Joining me now is Pete Buttigieg.
He is appearing in his personal capacity,
not his official role as a member of the Biden
administration.
So I'm awkwardly not going to call you Mr.
Secretary or mayor. That's where we are.
It's great to be here.
Thank you so much for being here with me today.
Thanks for having me in.
So I just I played that clip of Donald Trump
saying in four years you won't have to vote again.
I mean, he's made similar statements before.
Governor Krista Nuna was on after you on Fox News
this morning.
He said it's just classic Trumpism.
I think it's pretty important to call out.
What did you think when you heard him say that?
Yeah. I mean, candidly, I don't completely understand what he
means.
I don't want to have to worry about what he
means.
It's yet another reason why we've got to make sure
he doesn't get reelected.
You know, I remember a few years ago there were
some commentators who sounded clever by saying,
you know, the problem with Democrats is we were taking
Trump literally when we have taken him seriously and the
smart people were taking him seriously instead of taking him
literally. But when he says something like that or when
he says something like wanting a political opponent like Liz
Cheney,
a congresswoman who criticized him to be tried in a
televised military tribunal,
I don't know whether to take that literally or seriously.
Either way, it's bad news either way.
If he's saying I want to eliminate a system so
nobody has to vote again,
that's a huge problem. And we should take that both
of those of those ways.
So let me ask you,
and this is the awkward question you've been answering a
million times.
I'm not going to ask you to tell me the
status of the vetting process or whether you're going to
be the vice president.
I do want to know because you've run for president
yourself.
You know, Kamala Harris, you know,
Joe Biden, you've been around the system.
What kind of qualities do you think would best compliment
her?
I mean, the bottom line is it's her call and
she knows what she's doing.
But what's great about this moment is there's an extraordinary
bench of leaders in the Democratic Party,
all of whom are doing everything we can to support
the top of our ticket in Kamala Harris.
And who knows what the exact flying formation is going
to be like?
But however that shakes out,
I think you're going to see a lot of people
pulling in the same direction in a party that,
let's face it, is not always known for being extremely
quick to get into new alignment,
to fall in the line,
as they say. But what part of what's been remarkable
about the last week,
and I still can't believe that it's only been a
week,
is how quickly she coalesced our famously big tent party
across all of its different
corners to come together and rally to the cause of
making sure she's the next president.
No question. I also think this process of having so
many Democrats out is joyful.
It reminds people of how a lot of people get
into politics for good reason.
So regardless of what happens,
I know a lot of Democrats,
people who watched you on Fox News this morning would
love to see you on the debate stage with JD
Vance.
There's no question about it.
You've watched him, you've commented on him.
What would you love to,
to debate him about what?
What topics would you love to
discuss with him? Where do you start?
I, I think, you know,
they've selected somebody who has really reminded so many Americans
of why they are
off put by the turn that the Republican Party has
taken in the last few years.
It's not just that he's said a lot of things
that are weird or,
or insulting, like the, the characterization of,
you know, the Democratic Party is childless cat ladies.
It's also that he seems to view everything in terms
of the negative.
And what I mean by that is,
for example, that this thing about having children,
I think a lot of us who have had kids
would,
would certainly say that that experience opens you to a
new way of thinking about the world.
But he doesn't talk about it in those terms.
He talks about how anybody who doesn't have kids is
less than that,
their perspectives have less value,
which is just a really strange take.
And it's not just a a
weird style that he brings.
It's that this leads to weird policies like his proposal
that the
number of votes you get in an election would be
different
depending on how many kids you have.
I mean, I mean, I would think one person,
one vote is a pretty basic,
universally accepted principle in this country.
But there there's so many strange policy commitments he has.
And so I guess what I would most want to
see in that debate,
whoever is at the table with him,
is getting into that relationship between
a strange worldview and a strange set of policies.
Let's also remember his relationship to Project
2025. As you said, it's kind of amazing they put
all this stuff out.
That's remarkable. I think it's also telling that this is
the first time I can remember that a comprehensive policy
framework for a political party has been so profoundly unpopular
that the president, the candidate of that party,
has to pretend he's got nothing to do with it.
Let's face it, It is definitely the road map for
a future Trump administration.
JD Vance having him on the ticket basically certifies that
fact because JD Vance wrote the foreword to the forthcoming
book by the Heritage Foundation president.
The Heritage Foundation is the institutional home of Project
2025, which means it's basically Project
2025, the book. So it couldn't be more on the
nose
in terms of revealing where a Trump presidency would take
this country and as Kamala Harris says,
so effectively where it would take us
backward. Yeah. I mean, and the head of the Heritage
Foundation was tickled pink,
had a smile across his face when JD Vance was
named.
So let me ask you about messaging because you're a
deeply substantive,
I mean, nerdy in the best way possible guy.
But you're also very good at speaking an accessible language.
And I think you you just mentioned strange,
weird. We've seen men, Tim Walz,
the vice president others use Weird.
This has kind of been an evolution a little bit
in messaging over the past week,
which I think is good and effective.
Why do you think speaking about Trump and Vans and
the threat in that language works well?
I think this demonstrates that this is not just a
traditional Democrats versus Republicans
debate or argument. We could
go back and forth all day on a more progressive
worldview versus a more conservative worldview.
But the stuff that you're seeing out of Trump and
Vance isn't just conservative.
In fact, sometimes it's as offensive to conservative ideas as
it is to liberal ideas.
This talk about terminating the Constitution,
the deep weirdness of having somebody who wants to be
president,
United States rambling about electrocuting sharks and,
and Hannibal Lecter. And, and I think it reminds us
of of just the the choice we face,
not just in terms of policies,
direction for the country, which is hugely important,
of course, but also a choice in terms of what
it's going to feel like to live in this country.
