am, you have your hand up.
- Hi.
I love everything you say about domestic policies,
but how about foreign policies.
Are you for the Iran deal?
Are you for the Paris Accord and all this stuff
that Trump wants to take us out of?
How do you feel about that?
- Yeah.
So specifically, yes I think the Iran deal is something
that we should be party to and should strengthen.
We didn't do it as a favor to Iran,
we did it to reduce a nuclear threat,
and it's still a good policy,
and I think we need to rejoin the Paris goals,
but it's probably not enough.
More broadly, I think the next president
is going to have to do two things very quickly
on foreign policy.
One, establish a new bar, and I would say
a higher bar, for when you would consider
deploying American force, and the second
is establish US credibility in the world,
(audience applause)
because this is a problem.
I mean there is a whole speech worth of the things
I think we'll have to do, and I'll give that speech
in the future, and you'll hear about what I think that means
in terms of our policy towards Asia
and how I think our trade diplomacy ought to be related
to our climate diplomacy, but the bottom line is
I really felt it.
When I was deployed in the military and I had
the flag on my shoulder, I felt that I had a flag
on my shoulder representing a country known for keeping
its word, and that our allies but also our adversaries
knew that, and when that is lost
we are definitely less safe.
It's not just this kind of high-minded idea
of moral authority, it's also that credibility.
Lives depend on that credibility,
and restoring that will be very challenging
and very urgent for the next president.
- All right, we've got time for one more.
(audience applause)
I never take questions from there,
so yes sir, right in the middle.
- So recently president Trump has been tweeting a lot
about how strong our economy is
citing unemployment numbers, GDP.
Some of those numbers can be misleading
or not necessarily a credit to him.
What does success look like to you?
- So to me, it's not just the top lines of growth,
'cause it is true.
He has managed to not tank the Obama recovery
for a couple years, good for him.
(applause)
But go back to 2016 and ask how we had a so called
economic anxiety election under conditions
that were also full employment back then,
and there's a whole bunch of reasons.
Part of what I think that tells you though
is that there's a lot of concern
that this prosperity isn't widespread,
and the numbers bear that out.
You start the clock in the early 70s,
and for 90% of Americans, all but the top 10%,
even as the rising tide rises like no rising tide
has ever risen before, a lot of
the boats didn't budge right?
Median incomes barely moved at all, and so I think
what we're seeing, whether it's racial inequality
that's persisting and also racial wealth gap
not just a racial income gap, or whether it's
ways in which the industrial Midwest, like where I live.
Around World War II you had something like a 90% shot
that you were going to wind up
earning more than your parents did.
Right now it's a coin flip, and where I come from
it's less than 50/50.
If we're not addressing that, than people less and less
are going to care what the top line number are
because it's not reaching people.
So what does success look like?
It looks like shared prosperity where the American dream
really is achievable not just in Denmark but in America.
That you can be born at any stratum in our economy
and come out much higher than you started.
(applause)
- So in that, Mayor Pete has to leave, so in that then,
just off of that, a report just came out today
about some of the top companies in America paying
zero federal tax, and this is
a story that is all too familiar.
You see some of the biggest corporations in America
literally paying zero federal tax whether they use
offshore tax havens, whether they use loopholes in tax law.
How do you approach that?
Do you think that's something
that needs to be changed in America?
- Yeah, of course it needs to change,
and, again not to get too much into the guts
of how to do it, but I think the basic metaphor
to use to design a way to handle offshoring
is the way we handle taxation within the US
among different states.
So if you've got a company based in one state
and you sell in another state and a few of your
employees are in this state, we have a way of proportioning
your income based on where you do your sales
to make sure that the different states get a fair share.
We could do the same thing internationally.
It's harder, and it's more complicated,
but there are ways to do it,
and I think that that has to happen,
because whether it's through offshoring
or any of the other mechanisms that these companies use
and the idea that you can make billions
upon billions in profit.
Which means, of course, that you have profited
from good roads and good schools and national security
and all the things that are very expensive to provide
then you ought to be paying your share.
I think Americans get that.
I don't think you have to be a raging leftist
to think that that's a problem.
Matter of fact, I think a lot of the people
who were susceptible to the messaging of this president
are as angry, and may have voted for him last time,
are as angry about that as I am,
and I think if we put forward a credible way
of dealing with it, that's something that will
reach across the aisle and is also just
the right thing to do.
- Thank you so much for being on the show man.
(applause)
Really good having you.
Can't wait to see you at the debate.
Mayor Pete everybody.
- Thank you.
- Thank you so much.
(applause)