Pete Buttigieg & Kara Swisher: The State of U.S. Democracy

0:00:00.5 Celeste Watkins-Hayes: Well, good afternoon. I am Celeste Watkins-Hayes, the Joan and Sanford Weil Dean of Public Policy here at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. I'm delighted to welcome you here to RACM for this Ford School event, the first of many dynamic programs we have planned for this year. Our mission is to bring together a diverse range of voices, spark critical conversations, and shine a light on the most pressing policy issues facing our state, our nation, and our world. Especially at a time of heightened polarization and global uncertainty, spaces for thoughtful and respectful dialogue matter more than ever. And we're so glad you've chosen to be part of that conversation with us. And let me also welcome the university's interim president, Domenico Grasso, and his wife, Susan, several of our regents, executive officers, and many of my fellow deans. Shout out to my fellow deans. It is wonderful to have you all here today. Today, we have the privilege of being the live audience for a special recording of the On with Kara Swisher podcast, featuring our distinguished guest, former US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Pete Buttigieg served as US Secretary of Transportation from 2021 to 2025, where he worked to launch over 70,000 infrastructure projects across the country, improve transportation, safety, and technology, expand airline passenger protections, and resolve pandemic-related supply chain disruptions.

0:02:02.4 Celeste Watkins-Hayes: Previously, he was elected to two terms as mayor of his hometown of South Bend, Indiana. Throughout his career, Secretary Buttigieg has been recognized nationally for his pragmatic approach to bridging divides and advocating for bold, just, and transformative solutions. Today, he is a leading voice, regularly featured on TV, podcasts, and digital media across the political spectrum, working to shape a more hopeful future. We are also thrilled to welcome Kara Swisher as host for today's conversation. Kara is a renowned journalist and commentator, editor-at-large for New York Media, host of the On with Kara Swisher podcast, and co-host of the podcast Pivot. She's also a contributing writer for New York Magazine and a regular CNN contributor. Most importantly for us, she is this semester's Ford School Towsley Foundation Policymaker-in-Residence, bringing her sharp insights and deep expertise to our community, and we're so honored to have you teaching for us. And I am a student in her class, and I'm very much enjoying it.

0:03:23.4 Kara Swisher: She's on the bubble.

0:03:27.6 Celeste Watkins-Hayes: Yes. I am trying to get the reading done on time. So as we kick off today's discussion, I'm excited to note that this event launches an exciting slate of Ford School programs throughout the year, many of them at our home over in Weil Hall. As part of the university's Climate Week, a campus-wide initiative bringing together experts and communities to address urgent environmental challenges, we're excited to be partnering with many of our partners across campus to hold events. We also, this semester, are featuring leaders from the American Enterprise Institute and the Niskanen Center, and mark your calendars for October 23rd when we are honored to welcome former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster for our annual Vandenberg Lecture. That'll be a highlight of our academic year. So there's so many wonderful opportunities to engage with us at the Ford School. Before we begin, I want to extend my sincere thanks to our co-sponsors, the School for Environment and Sustainability, Taubman College, let's hear it for C's, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Wallace House Center for Journalists, and the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

0:04:38.4 Celeste Watkins-Hayes: Their partnership and support help make this event and so many other events that we do possible, and we encourage you to check out our website and their school's websites for all kinds of events where you can engage. And now it is my pleasure to turn the program over to Kara Swisher for this special live recording of her podcast. Thank you all for being here today.

0:05:01.5 Kara Swisher: Thank you. So, okay, I'm so excited. I have interviewed Pete many times, like three or four times.

0:05:13.3 Pete Buttigieg: I think so.

0:05:13.6 Kara Swisher: Something like that, and the last one was at my last code conference, I think. When you were transportation secretary. We insulted Elon Musk, which didn't work out so well for all of you.

0:05:24.3 Pete Buttigieg: We or you?

0:05:25.4 Kara Swisher: You did. You did. I think you called him a delicate flower. That might be, but he has billions of dollars also. So, thank you for coming on On. I really appreciate it. Again, I have lots to talk about. We're going to talk about the state of the Democratic Party, gerrymandering President Trump, the recent assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, and a range of things. And there's a lot to talk about, so we're going to dive right in. And I will say I'm really enjoying your Train Daddy look. Those of you who know, know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about.

0:06:02.9 Pete Buttigieg: You're setting a tone for our whole time together.

0:06:04.8 Kara Swisher: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Do you know what I'm talking about?

0:06:08.0 Pete Buttigieg: Actually, no. Sorry.

0:06:13.1 Kara Swisher: Oh, my God. It's the Gilded Age. Train Daddy.

0:06:16.3 Pete Buttigieg: Okay.

0:06:20.4 Kara Swisher: He's an icon for gay men, just so you know.

0:06:23.2 Pete Buttigieg: Okay. I believe you.

0:06:25.1 Kara Swisher: Okay. I'm starting to agree with Tucker Carlson on this fake gay thing. No, I don't. No, I don't.

0:06:32.5 Pete Buttigieg: Chasten, my husband, has threatened to have my gay card revoked so many times. This is just going to be the latest insult.

0:06:38.6 Kara Swisher: We're going to definitely have to report you after this one. So let's get into serious issues. I'll send you something. Okay. So it's been a week. I'm going to get more serious since Charlie Kirk was killed. You've condemned his killing, as most leaders in the Democratic Party have done, and you talked about the need to turn the rhetoric around. But the opposite has happened, especially because including President Trump and Vice President Vance are sort of ginning up anger continually. So give us a sense of where you think the country is right now and where it's headed, or is it noise that is not really where the country is?

0:07:18.4 Pete Buttigieg: Well, I think in the days since it happened, and first and foremost, we still have to begin with the fact that a man was killed, that a family was robbed of a father, and that should never have happened, and that should never happen to anyone. And I think that's the only sane place to begin. I will say that we did see a truly bipartisan response, not a universal response by any means. But we saw leaders ranging from a conservative Republican like Spencer Cox, the governor of Utah, to Bernie Sanders on the left, saying things that really rhymed with each other about why and how political violence is unacceptable, how terrifying it is that America is at this fork in the road. And I think it's important, you know, just the logic of our time is that the loudest or nastiest voice prevails. So we're not talking as much about those calls, even though they reflect, I think, the center of gravity even among the politicians and certainly the center of gravity among the American people in how to respond to that. I do think that what's happened next in terms of the response out of the White House tees up a really challenging problem for those on my side of the aisle.

0:08:35.4 Pete Buttigieg: And the problem is how do we authentically live up to the things all of us or most of us are saying about doing our part to reject the use of violence and to turn down the temperature? And at the same time, you've got to stand up to this stuff. If the White House is saying that they intend to use this as a basis for cracking down on their political opponents, you have to stand up to that. But I also think that that's less of a contradiction than it seems, that there are ways to be politically forceful and reject the use of force. And I think the way to think about it is that both of those things are opposition to the way the White House is approaching this and our opposition to political violence come from our commitment to freedom. Part of what makes political violence a crime not just against the target but against the country is that it deprives our whole country of the freedom to have open, honest, safe, free political debate. And of course, that's also the harm of any government and certainly our government using this or any other pretext to use the powers of the state to go after people, not because or groups, not because they are physically dangerous but because they are politically opposed to those in charge.