I don't want to worry about sharks that often or
think about Hannibal Lecter too often or any of the
just kind of dark and twisted things that were kind
of shoved in our face all of the time during
the Trump presidency and ever since by the Trump campaign.
And I think we have a chance to have just
a
a better, brighter future. That's what I love about this
contrast.
Look, don't get me wrong,
we all know what we're up against and the gravity
of what would happen to our democracy as well as
our economy if there was a chance for Trump to
return to power. But this isn't just about what we're
trying to block.
It's about what we're working to build.
And I think that energy is part of what's been
so remarkable and so central in these recent days on
the campaign trail.
Yeah, unquestionably, politics should be joyful.
I think it's so important.
And I just want to ask you about how Democrats
could kind of reclaim this freedom and liberty.
She's starting to do it.
How could they reclaim the freedom and liberty mantle from
Republicans?
Yeah, this is something I've believed in for a long
time.
You know, going back to when I was running,
I thought it was really important to talk more in
terms of freedom because,
you know, people get freedom.
Yes. It's important to make sure that people are free
from overbearing government,
which is the thing that conservatives have traditionally talked about
the most.
But also, government is not the only thing that can
make you unfree.
And good government helps make sure you're free from other
threats to your well-being.
The Affordable Care Act made people more free because you
didn't have to be in fear of what would happen
if you had a medical event.
It's important, I think, to keep people free from fear
of gun violence,
which is why, you know,
we're the ones who are out there saying the most
important thing we have to do to protect our kids
isn't to ban a bunch of books.
It's to make sure that the assault weapons aren't finding
their way into the neighborhoods or,
God forbid, schools. And there's a real opportunity now,
I think, to embrace that even further because
Trump's Republican Party has walked away from freedom.
I mean, again, if you're talking about military tribunals for
political opponents,
you have no business talking about freedom.
If you're into banning books,
you have no business letting a word like liberty escape
your lips.
And so I think this is a really smart thing
to do.
First of all, I think just philosophically makes sense.
And it's who we are,
and that's who she is.
But I also think it's smart because it can appeal
to something that I think a lot of independents,
a lot of what I like to call future former
Republicans,
continue to sincerely care about and are increasingly concerned that
it is at risk.
And of course, Exhibit A
is a woman's freedom to choose and access to abortion
care,
a freedom that Donald Trump withdrew when he destroyed the
right to choose in this country.
And I think it's important since every election is about
the future,
not just to remind everybody that that happened,
but to talk about what happens next When you have
somebody like a Trump fans ticket and and a
Republican Party that does not support the freedom to grow
your family through IVF.
They do not support a lot of reproductive freedoms,
the access to contraception. They don't even support my freedom
to marry,
going by how most Republicans voted when that was on
the floor.
So I think it's a powerful framework.
I think, yes, it's smart for the campaign,
but it's also just fitting because that's that's very much
what's at stake right now.
Yeah. I mean, no question about it.
And it's such an important.
You don't have to leave the framing with the other
side.
That's not how it has to go.
I know you've talked about this for a long time.
Let me ask you, you know,
a lot of people see you've been asked 1000 times
about whether you're going to be the vice presidential running
mate,
all these things, your future.
I know from working for a lot of politicians that
you talk about those things with your family and you
consider a lot of things.
I mean, you have little kids,
you're happily married, you're in Michigan a lot of the
time.
How do you have that conversation?
You're young, you love policy,
You love politics. How do you guys talk about that
and what you want to do in the future?
Yeah. I mean, any decision about what to do next
is a family decision.
And, you know, I remember I got into politics as
a young single
mayor and, you know, it's different.
So it really is. And,
you know, I saw people say that on TV who
had families,
but I didn't really understand it.
Now I do. I mean,
the, the contributions and the sacrifices that,
that that my husband Chaston makes that our children make,
even though they're about to be three.
They may not know it,
but but they are helping to make it possible for
me to,
to serve. And that's a really big deal and a
heavy thing and not something to be done lightly.
And of course, it works both ways.
On one hand, anytime you consider a demanding job,
certainly a demanding role in,
in, in politics and public life,
you think twice about it because,
you know, there's a cost.
On the other hand, you know,
having kids, having a family has helped me to
better appreciate what's at stake in this election.
I think about again, the,
the simple fact that that our,
our marriage and family, that's the most important thing in
my life,
exists by the grace of a single vote on the
Supreme Court.
But I also, of course,
think about our kids, our,
our kids. I, I hope and expect we'll be around
for the 22nd century.
And so if I'm trying to make sure that that
we make good decisions and elect good leaders and,
and, and reinforce what is best about this country going
into the balance of this century so that it goes
well all the way into the next,
you know, they are going to be holding us accountable
for that.
You know, I'm already, you know,
they're they're not quite three.
I'm already at the stage of why.
And I've realized that I've got like four or five
why's before I'm out of
answers, right? I mean, the most basic questions think why,
why, why. And soon those questions will evolve into deeper
questions about what we who are in positions of responsibility
right now have done to make sure that they are
safer from gun violence, to make sure that they grow
into an economy that's fairer,
to make sure that they
grow up into a climate that supports and sustains their
well-being.
To me, now we talk about good climate choices.
It's not about saving some abstract thing called the the
planet.
It's about them making sure they are personally and materially
better off.
So, you know, I think that that just opens up
in a different way and it propels me to do
this work,
even though it's also reminded me just how much more
there is to life.