In your book, you share your stories,
you talk about your life, especially as mayor.
What I loved is, there's an anecdote
about you sitting at the desk for the first time,
"Wow, it's day one-- what do I do, where do I begin?"
-Yeah. -What would your day one be as president?
You know, Obama said, "I'm gonna go for health care,
I'm gonna shut down Guantánamo."
Trump said, "I'm here to build a wall."
Everyone has their idea of day one.
-None of them seem to achieve it, but... -(laughter)
everyone has their idea of day one.
What is your day one as president?
I think day one you launch a package of Democratic reforms
to strengthen our democracy.
Some things that I think we could achieve in the first year,
the kinds of things that were in H.R.1 that the House passed
but that's gonna go to the Senate and die there.
Making voter registration easier,
making it easier to get to the polls,
but also launching things that are gonna take years to achieve.
Launching a reform to the electoral college
based on the idea that you might say is simplistic,
that... you ought to give the presidency
-to whoever gets the most votes. -Right.
Um, launching a commission to dep-- propose measures
that would de-politicize the Supreme Court.
I mean, big, deep structural reforms that,
-uh, need to happen, right? -(cheering and applause)
Um... Not because I'm under any illusion
that they can get done in the first few days
or even in the first few years, some of these things.
But really to remind everybody
that one of the most elegant features
of our constitutional system is that it's designed
to be capable of self-healing and reform.
There have been periods when we've not been afraid
to have a number of structural reforms.
In the '60s and '70s you saw change to the voting age,
you saw the 25th Amendment.
Even though the ERA, sadly, didn't make it,
having that fight led to things like Title IX.
And then we've been in a drought of structural reforms.
Not much has changed.
And so when we do have a change to structures,
it's usually in a very cynical way.
So, for example, a lot's been made
of this idea of Supreme Court reform,
as though our side of the aisle are the only ones
who are talking about changing the Court.
Republicans changed the number of justices
on the Supreme Court.
They changed it to eight until they took power again,
and then they changed it back to nine.
I would like these kinds of changes to happen not in
an opportunistic shattering of norms
for one part to get their way,
but through a systematic set of structural reforms
that will make our democracy stronger
for the balance of my lifetime.
Because every other issue that's so urgent, from--
I think climate tops the list, but climate, income inequality,
education, gun reform, immigration-- you name it--
is gonna be very hard to deal with
if we still have such, uh,
such warping of our democratic system itself.
It's interesting that you have these ideas
that connect with-- obviously, Democratic voters--
but you have the challenge of selling some of these ideas
and the idea of your presidency
to people who may be in the middle or have voted for Trump.
And you know some of the people
who voted for Obama went on to vote for Trump.
People have shown that they can switch their affiliations.
-Yeah. -How do you sell some of those ideas
to somebody in the heartland?
If somebody's a Trump supporter, and you say to them,
the electoral college is something
that needs to be changed, how do you sell
that type of idea to somebody who feels like,
-or has been indoctrinated to believe, -Yeah.
-that those are their ideas? -Yeah.
I mean, some of it's just plain English.
Just saying like, "In a democracy, don't you think
"the way we ought to pick our president
is to give it to the person who gets the most votes?"
Um, some of it-- I mean, that shouldn't be...
That seems very simple.
-Yeah. -(laughter)
It's so simple that I don't trust it.
-Something's weird. -(laughs)
And, you know, what I've found--
'cause we have a lot of people where I live who did that:
they voted for Obama and for Trump.
Many of them also voted for Mike Pence for governor
and me for mayor.
Uh, and one of the things that shows you
is that it's not all about ideology.
I think a lot of people want to know--
they may have values and ideas-- they also just want to know
what these ideas mean in their life.
And so part of that's when we're talking about our democracy,
that we're all better off in a better democracy, but also
when we're talking about something like health care.
Climate change is a great example where, I'm afraid still
that when we think about climate change
our mental imagery around it
is usually something from the Arctic, right?
It's a polar bear looking for a habitat,
it's a piece of ice falling off the ice sheet.
When I'm thinking about climate change,
I'm thinking about neighborhoods in South Bend,
in my Midwestern city,
devastated by two historic floods,
1,000-year flood and a 500-year flood,
that happened less than two years apart.
So saying, "Look, this is a safety issue for you and me."