0:09:56.1 Kara Swisher: Were you surprised by the reaction?

0:10:00.7 Pete Buttigieg: Which reaction? The White House reaction?

0:10:02.2 Kara Swisher: The president,Trump's. The first, when I heard it, I thought, okay, good beginning and then, oh no, this is not great.

0:10:07.9 Pete Buttigieg: I wasn't exactly getting my hopes up for him to suddenly transform into a unifying leader who would bring us all together. I mean, the simple fact is, even though the most important job of the President of the United States is to hold the American people together, he does not view this as part of his job description. He said as much. It's not important to him. And so we saw what we saw. Now, the other thing, of course, that I think is important is that he didn't talk about the fact that there has been so much political violence directed against people who are left of center. This same summer that is ending in September with the horrific killing of a conservative activist in Utah, Charlie Kirk, began in June with a nationalist madman running around with a list of Democrats he wanted to kill, and he found some and killed them, Melissa Hortman and her husband in Minnesota, and shot others. So a partisan response to something that should horrify us on a bipartisan basis is wrong, it's bad, and sadly it is unsurprising on the part of the president.

0:11:18.0 Kara Swisher: From a political point of view, why do this? Because it's continuing, and Vance has continued to pretty much spew inaccurate statistics and just keep repeating it over and over again. Ted Cruz did it last night. What is the strategy from your perspective? If you were them.

0:11:39.5 Pete Buttigieg: I'm doing my best to get into their heads and imagine what they're trying to do. I think, for one thing, it's easier. I mean, it would be difficult for them to acknowledge just how much political violence has been inspired by the right or to even acknowledge just that this has happened in ways that have aligned with either side. But also, part of their project is to assert total control over this country, not just lead the government but control everything. And this is something that is enabling them to try to do that even more. We've seen that sort of thing before. I mean, history teaches us some provocative incident that leads those in power to have a way to consolidate their power. And every step, if there's any cohesion, any pattern in what this president does, it's everything he does is about consolidating his own power.

0:12:41.6 Kara Swisher: Will it work?

0:12:42.8 Pete Buttigieg: It could. I mean, if he's actually able to use this as a pretext to undermine groups and people who are politically difficult for him, that are not in any way associated with this or any other act of violence but are a political problem for him, given that you have a court that's unwilling to check his power and a Congress that is unwilling to check his power, that could happen. Having said that, it's also possible that something different happens, probably from the bottom up among the American people before it gets to Washington rather than the other way around. But I'm thinking about the people that I was arguing over beers with in college who were libertarian or conservative. Maybe we were arguing about guns. Maybe we were arguing about... Sometimes we'd be arguing over something like the Clean Water Act. And they would say, we can't have... That's tyranny. It's too much power for the federal government to have, right? And then, and I can be a little sarcastic about that, but then they would say something like, look, you go down this road and sooner or later, someday, you're going to have masked federal agents walking down the street nabbing people because of op-eds they wrote. Joke's on me, right? It didn't happen in the way they said it would, but something like that is happening right now. So I'm trying to appeal to folks of that turn of mind and say, this politically ought to be your Super Bowl. It's actually happening.

0:14:05.5 Kara Swisher: Well, except that a lot of people are calling for cancel culture. Like the people that originally had been so opposed to cancel culture, such as Attorney General Pam Bondi.

0:14:17.9 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah, it turns out they're against cancel culture selectively, which you just can't be in the same way that you can't be against violence selectively. It's either right or it's wrong.

0:14:28.7 Kara Swisher: When A.G. Bondi said that she would pursue actions, legal actions against hate speech, what was your thought? She got a lot of pushback from...

0:14:42.6 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah, I mean, first, here's somebody who doesn't know what she's talking about.

0:14:46.0 Kara Swisher: Well, the Supreme Court justice said that yesterday. Well, she said she would have failed law school.

0:14:51.6 Pete Buttigieg: Again, if I'm looking for glimmers of hope, the fact that there are plenty of people on the right who see why you don't get to just abandon free speech that way and spoke up, I suppose that's encouraging. I'm not coming out of these last few days terribly encouraged, but that did happen, and it means something.

0:15:12.1 Kara Swisher: Were you surprised businesses went along with it?

0:15:14.2 Pete Buttigieg: Went along with the...

0:15:15.7 Kara Swisher: With the firing people for just not liking this guy.

0:15:19.5 Pete Buttigieg: Well, in fairness, we should distinguish between not liking this guy and doing or saying something that is the sort of thing that can get you fired, okay? So there's a spectrum here.

0:15:32.4 Kara Swisher: Certainly, but something Charlie Kirk said was there is no such thing as any speech that should be, even evil speech.

0:15:39.5 Pete Buttigieg: As you can imagine, I don't agree with Charlie Kirk on much, and look, in the same way that if somebody blurts out a racist statement or tweet, that might have professional consequences. So I'm not saying it's impossible in principle for there to be professional consequences for something somebody said or did motivated by the news, but I also think that you see a continued pattern on the part of a lot of players in the business community that are just doing whatever they think they have to do in order to get along with this administration.

0:16:13.8 Kara Swisher: In order to get along. A lot of this activity was on social media, and you recently said social media is clearly part of the problem in a big way when it comes to political violence. Governor Cox from Utah said the same thing. He used the term cancer. It's obviously something I've talked about for, I think, about 20 years now. I think you're both right, but we're not going to see any tech regulation anytime soon, especially since they've spent a lot of time coddling President Trump with golden statues and million-dollar donations and things like that. And putting your phone down puts the onus on the individual, not the companies themselves. So talk about how you change the social media equation.

0:16:55.0 Pete Buttigieg: Well, we can't let the companies off the hook. But we also, just before I get into that, I would say can't let ourselves off the hook. So yes, we are being manipulated down to the brain chemistry level by companies and algorithms. But we do have some level of agency that we ought to be smart about in the same way that lots of things had to be done around tobacco. But one of them was labeling and education and other things that then helped people to make choices that were healthier. I'm not saying you should have left it on the individuals. Obviously, the companies were responsible. But if you're just thinking about a broad spectrum, what are all the things we could be doing at the same time that would make a difference? One of them is certainly let's think about anything and everything that we ourselves can control. But I agree that it's not fair to just expect the user, the individual, especially young users, to just shoulder that on themselves. I'm not as pessimistic as you are about the possibility of some kind of regulation or rules here. I get what you're saying, that they probably have a protector in the president.

0:17:59.5 Kara Swisher: They had a protector in President Obama, too.

0:18:02.3 Pete Buttigieg: Yes, in a different way and for different reasons. But yes. But back then, it was that idea, okay, we don't know where this is going to go. Let's let 1,000 flowers bloom. Now we know, right? And I think a lot of us who had really high hopes for the democratizing power of social media 20 years ago or even 10 years ago have been humbled by what's actually happened. But look, I actually think there's a really interesting, I'm not going to say consensus, but a lot of strange bedfellows coming together around radio. Think somebody like Josh Hawley. I can't imagine agreeing with him on almost anything. But you have figures like him on the right. Spencer Cox himself, right? The law they passed in Utah. Now the companies are fighting it, but a law that would do something about that. So I think, ironically, I think if the American people turn on these companies, it won't be because of what they've done to harm our politics. It'll be because of what they have done to harm our kids. But either way, it could happen.

