-No politician has ever gone
straight from a mayor's office to the White House.
-I am a proud son of South Bend, Indiana,
and I am running for President of the United States.
-Pete Buttigieg thinks he can be the first to do it.
[gulls calling]
South Bend is a medium-sized city,
but it feels like a small town,
and many here are quick to praise
the man they call "Mayor Pete."
-Since Mayor Pete took over, it's a beautiful town again,
and every day it gets better and better.
-It's kind of just, I think, his whole mentality on things.
You know, he's just being a good person.
-Buttigieg was just 29 when he was elected to lead South Bend.
-Maybe I'll get to do something else in the future,
but only if I turn out to be really good
at being mayor of South Bend.
-It was a former industrial center,
grappling with a changing economy
and a shrinking population.
Under his leadership, new buildings went up,
parks were renovated.
-Three, two, one.
-And the downtown was revitalized.
In 2014, he took a leave of absence
to serve for seven months in Afghanistan.
Upon his return, Buttigieg came out as a gay man.
In 2015, he was re-elected mayor with 80% of the vote.
-To be given the opportunity to lead your own hometown,
it is personal.
-Over his two terms,
Buttigieg worked with Republicans to get things done,
says Councilman Jake Teshka.
-One of the things that I think Republicans,
and as a Republican, I can speak to this,
is that Pete has a way
of talking to people without contempt.
-And it would help to nominate somebody with coattails
who comes from the middle of the country
and can speak to these concerns in plain English
in the course of a presidential campaign.
-I've been telling folks, "Don't discount him."
I think that Pete's somebody that a lot of moderates,
a lot of center-right people, can look at and say,
"Yeah, I can vote for that guy."
-Buttigieg has shown his talent for languages
on the campaign trail.
-[speaking Spanish] We are together.
[speaking French] The Cathedral of Notre Dame
was like a gift to mankind.
[speaking Arabic] Hello, I'm Pete Buttigieg,
mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
-And in South Bend, Buttigieg answered the call one night
when a young boy was rushed to the hospital
and his mother needed an Arabic interpreter.
-I don't think a lot of people recognized who he was.
I certainly didn't.
-Six years later, Dr. Donald Zimmer
remembers it well.
-He translated words that I said
and words that the patient's mother said
without imposing himself into the dialogue at all.
I think that's the epitome
of what public service is all about.
-But Buttigieg's tenure as mayor began with a controversy.
Soon after taking office,
he fired the city's first black police chief
for recording department phone lines.
and he refused to release the tapes,
which were alleged to include racist conversations
among high-ranking officers.
-We know what's on the tapes,
but there's somebody that think
we don't know what's on the tapes,
so they don't want us to hear what's on the tapes,
but we all know what's on the tapes,
the condescending things about folk.
-Reverend Sylvester Williams says the incident
fueled mistrust in the black community.
-If he wants to show good faith,
he would...do what he can do
to make sure that the citizens hear the tape before he leaves.
That would be a tremendous gesture for this community.
When the Mayor announced his presidential run,
City Councilman Oliver Davis says African-American leaders
were urged to keep their doubts to themselves.
-We are very proud to have a person from South Bend
run for President. That's exciting.
At the same time, those of us who share
those kind of criticisms were almost --
Well, not "were almost" -- we were pretty much shunned.
Like, "Be quiet. Don't talk about your dirty laundry
when we have guests in town.
We have the media. The national media is here.
Everybody else is here. Be quiet.
-But in June, after a white officer, Ryan O'Neill,
shot and killed a black resident,
54-year-old Eric Logan,
long-simmering tensions gave way to public anger.
-Of course black lives matter.
-Then fire your cops!
[indistinct shouting]
Are you a racist?
-What about a black life --
What matters about a black life to you, Mayor Pete?
What matters about a black life to you?
Answer! [Speaking indistinctly]
-Buttigieg skipped a community vigil,
and Logan's family faulted him for a lack of compassion.
-The shooting added validity to -- with all due respect,
to the Logan family.
It added validity to those who had already shared
these kind of thoughts before,
who were pretty much hushed-hush.
-His struggle to connect with the black community
in South Bend has carried over to his campaign.
-I remember he explicitly said to the crowd,
"In order to win this, in order to have a serious shot at this,
I really need to build a more diverse coalition."
-Find people who perhaps do not look like you.
And make sure that they are aware of this message
and that they are communicating to us
how this campaign can best speak to them.
-And so it's something he's acknowledged as a candidate
and something the campaign is serious about trying to remedy.
-Buttigieg has proven himself to be a formidable fundraiser
and a skilled campaigner.
If he wins, he would be the youngest man
to ever occupy the Oval Office,
and even some of his critics aren't ruling him out.
-I think he'll go the distance.