Not something that's just happening out there
in the atmosphere or out there in the Arctic,
but in our homes and our neighborhoods,
where Nebraska's under water, California's catching fire,
South Bend's at risk of greater floods.
And the more we can make it concrete like that,
the more it's not only politically effective,
but I also think philosophically better.
Because if we can't explain or validate a policy,
in terms of how it's gonna make
-our everyday personal lives actually better, -Right.
then why are we even out here?
Let me-Let me ask you about the Mike Pence
versus Pete Buttigieg.
Um, it seems like it started out of nowhere for many people.
You know, it seemed Mayor Pete came out--
that's you, by the way-- came out and, um, and said,
"Um, you know, if Mike Pence has a problem with me,
he should take it up with my creator."
And this has turned into a conversation
in and around religion in America.
You have an interesting idea,
and that is that for a long time,
-people on the right have claimed religion. -Right.
But you believe that there's a religious left
and religion as a whole
is something that people can be interpreting differently.
-Right. -How-how do you sell that message,
and do you believe that on the left,
religion is as strong as it is on the right?
I think it absolutely can be.
I think there's a great tradition of the religious left
that's not getting enough attention.
I mean, you look at the civil rights movement,
which is certainly a product
of the religious left in some senses.
You look at the work that's going on right now,
uh, in order to help lift up the conditions
from immigrants at the border
to poor people across this country.
Um, and what I think it signals to us
is we've got to do away with this idea
that the only way you can think about the implications
of religion and politics is from a right-wing perspective.
I'm careful when I talk about this,
because anybody in the political space,
I think, has an obligation to be there
-for people of any religion and of no religion. -Mm-hmm.
But I also can't miss the fact that when I'm in church
and I'm hearing about scripture
about, uh, taking care of the least among us
and humbling yourself and visiting the prisoner
-and taking care of the stranger... -Right.
...uh, and-and lifting up the poor,
that has some political implications.
And they are radically different
from the behavior of-of, uh, conservatives
who present themselves as religious.
That's just one of the-the conversations
that has followed you on the trail recently.
It's been you and, uh, and Mike Pence.
Um, more recently, you've been thrust into the news
in and around issues regarding voters who are black.
-Mmm. -You know, people have said,
"Mayor Pete, it feels like you have a blind spot
when it comes to black voters in America."
You know, uh, whether it be the fact that in South Bend
when South Bend's economy rose up,
black people didn't rise up as much.
You know, they stayed in poverty.
Um, you know, you've had issues in and around conversations
around the black police chief.
What do you think you're gonna do,
or how are you going to appeal to black voters
and-and connect with them?
Because, I mean, everyone has an area where they're strongest
-when they're running for president. -Yeah.
Um, today you met with Reverend Al Sharpton.
Did you garner any knowledge,
or-or is there any idea that you will change
in how you communicate with black voters specifically?
Well, I think a lot of it's the importance of outreach.
So, there are people who will find their way to you,
and those are your core supporters.
And then there are the people who will never hear from you
unless you reach out to them.
And it's one of the reasons why we're in South Carolina,
for example, in a couple of days,
and we'll really be proactively making sure we're engaging,
uh, whether through the faith community or in other ways
-with black voters and black neighborhoods. -Mm-hmm.
This was important for me back home, too.
Not everybody knows that South Bend
is a racially diverse city.
We're about 40, 45% nonwhite.
And I prided myself on-on winning reelection
-in minority districts as well as whiter districts. -Right.
But that happened through a lot of lessons learned the hard way.
As you mentioned, we had some very painful issues,
especially in my first days and months as mayor,
around race and policing, uh, around neighborhoods.
We have a lot of racial inequality in our city.
Not because we want to,
uh, but it's shown me that good intentions are not enough.
You have to have intention around your policies,
and we're working on everything back in South Bend
from black entrepreneurship
to investing in historically disinvested neighborhoods.
I think the same thing has to happen at the national level.
Look, these racial inequities didn't just happen.
They're not an accident. They're, in many cases,
the consequence of racist policies,
which means we have to have not just nonracist policies
but anti-racist policies if we're ever going to see
these things equalize in our lifetime.
Uh, and I may not be able to convince
every voter out there to be for me,
but at the very least, I need to make sure
that every voter out there knows that I'm for them.