0:19:03.4 Kara Swisher: Correct. What would you push? You can't sue them. There's no regulation against them. They have unlimited power, unlimited money, unlimited access now. The attempts by the Biden administration to push back on them were met with loss.

0:19:15.7 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah. I don't have all the answers, but some things I've observed.

0:19:18.8 Kara Swisher: Which one of those many things would you do?

0:19:20.3 Pete Buttigieg: Well, the Utah approach is to have some controls on exposure. I think that's a good place to start. The rules that, again, are getting really interesting bipartisan support around phones in schools. That's just things that can at least get some measure of control for the most susceptible and vulnerable users. I do think whether it's returning to the now, I think, beaten to death conversation about Section 230 or some new frontier on that. We still have to talk about formal responsibility that companies bear.

0:19:48.1 Kara Swisher: Liability.

0:19:48.8 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah. Which is how America, for better or for worse, solves most problems related to irresponsible behavior. And I think we should think about it. It sounds like it has less teeth and it doesn't work on its own. But I do think, like, naming or labeling things can have a lot of power, too. I learned this as somebody who was a watchdog on airlines. We had rules that airlines had to follow that we came up with. We had enforcement actions for violations when the airlines didn't follow the rules. But actually, one of the most powerful things we did in terms of changing airline behavior was we just put a bunch of information out. Like, here, red Xs and green check marks on a website that let everybody know, here's the airlines that will take care of you if you get delayed or need a meal or a hotel or something. And here's the ones that won't. I couldn't believe how powerful that was. So I think all of these things have to travel together.

0:20:41.2 Kara Swisher: When you think about doing that, were you surprised by the shift of tech companies toward Trump, given the hostility they had towards the administration you worked in?

0:20:54.8 Pete Buttigieg: I think the shift was well underway by the time the Biden administration was in office, or at least by the middle of that time. So by the end, I wasn't so surprised. Early on, I was. I mean, there were people who 10 years ago I met when I was running for chair of the DNC, which means they weren't just Democrats. They were Democrats who cared enough about being a Democrat to care who the chair of the DNC is, who most people don't even think about on a regular basis, and went on to be Trump supporters or Trump fundraisers. I mean, that did shock me. I think I overestimated the extent to which they were serious about being libertarian, because I always knew they weren't maybe quite where I was politically, but I imagined that what they really cared about was freedom. And so to suddenly get on board with an administration that has stripped freedoms ranging from the freedom of to choose that they destroyed the first time around to the freedoms of speech and association that they're going after now. And over what? Because we did too many DEI trainings? Maybe we did. That doesn't make it okay to turn against free speech if you're a libertarian.

0:22:09.2 Kara Swisher: So how would you bring them back? Because right now, seven companies represent 40% of the value of the stock market at this point. They're powerful in every single aspect. And right now, Larry Ellison's probably trying to buy. He just bought CBS via his son. They're likely to try to buy CNN and Warner Brothers. He's getting TikTok. Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, et cetera, et cetera. They are consolidating power across many things. How do you get them back? Pretend I'm Elon Musk for a second.

0:22:44.1 Pete Buttigieg: Oh, geez. Well, first, I probably tweeted at you. I didn't bring my phone up here.

0:22:53.7 Kara Swisher: Yeah. What would you say?

0:22:55.5 Pete Buttigieg: Well, let's bookmark.

0:22:57.3 Kara Swisher: Because you did make fun of Elon Musk. You said he's really sensitive. Too bad he didn't get to go to the CAR summit. That set him off.

0:23:02.8 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah. And look, we probably should have invited him to the CAR thing. By the way, the reason it was about tailpipe standards, and Teslas don't have tailpipes. Anyway, I don't want to go back.

0:23:15.0 Kara Swisher: You're going to have to let it go. It was a mistake.

0:23:19.8 Pete Buttigieg: I want to bookmark the question of whether what we really need to do is to win them over or whether what we really need to do is have a policy framework where they can't dominate us. But I do think there is a case to be made, at least for the rank and file of Silicon Valley, that's like, wait a minute. Part of it's about the rule of law. Like sooner or later, you're riding a tiger that sooner or later will eat you too. Like, yeah, maybe you think you're benefiting right now because the president's too busy going after the easiest pickings, like universities or law firms that employ people who were inconvenient to him or broadcasters. But you can't imagine that you're going to play his game and sooner or later he won't turn on you too.

0:23:58.9 Kara Swisher: So that's the leopards will eat your face argument.

0:24:01.5 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah.

0:24:03.6 Pete Buttigieg: Okay. I think there's also a case to be made that you can't have a functioning business in the long term. You can't have the kind of healthy business that... Because I think part of the answer to why they turned is that they are business people first and foremost, sometimes more interested in their business than in the citizenship that I would hope would motivate.

0:24:27.3 Kara Swisher: Well, they want to live on Mars. So there's that.

0:24:33.5 Pete Buttigieg: But I do think the other question is, okay, what else has to change for it just not to be like, remember, we've been here before. I mean, we haven't been here before with social media, but 100 years ago or 120 years ago, like we would have been reading newspapers that were dominated by certain people who own newspapers and railroads at the same time.

0:24:51.4 Kara Swisher: Train Daddy.

0:24:54.2 Pete Buttigieg: If you will, apparently. I really got some... I got to Google some stuff after this.

0:25:03.6 Kara Swisher: You need to ChatGPT it. I'm not going to go on.

0:25:06.0 Pete Buttigieg: These problems aren't like completely... Some of these things that feel unprecedented or more precedented than we might think.

0:25:13.1 Kara Swisher: Okay, what is not precedent is this idea. Maybe it is. It is precedent with Vice President J.D. Vance noted that there's a vast domestic terror movement on the left and promised to use the federal government to crack down on it. We just brought about it. What what are you most nervous about of that in that threat? Sometimes they're just yammering on. Other times they do have the power of the government.

0:25:36.9 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah. I mean, what I'm worried about...

0:25:38.1 Kara Swisher: And they seem to have thought... They seem very enthusiastically going through their list.

0:25:42.0 Pete Buttigieg: Totally. I mean, it's not hard to imagine a roadmap that goes from here where any 501 C4 that challenges the president is described as a terrorist organization. And again, we see that. I mean, other countries, the ones we worry about becoming like Russia, for example. This is what they do, right? Putin doesn't say, like, I'm going to shut you down because I don't like you. He says, okay, I don't like you. I'm going to shut you down because you are a terrorist organization or because you didn't pay your taxes or whatever. They come up with something that at least on its face as a fig leaf is defensible. And we are fast on a road toward that. And again, that should horrify every conservative and every libertarian just as much as every progressive.

0:26:24.8 Kara Swisher: It doesn't. What are you most nervous about? What would be... Right now they're attacking the University of California, one of the greatest education systems in the history of the world, actually, in terms of educating people. And many and many other institutions here, everywhere. There's not a university not under siege. There's not a media company not under siege. There's not a law firm not under siege. Where is there a line for you? Is there somewhere where you'd be like, oh, no, no, no. Now they're going after George Soros, I think, today, which I thought they'd get to that first, but they haven't.

0:27:00.3 Pete Buttigieg: I think there's a lot of people waiting for some line, like some...

0:27:04.5 Kara Swisher: What's yours?

0:27:05.4 Pete Buttigieg: Indicator that goes off.

0:27:06.9 Kara Swisher: Or has it been crossed?

0:27:07.5 Pete Buttigieg: I don't think it works that way. I think 100 lines have been crossed that are already really bad. And I think there's more where that came from. Nobody's going to just come down and tell us, hey, you just had an authoritarian breakthrough. It's underway. And the real question is, does it get consolidated or does it get redirected and disrupted? And what most worries me is that the American people don't understand their own power. I mean, obviously, Congress is just completely incapable of standing up to this president. So the only thing that will really change is if people, especially people in Congress who now believe that their political survival depends on going along with things that they know deep down are wrong, is replaced by an awareness that their political survival depends on doing things that are right.

0:28:01.9 Kara Swisher: Well, they often don't get courage until they're leaving Congress, like Tom Telles and some others, correct? But let's pivot to the state of the Democratic Party, because one would imagine this would be the counterweight. And specifically, its credibility deficit, I would call it fecklessness. Others would use other terms. On Meet the Press, let's go back a little bit. You said that President Joe Biden, "should not have run". It's been almost a year since the election. You waited until Vice President Harris said the same thing in a book excerpt, said it was reckless. I'm not going to say no shit Sherlock to you, but I'm thinking that in my head.

0:28:38.5 Pete Buttigieg: Well, first of all, I didn't. I said something along these lines before that book came out.

0:28:41.9 Kara Swisher: Yes, okay.

0:28:42.7 Pete Buttigieg: But also, like, yeah, look, everybody got to that conclusion, including, by the way, President Biden, who took himself out of the race, belatedly, we can say.

0:28:48.7 Kara Swisher: Sure, okay. Is it a position you've recently come to, or did you feel it at the time? I'm going to be interviewing Vice President Harris in two weeks. What about during it? You were in that administration, and I know that Scott and I on Pivot were talking about it a full year before that and got attacked really relentlessly by Democrats, saying we needed to get on board. And I was like, not on that train. I'm not getting on that train. Or you didn't understand the assignment. Talk about from inside, what took so long for people like you and Vice President Harris and others to unequivocally say that he shouldn't have run?

0:29:26.4 Pete Buttigieg: Well, people like me were not consulted on the decision about whether he should run.

0:29:31.2 Kara Swisher: Sure, but you have eyes.

0:29:33.1 Pete Buttigieg: And what my eyes told me was that the sitting president of the United States, the leader of my party, had made a decision that he was going to run, and that our country faced a choice between President Joe Biden or President Donald Trump. And it was not hard for me to know not just who I was going to vote for, but who I was going to do everything in my power to make sure won. And while there's lots of things that hindsight tells you about how and when he made his decision to change course, and the 100 or however many days it was of the Harris campaign, and I continued just as enthusiastically backing the Harris campaign and then the Harris-Walls campaign as I did the Biden-Harris campaign, and anybody who was part of making sure that they and not Donald Trump won, anybody who tried to do that, I think should have their head held high because it was the right thing to do.

0:30:24.5 Kara Swisher: Was there a moment in that time period where you thought, oh, no, he should quit sooner?

0:30:29.7 Pete Buttigieg: I mean, obviously, all of us who saw the debate immediately began asking ourselves tough questions. And I knew that he was asking himself tough questions and eventually stepped aside. I think that was a turning point for all.

0:30:45.2 Kara Swisher: For you all. I mean, even before the debate, polling showed a majority of voters were worried about his age. Why wasn't the cabinet? I'd love to understand from the inside, like what happened. I get like...

0:30:57.0 Pete Buttigieg: I don't know which inside you mean. When they're like inside the room where he's deciding whether to run again, they're not calling...

0:31:02.7 Kara Swisher: As a cabinet member.

0:31:03.3 Pete Buttigieg: The Secretary of Transportation is not invited into that room.

0:31:05.8 Kara Swisher: Right. But you're nearer than I was.

0:31:10.7 Pete Buttigieg: Potentially, yeah.

0:31:11.4 Kara Swisher: Definitely.

0:31:12.2 Pete Buttigieg: But to the extent that I was involved in the campaign, it was how to make sure that this campaign and not the Trump campaign is the one that wins.

0:31:18.1 Kara Swisher: How does the party, though, then regain credibility with voters who are skeptical by just blaming the Bidens? Because that seems to be... I get why the Bidens did it. I understand it.

0:31:29.2 Pete Buttigieg: I think the answer is to tell the truth.

0:31:30.2 Kara Swisher: Of what happened.

0:31:33.5 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah. And why we believe what we believe. Right. So, again, the truth, at least the truth that I lived was that we had a choice between two candidates, two presidents. It was not close who should be president between those two presidents. And and then we had a different choice when he stepped aside and it still was not close to me who should win and who should lose.

0:31:56.0 Kara Swisher: I get that. But during... I think I'm trying to say very specific question during that time period when there were worries, why didn't someone quit? Why didn't someone say go to him and say, listen, love you, but you got to get out. Is that impossible to do in the current the way things are?

0:32:16.0 Pete Buttigieg: It's not like you can just like book a meeting and go in and tell him not to be president anymore. Or maybe there's some people who could like people in his family. I don't know. I don't know how that worked, but I know that enough people did that eventually he made that choice.

0:32:27.2 Kara Swisher: Well, it was Nancy Pelosi who finally sort of which is on brand for her. But but I'm just interested in like why that didn't happen sooner. So then what happened is it was very quickly Vice President Harris. Probably many people think far too quickly. So every episode we get a question from an outside expert. Here's yours.

0:32:52.0 Joe Manchin: Hello, this is Joe Manchin. And I would like to ask my friend Pete Buttigieg a question. Do you believe, Pete, that the Democrats should have had a mini primary of at least 30 days when Joe Biden decided not to run? And do you think it would have helped or it'd have been more harmful?

0:33:11.1 Kara Swisher: It's a good question. That's former Senator Joe Manchin. I just interviewed him this week and he kindly provided that.

0:33:18.8 Pete Buttigieg: I think it probably would have helped. I didn't think that then.

0:33:24.7 Kara Swisher: Why?

0:33:26.2 Pete Buttigieg: I think I felt that we were so under the gun that every day mattered so much and that she was prepared to not just come out running, but to take the organization that had been built over years and immediately carry it forward, that we just couldn't lose one day. I think with the benefit of hindsight, if we'd invested those 30 days, then had she been the nominee, she'd have done so after consolidating the party in a competition. And had she been unable to do that, then almost by definition, there would have been a stronger nominee. But it's one of a million things that's a lot easier to say now, looking back with the benefit of hindsight, than it was in the moment.

0:34:19.5 Kara Swisher: Would it have helped? Do you think it would have helped the election itself, the general election itself, if it looked like a...

0:34:28.7 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah, for those reasons, I think there's a strong case that it could have. But again, you could see the other side, that it would leave us even more. Everybody loves to say, den's in disarray. You can imagine the tension, the confusion that might have come with that. And that might have been something that the Trump campaign could have very expertly exploited and left us even worse off. So it's speculative, right? And I think what we have to do now is, yes, we need to learn from everything that just happened, including mistakes, and also not be so absorbed in what just happened that we can't lose sight on what's about to happen.

0:35:03.2 Kara Swisher: Is there too much cautiousness in the Democratic Party? Obviously, Trump doesn't have any caution.