(cheering and applause)
It's...
it's interesting that you say that
and you-you've commented so much on policies and ideas
that you would have for the nation,
because, recently, you know, you took flak,
I think, it was at the CNN town hall,
where, you know, uh, it was Anderson Cooper who said to you,
"Hey, um, you're one of the only or one of the few candidates
who does not have any policy on their website."
And then your response was, "Well, I don't--
I don't want to inundate people with the minutiae of policy."
Uh, what does-- what does that mean, per se?
And-and, you know, does that mean you don't trust
that people will be able to handle the ideas of policy?
Or do you think that policy is not as important
-as people think it is? -So, I think every candidate
has an obligation to present the details of our policy.
I've sought to do that in-in kind of Q&A format,
but I recognize that we'll want to continue doing that
in written format, whether it's things
that we'll be adding to the website
or things that we'll be putting out
in policy addresses on specific issues.
What I'm getting at when I say this though
is that we need to make sure we don't get trapped
at the level of policy design
without also talking at a higher level
about the values that motivate our policies
and at a ground level about what those policies mean.
-So... -Give me an idea of what that means.
Well, so, for example, on education, uh,
you know, I believe some very technical things need to happen.
Like, um, you know, right now,
when you get, uh, student loan debt forgiven
on income-based repayment, uh, that's-that's taxable,
and I don't think it should be. We'd be better off
if it weren't. Stuff like that. Technical but meaningful.
Um, but the-the biggest thing we need to do around education
is have a secretary of education
who believes in public education.
-So... -(cheering and applause)
So you're saying focus more on the values...
-So I want to make sure that we start -Right. Okay.
at the broad strokes so that people--
when we get into the more technical stuff-- and we will--
um, that it's understood where that's coming from
and how it all fits together,
instead of just presenting all the technicalities
and expecting people to be able to kind of guess
-or derive what our values must be -Mm-hmm.
by looking at all these bullet points in our white papers.
It's not that I'm against having the white papers.
It's that I want to make sure that we lead with our values,
so people can put the papers in context.
When you speak to voters
who are concerned about your experience or lack thereof,
you know, you-you hear echoes within the Democratic Party
or whether it's centrists who say,
"You know, this Mayor Pete guy's great.
"He talks a good game, but, I mean,
"does he have the experience of Joe Biden?
"Does he have the experience of Kamala Harris or Corey Booker?
He-he doesn't, and I'm worried about that lack of experience."
-How do you respond to that? -I actually think
experience is one of the best reasons to vote for me.
I know that sounds a little cheeky at my age,
but the experience of being a mayor,
I think, of a city of any size
but especially in the strong mayor system we have in Indiana,
-where there's no city manager, for example, -Mm-hmm.
uh, you are dealing with these issues
up close and personal every day,
whether it's homelessness or poverty or race and policing.
You're not debating them in a committee.
You are-- you are having to manage them.
I mean, one minute, we could be dealing
with an economic development puzzle about incentives
for somebody who's saying they're gonna add jobs.
And the next minute, we're having a Parks and Recreation
controversy over moving a duck pond.
Um, and-and then that's when you get the call
-that there's been a racially... -Did you move the duck pond?
-Uh, we're working on it. Yeah. Yeah. -Uh-huh.
It's-it's a long story, but it's-it's got to move.
-The ducks-- the ducks will be better off. Um... -(laughter)
But, um... but just when you're having a good laugh about that
is when the phone call comes in about a racially explosive
officer-involved shooting,
where you don't even have all the facts.
And you got to figure out what to say on television
-to try to hold the community together. -Mm-hmm.
What you learn is that the job has not just a policy element,
um, not just a management element
but also this-this intangible part,
the moral part of just calling people to their highest values.
It's actually probably the thing
we're most grievously missing right now in the White House,
and we really need it. It really matters.
(cheering and applause)
Look,
one thing I've always enjoyed about you, from the beginning,
is, uh, you're not afraid to jump into, uh,
the sticky side of a conversation.
And, uh, I've always appreciated your ability to take a step back
and go, like, "Oh, yeah, maybe I could change that or evolve."
The book is fascinating.
Your campaign is proving to be as fascinating.
Thank you so much for joining us on the show.
-Thanks for having me out. -Really had a great time
with you.
The memoir, Shortest Way Home, is available now.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg, everybody. We'll be right back.