0:35:07.9 Pete Buttigieg: Often, yeah.

0:35:10.5 Kara Swisher: Which is an asset.

0:35:11.7 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah, I mean, I don't think the answer is to emulate Trump. But yeah, I mean, to take one example, most of my Democratic colleagues still hesitate to go into venues and spaces that I think we need to be in where people might not be exactly on our side or even on the level. Although it's happening more and more. I remember not just feeling like I was one of the only ones who would go on Fox News, but having to defend going on Fox News. People said I was contributing to their business model and all kinds of reasons why I was actually... Some people said it was actively harmful to go on to Fox News. Now, I think it's relatively uncontroversial in the party that we should be there. Well, it's funny, they're not booking me as often as they used to.

0:36:00.6 Kara Swisher: They're obsessed with Gavin.

0:36:02.4 Pete Buttigieg: Oh, okay. Well, as long as somebody's doing that. But also into the kind of the online... Look, most people younger than me aren't getting the majority of their news from any TV.

0:36:10.7 Kara Swisher: No, that's quite an aged demographic.

0:36:12.4 Pete Buttigieg: And so obviously there's kind of an online expansion of that same principle. But the principle is there. And I think... I mean, take the podcasts. So, you know, I've started doing some of these podcasts that are like three hours long. And even if you intended to be on talking points for three hours, it is just not possible. Which is risky. It's a risk. And it's the kind of risk that a lot of people in the consultantocracy in the party tell you you shouldn't take. Because you will definitely put a foot wrong in three hours. You just will.

0:36:43.0 Kara Swisher: Do you think you're risk averse?

0:36:45.0 Pete Buttigieg: I think I'm less risk averse about that than others who wouldn't do it.

0:36:48.9 Kara Swisher: Okay. Okay, let's talk about a topic then. You have a well-earned reputation as an effective communicator, 100%. You got blowback for equivocating your ass about Gaza in an interview on Pod Save America. You now say you would recognize a Palestinian state as part of... Go ahead.

0:37:04.1 Pete Buttigieg: Go ahead.

0:37:04.6 Kara Swisher: If I'm wrong, you can correct me. As part of a two-state solution and the US should not pass another 10-year agreement with Israel on foreign military aid. Did it take getting dragged online to clearly state your position on this issue? And please more clearly state it for us.

0:37:21.1 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah, so on the specific issues, there were three things that I spoke to. One was a resolution about offensive weapons going to Israel. And I believe, like a lot of Senate Democrats who voted for it, that that was an important step, something that I would support even though I'm not in the Senate. Because it's one of the few things I could think of that would get the attention of Netanyahu in the conduct of the war. So that's number one. Number two, on the recognition of a Palestinian state, I think that if you believe in a two-state solution, then by definition, you believe in the recognition of a Palestinian state. But that does not mean that you just turn around tomorrow morning and do it while Hamas is still in charge and with no security guarantees for Israelis who are living surrounded by countries and organizations, including Hamas, that are dedicated to wiping them out. So yes, it has to happen, but it has to happen as part of a negotiated, credible, and enforceable agreement. And then on the third policy issue, the MOU, in the past, we've had our security relationship defined by a, I think it's happened three times now, by a 10-year, non-binding but important MOU between the US and Israel.

0:38:37.9 Pete Buttigieg: I'm not sure that's the right answer going forward. I'm not saying I'm sure structurally what all the technical details of it should be. What I am saying is by 2028 or 2029, we don't know what we're going to be looking at in terms of how the security relationship is structured. I can tell you for sure right now that there should be a security relationship, that that should include the US maintaining its historic commitment to making sure that Iran or anybody else is not able to achieve their aims of destroying Israel. But that is a defensive goal, which is different from some of the things that the Israeli government has expected the American taxpayer or requested the American taxpayer to continue to support.

0:39:18.3 Kara Swisher: So one of my students here named Zach wants to know, he asked me and sent me a note, if you still consider Israel a strong ally of the United States, and if so, what line would Israel have to cross to lose your support?

0:39:32.3 Pete Buttigieg: So Israel is not behaving obviously as a good friend, but that's past the point, right? The problem is that the Netanyahu government is perpetrating atrocities in Gaza.

0:39:40.8 Kara Swisher: Atrocity is the word you want to use. Would you use the word genocide?

0:39:44.8 Pete Buttigieg: I have a lot of respect for not just the moral weight of that word, but the legal definition it represents. And so out of deference to that, I'm not going to jump into that semantic fight. But the important thing is that the killing has to stop, the starvation has to stop, the war has to stop, and of course the hostages need to come home and Hamas needs to not be a threat to the people of Gaza. Let me tell you why I equivocated.

0:40:13.1 Kara Swisher: Okay. Well, you're good at it, but go ahead.

0:40:17.5 Pete Buttigieg: Thanks, I guess.

0:40:20.7 Kara Swisher: You're a good arguer.

0:40:21.6 Pete Buttigieg: Anytime I talk about this issue, I'm mindful of the pain that people experience, even if they're not, it's not quite accurate to say they're on opposite sides of it, because so many people I know who are really, really concerned about protecting Israel's ability to exist and separately, I want to say that, separately, really concerned about the explosion of anti-Semitism on American campuses, will experience when you say things, even things that I think they too would agree are inarguably true about what's happening in Gaza, if you say it in a certain way or you say certain things in a certain order, their worst fears about the abandonment of Israel or of American Jews facing anti-Semitism are confirmed. And so one of the reasons why, as somebody who does a lot of talking and a lot of politics, I have rarely felt closer to my limits in terms of the tools that are available to build consensus and talk forthrightly about these issues than on this, is because I'm conscious of the pain that comes with talking about this, even when we are saying things that are clearly true, because it turns out if you say certain things that are true and don't say all these other things that are also true, some people are inclined, for very understandable reasons, to assume the worst.

0:41:42.1 Kara Swisher: Certainly, but when Democrats talk about building back credibility with voters, it's actually framed around bringing back working class voters, for example. But we're in Michigan, a state Harris lost in part because of Arab and young voters who are furious about the Biden administration's support of Israel. How do you win back credibility if you're worried about that? I mean, a recent poll found 77 % of Democrats think Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and a U.N. Inquiry concluded that it had. How do you bridge that gap then? Because, again, like I said, same thing with Biden. We have eyes. We can see. How do you do that as a Democratic Party?

0:42:23.1 Pete Buttigieg: By naming all of the things that are all true and that collide with each other in messy ways but are still definitely true. And by the way, this is one, and who knows, even just between when we're sitting here and when people are listening to this podcast, what else will have happened on the ground. But in the face of this ground invasion, you see a lot of Israelis standing up and saying this is certainly not helping the hostages, this is not helping our security as the Israeli people, and it is wrong. And so I think part of what we have to do, and it's been hard in the US Politics for all kinds of reasons, but to speak about this as freely as frankly as possible in Israel. There are sometimes things that I have read on the pages of the Jerusalem Post or Haaretz, Israeli papers, that in the past people weren't willing to say in US politics. And we have to because they're true.

0:43:20.3 Kara Swisher: What would you state now if you were in a position of authority you would do? What would be one of the first things you would do?

0:43:28.3 Pete Buttigieg: It would be to make clear that the US is not going to subsidize just anything. We're not going to let the Netanyahu government take American dollars and the credibility that comes with being an ally or partner of the United States and use it to, for example, use starvation as a tool of war. This is wrong. And it's one of those things that is so wrong that all of the other things which might also be true just cannot possibly make it right. And that does mean taking a look at the things that, which is why that resolution, even though I think it was symbolic, was important, that had not been on the table before. So I don't have all of the answers to something as vexing and as just repeatedly brutal as the Middle East conflict. But I think that the next president needs to be more willing to do that than any previous president from either party.

0:44:26.1 Kara Swisher: You do understand where young voters are. I've watched the shift happen in real time right now. And the Democratic Party has to respond to that, presumably.

0:44:36.1 Pete Buttigieg: Yes.

0:44:37.1 Kara Swisher: So I'm going to move on to something else. The federal government is set to run out of funding and shut down at the end of the month, and Mark Schumer decided to avoid a showdown with the administration. He corralled enough Senate Democratic votes to help Republicans keep the government funded. What about this time? Should Democrats help Republicans keep the government open, or should it shut it down again? And what are the strategic benefits to both approaches?

0:44:58.6 Pete Buttigieg: Well, first of all, I don't want to buy into the premise that it's the Democrats who would be shutting down the government.

0:45:03.9 Kara Swisher: I get it, but they might be.

0:45:04.3 Pete Buttigieg: The Republicans are in charge. They have the House, they have the Senate, they have the presidency. And if there's anything we know about this presidency, it's this attempt to assert and then expand its control over everything. So if there is a shutdown, it will be because of Donald Trump and the Republicans. I'm just going to insist on that. If they want to ask for Democrats to vote for a Republican budget, there are certain things that Democrats are not going to be able to do, even if Republicans are saying, if you don't do this for us, it's all going to shut down. And I think right now there are different answers from different voices in the party. In the House, voices like Pat Ryan and Jake Auchincloss have been part of a group that has laid out a pretty specific set of things. The biggest, well, I wouldn't say the biggest, but one certainly big one, right, is that I don't see how you can tell Democrats the government will shut down unless you vote to strip away access to health care from Americans. So I think that's likely to be a clear line. But there are many others. And look, if we're going to go into that, we have to know what it is we hope to do to have a less bad outcome than if Republicans just get to run roughshod.

0:46:31.0 Kara Swisher: Is there a strategic benefit to just saying, go ahead, shut it down?

0:46:35.7 Pete Buttigieg: Not one to be taken lightly.

0:46:37.5 Kara Swisher: Why not? It's theirs. They're holding the bag.

0:46:41.3 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah, but the reason you can't take it lightly is because of how many people will get hurt. And if their goal is already to wreck the federal government and they're well on their way, there's just going to be a lot of damage left in the wake of this. So I'm not saying that I don't believe Democrats should roll over on this. I think it's different than it was in the spring. And I think that, frankly, the unpopularity of the Republican proposals that they've jammed through is becoming clearer and clearer, too. And again, just philosophically, I think the Republicans are in charge. And if you're asking Democrats to actively cooperate with you, you can't demand that we support.

0:47:24.1 Kara Swisher: You don't see a benefit. I hate to use a Mel Robbins term, but let them.

0:47:30.1 Pete Buttigieg: Look, there's been this theory.

0:47:31.2 Kara Swisher: You know who Mel Robbins is, right? She's real popular. Anyway, look it up.

0:47:39.3 Pete Buttigieg: There's been this theory from day one that what Democrats need to do is just let Republicans screw everything up, burn everything down, and then they'll screw it up and then they'll get blamed and then we'll come back into power.

0:47:50.7 Kara Swisher: Yes, that's the theory.

0:47:51.7 Pete Buttigieg: I think that theory is wrong. I don't disagree that they'll screw it up. I am not so sure that they'll just get blamed. One thing they're really good at, much better than actually running the government, is apportioning blame. And that's even more so as they're dominating some of the ways people get their information. So, again, I think there really needs to be a really forceful response this time. I just don't want to assume that it's going to be easy or that it should be done lightly.

0:48:25.2 Kara Swisher: Is Chuck Schumer fit to do that?

0:48:29.9 Pete Buttigieg: I mean, one thing I've experienced is that he is exceptionally aware of what the dynamics are to actually get anything done or to stop anything from actually getting done in the Senate. And I would also say the virtues of a caucus leader in the Senate or the House and the things you expect from them might be different than what you expect from a presidential candidate or a person playing a different role or a governor or a different person playing a different role in the party. I do hope, though, that he recognizes how much has changed, how much the toolkit has changed, how much the relationship with the public has changed, since some of the defining fights that might still be shaping his muscle memory.

0:49:17.0 Kara Swisher: Yes, I would suggest he not do social media anymore, actually. Take a look, please. You'll understand. You've seen it.

0:49:23.6 Pete Buttigieg: I know what you mean.

0:49:24.3 Kara Swisher: It's a problem. It really is. You need to speak to him. I'm sending you, not me. Like, stop it, Chuck. You're hurting my eyes. Even if Democratic states also gerrymander their congressional districts, likely you can't match these Republican gains. We're much more willing to do so, let alone pick up more seats in the GOP. It's not a realistic tit-for-tat, from what I understand. How do you feel about gerrymandering, and what do you think Democrats should be putting their energy right now to make sure the party isn't permanently shut out of power? Running good campaigns probably won't be good enough in these Republican districts. They might pick one or two off.

0:50:06.7 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah. I mean, look, I do think there's a chance that some of these redistricting plans will be too clever by half, because there's only so many Republicans to rearrange, and that might backfire on them. But I wouldn't hang my head on that as a strategy. How do I feel about gerrymandering? It's terrible. I mean, in Indiana, for example...

0:50:26.0 Kara Swisher: Right, you're headed next, correct?

0:50:27.1 Pete Buttigieg: Yes. Yeah, as we speak, I'm getting ready to head to Indiana to, among other things, do a rally around gerrymandering. They are openly saying we want a 9-0 map. Indiana, obviously I grew up there, I served there as mayor, it is a conservative place, but it is maybe a 60-40 kind of place right now. So in addition to just the basic, obvious unfairness of a place where if you get five people off the street at random, probably two out of those five will be Democrats, or let's say nine, maybe four of them would be Democrats, but the nine members you're going to send to Congress are going to be 100% Republican. But it's more than that. It's the contempt for the voter. To just even go around saying it's going to be 9-0 means you are saying to the voter, we're going to decide who's going to win that election before you even bother to vote, which is so insulting to every voter, Democrat, Republican, Independent, in the state of Indiana. And I don't know how good our chances are of pushing back on that in a statehouse with a Republican supermajority, although you can tell from the body language that they're a little bit embarrassed that Trump is pressuring or requiring them to do this.

0:51:44.6 Kara Swisher: It doesn't seem to have stopped them?

0:51:46.2 Pete Buttigieg: No, no, because they're more afraid of him than they are of either their own conscience or their own constituents. But at the very least, I think we can make sure that there is a political price to be paid for expressing that level of contempt toward your own voters. So what do I think of gerrymandering? I hate it. Also, if they're doing it, which shouldn't be possible, but if they're doing it, we can't just sit here with our high-minded ideas and not respond.

0:52:13.0 Kara Swisher: So you support what Gavin Newsom is doing in California or anywhere else, any blue states?

0:52:17.6 Pete Buttigieg: Yes, I think if this is going to be how things work, we can't just sit there and let them do it. But that's not a long-term answer.

0:52:25.1 Kara Swisher: Right, which is what they're trying to thread that needle in California. We're going to go back to it once we've done it, essentially. We're only going to do it this once. That's always worked.

0:52:36.3 Pete Buttigieg: What we need is widespread, durable, actual reform. We've got, what, 435 House districts, right? Fewer than one in 10 are competitive. In a country that's basically 50-50, that is nuts. Obviously, we need a comprehensive structural solution to that. And that shouldn't be partisan. I mean, it is, but it shouldn't be.

0:52:59.8 Kara Swisher: Right. Well, speaking of respect for voters and people they choose, in July you were asked if you would endorse Zoran Mambami for mayor of New York City. You said at the time he hadn't asked for your endorsement, which sounds rather quaint, and you're not a player in New York City politics, but you would talk to him about it. Now, it's now September, and Governor Cuomo just said he couldn't name a single living Democrat he admired, besides his other incredible attributes. That was facetious. Given the choice between these two candidates and Eric Adams, the hot mess that he is, who would you rather see win? And do you need an invitation to endorse him? Governor Hochul just did, for example.

0:53:43.3 Pete Buttigieg: It's not a...

0:53:44.0 Kara Swisher: Because the voters picked him, young voters. And one of the... I'll just make a little moment. We tell young people not to vote, and then they vote, and we tell them their vote sucks. I'm sorry, that's their vote, and so we should respect it.

0:53:58.4 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah, so, again, I'm not getting formally involved in a New York City mayor's race. But between those choices you laid out, yeah, it's not close. I mean, the ways in which Andrew Cuomo has disqualified himself, in which the current mayor has disqualified himself. And don't get me started on the Republican candidate. Like, it's not close.

0:54:22.0 Kara Swisher: He likes cats.

0:54:25.2 Pete Buttigieg: Okay, that's...

0:54:27.8 Kara Swisher: I'd put him at number two in my choice list, but okay.

0:54:30.2 Pete Buttigieg: Everybody's got something. But yeah, I mean, I think that's very clear. And by the way, I also think, even though I sit in a different place in the Democratic coalition than he does, I think that he has been absolutely right to be relentlessly focused on affordability. And I think that we could learn a lot. Like, some things obviously are not as useful. Some things that worked in a Democratic primary in New York City may not be particularly portable or useful here in Michigan or Indiana.

0:55:04.9 Kara Swisher: Sure, but he's not running in Michigan.

0:55:07.3 Pete Buttigieg: Right, but in terms of what we could learn in Michigan or anywhere else from his campaign, first and foremost...

0:55:12.3 Kara Swisher: So why not just endorse him? Why not just say, I like the cut of his jib? Say it just like that.

0:55:23.3 Pete Buttigieg: I'm not planning to get formally involved in that race. But again, I think those things are really impressive. I also think he has a real challenge, though. And the challenge is, in the same way that the most important job of the president is to bring the country together. One thing I learned very quickly as mayor, and as a very policy-minded mayor, who came in not terribly interested in anything but the specific policies I wanted to implement, the job of the mayor is to bring everybody together. It doesn't mean everybody's going to support you politically, but you need to... You are a walking symbol of what people in your city have in common. And what he will need in order to succeed as mayor, and what I think he... From what I can see, has recognized in terms of the campaign too, is the importance of moving on from some of the things that were more divisive in past statements or past positions into... And that's not about necessarily even changing a policy, but making sure that he positions himself to bring people together, including people who might not support him politically.

0:56:30.0 Kara Swisher: What do you think his biggest asset and his biggest negative, from your perspective, just from yours?

0:56:35.8 Pete Buttigieg: I mean, I think in terms of assets, again, the focus on affordability. Now, that sets a high bar, because some of those things are really intractable in New York City, but you win, you get to work those issues. I would add to that his kind of go-everywhere strategy on social media, I believe and practice the same strategy. Not just on social media, but just being out and about. I think in terms of campaign tactics, I think that's smart. I think it's the right thing to do. And also, again, in recent weeks, it seems to me that he has recognized, probably thinking not just as a candidate, but as a future mayor, he's recognized the importance of finding ways to bring people together to have different battles.

0:57:16.3 Kara Swisher: Meeting with Bloomberg, for example. Biggest problem for the Democratic Party?

0:57:22.8 Pete Buttigieg: Look, specifically, obviously, various positions or statements he's taken that would be pretty toxic here in Michigan or a lot of other places. But I don't know, I don't know what to say for the Democratic Party. Like, every Democrat, wherever they are, needs to decide what they're going to do and say that makes sense where they're from. And for us to be one party, all of that has to cohere into a bigger set of things that we care about so that we can be in coalition with each other. And I think that's okay. I don't expect to ever be on the exact same page as the most conservative Democrat or, for that matter, Bernie, but there's a reason why we're in coalition together.

0:57:59.3 Kara Swisher: Yeah, you don't have to agree. Democrats think they do, but they don't, probably. So let's wrap up by talking about how you approach both these elections coming up, the midterm elections, the 2028 presidential election. You decided not to run for Michigan's open Senate seat next year's midterms. You might have been a shoo-in. Does that mean you're going to run for president again in 2028?

0:58:20.3 Pete Buttigieg: There's no such thing as a shoo-in.

0:58:21.8 Kara Swisher: Well, you probably would have won.

0:58:23.6 Pete Buttigieg: Thank you.

0:58:24.1 Kara Swisher: Okay.

0:58:27.5 Pete Buttigieg: Sorry, what was the question?

0:58:28.5 Kara Swisher: Are you going to run for president again in 2028?

0:58:33.1 Pete Buttigieg: Oh, I don't know.

0:58:33.4 Kara Swisher: Please don't be coy. Come on.

0:58:34.9 Pete Buttigieg: I don't know.

0:58:36.6 Kara Swisher: Really?

0:58:37.2 Pete Buttigieg: It's 2025.

0:58:38.3 Kara Swisher: That's not very long.

0:58:40.3 Pete Buttigieg: Have you lived through the last nine months?

0:58:41.8 Kara Swisher: Yes. That's true. I got to tell you, that was better than the Gavin answer. That said, he said I could sleep in the Lincoln bedroom, so we know where he is on that. It's my greatest goal. Will you let me sleep in the Lincoln bedroom?

0:59:00.4 Pete Buttigieg: Sure.

0:59:00.8 Kara Swisher: Okay, there we go. He's running for president, ladies and gentlemen. Apparently, Trump's changed it, by the way.

0:59:08.9 Pete Buttigieg: Oh, is it the Trump bedroom now?

0:59:10.2 Kara Swisher: Yeah.

0:59:11.0 Pete Buttigieg: Great.

0:59:11.1 Kara Swisher: There's a lot of gold happening. It's going to take a lot to fix that. If not, name three Democrats who you think should run for president, if not you, and then tell us their strengths and weaknesses.

0:59:33.6 Pete Buttigieg: You're just going to put that in front of me.

0:59:35.1 Kara Swisher: Yes, I am. Gavin Newsom said you were very nice.

0:59:43.2 Pete Buttigieg: You put it in front of me, but I just don't think I should eat it.

0:59:46.1 Kara Swisher: Come on. You want to.

0:59:47.6 Pete Buttigieg: Look, there are great people in our party. Some of them are thinking about running for president. Some of the most interesting ones are ones who are not maybe immediately being mentioned as 2028 contenders, but are just really interesting people providing a lot of leadership. I mean, I'm mostly interested in people in my generation who are, I mean, got folks in the Senate like Andy Kim, who came out of a very Trumpy district in New Jersey and is now a very modern US senator. My senator right here, our senator right here in Michigan, Alyssa Slotkin in the House. I think in the House, again, I was very impressed that Pat Ryan from New York was pretty much the first to the punch to say if we're going to be forced into a shutdown by the Republicans, here's what we would need before we would be ready to give Democratic votes. And he named specific things that also very wisely, I think, tied together the things that we're all going to feel in everyday life, like health care costs, to the militarization of our cities and how all of that is part of one big picture.

1:00:54.1 Pete Buttigieg: So people like him, some are coded more center or more left. People like Marie Glusenkamp-Perez is a very original thinker who, because she has a body shop, I mean, that was her career, just has a regard for people who work with their hands in the trades that has historically been so core to who we are as Democrats, but weirdly is not how we're thought of since this education gap has opened up. And she's very true to her district in a way that I really respect, having worked with her on getting this big bridge fixed that affects her district. Others are really not talked about very much, and maybe because they're not craving national spotlight, but leaders like Gabe Vasquez in southern New Mexico, who I think is just a remarkable leader. So my point is, we have Jake Auchincloss, who's provided, I think, some of the most interesting and intellectually ambitious ideas on tech.

1:01:51.0 Kara Swisher: Those are all great. Sarah McBride, Greg Cisneros.

1:01:52.7 Pete Buttigieg: Sarah McBride, another person who's been so focused.

1:01:54.8 Kara Swisher: So no one that could run against you for president, correct? Love them all.

1:02:01.5 Pete Buttigieg: Love them all.

1:02:04.3 Kara Swisher: How do you like Gavin? You're just behind him in the numbers.

1:02:09.2 Pete Buttigieg: Great infrastructure work in California that we did together.

1:02:11.4 Kara Swisher: Okay, right, okay. Do you like all his social media stuff?

1:02:17.2 Pete Buttigieg: We all have our style. I'm very glad that someone is doing what he's doing.

1:02:25.0 Kara Swisher: It's pretty funny.

1:02:25.1 Pete Buttigieg: It's just not my style, but I'm glad he's doing it.

1:02:27.8 Kara Swisher: Okay. All right, we have just a couple more presents. We have some questions from the audience. You made history as both the first openly gay person to win the Senate confirmation to a cabinet position and first openly gay mayor as a presidential candidate when you ran. But on a recent episode of his podcast, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson called you a fake gay guy. He said he wants to ask you some, "really specific questions about gay sex". I would like to know your response. But I'm having moments here now, too. Made two references you don't get.

1:03:04.3 Pete Buttigieg: Both... First of all, I do not think I want to discuss anything with Tucker Carlson.

1:03:09.3 Kara Swisher: Okay. Same, same, same.

1:03:15.8 Pete Buttigieg: Also... But I cannot think of a topic I would like to discuss less with Tucker Carlson than that, even though I will admit some level of morbid curiosity on what in the hell he thinks his... No, actually, no. I suppose it's a sign of progress that their idea of a conspiracy is that I'm actually secretly straight. And... But, yeah, I just... Where do you even... I don't know. We are in a post-modern...

1:03:45.7 Kara Swisher: Okay. I'm good. I'm good.

1:03:47.2 Pete Buttigieg: We are through the looking glass now.

1:03:48.0 Kara Swisher: You know what you have to say? You have to say, Tucker, I'm not interested, okay?

1:03:53.3 Pete Buttigieg: That's one way out.

1:03:54.5 Kara Swisher: It's worked with people who attack me. I'm like, stop flirting with me. They go away really quick. So, let's end on a positive note. In your interview with Pod Save America last month, you said President Trump's dismantling of the government also presents Democrats with an opportunity to rebuild it on better terms. Build back better. You also say arsonists present homeowners an opportunity to rebuild, which is not the best way to rebuild.

1:04:21.0 Pete Buttigieg: I did not say that.

1:04:22.2 Kara Swisher: You did not say that? Did you sort of say that?

1:04:25.4 Pete Buttigieg: No!

1:04:26.0 Kara Swisher: Okay, all right. You could also... Oh, I say. I am saying that. Sorry, I'm reading it wrong.

1:04:34.5 Pete Buttigieg: But, okay.

1:04:35.6 Kara Swisher: Phoenix, Phoenix, you got this. You got the theme.

1:04:37.8 Pete Buttigieg: No, no, but look, this is really important.

1:04:39.1 Kara Swisher: Paint a picture of what post-Trump America looks like.

1:04:42.6 Pete Buttigieg: I think whether we're talking about people in political practice, elected leaders, people like me, but also people like the policy scholars here at the Ford School at the University of Michigan and a whole lot of other people have an opportunity to invent some things from first principles. And I use the word opportunity very advisedly because it's a bad thing that we are here. But, and, it means that a whole set of fundamental questions that were just being assumed as asked and answered because we had this big rickety status quo, we actually get to start over or have to start over. We're forced to start over. Nobody, it was so wrong, like criminally wrong, to dismantle USAID. Like, one of the ugliest things I've seen in this parade of horribles is not one of the most famous things that happened in Washington, but it was the Secretary of State lying to Congress by saying that nobody lost their lives in that when we know from good journalism the names of some of the people who lost their lives. Having said all of that, talk to anybody who's been involved in international development aid, including at USAID, and they would not say that the status quo that we had in 2023 was exactly where we needed to be.

1:06:13.0 Pete Buttigieg: So if we're going to have to start over, it's not okay that we do, but if we do, or the Department of Education, that they are burning to the ground, or who knows, we might have to think about tax policy on a clean sheet because they're going to plunge us into a debt crisis with all these giveaways to billionaires. So many things where we might find ourselves starting from scratch. There is an opportunity that rests in that, and it's to build a different way of doing things, socially, economically, politically, that actually supports your ability to live a life of your choosing and to have a good life. Look, the government never decides that you're going to have a good life, but we can make it easier or harder in so many ways, and we shouldn't be wedded to all these institutions, many of them built in the '40s or '50s, that we kept because it was what we had going the way they were going, but frankly, were really showing by the 2020s that they were not well adapted.

1:07:07.9 Kara Swisher: So where would you start? Name one thing. Getting rid of the electoral college, expanding Supreme Court, ending gerrymandering.

1:07:14.4 Pete Buttigieg: We should totally do all three of those.

1:07:16.2 Kara Swisher: Okay. What else? What's the one thing, the first thing you do, day one?

1:07:23.0 Pete Buttigieg: I mean, those three sound great. Maybe we could do those three in one day. Not really, because you need a constitutional amendment. By the way, another thing we do is revisit the most important... Jill Lepore has a new book about this.

1:07:32.3 Kara Swisher: Yes, I just interviewed her.

1:07:33.1 Pete Buttigieg: The most important attribute of the Constitution is that it can be amended, and we just stopped. For the last 50 years, we haven't had a substantive amendment. We used to do that, not all the time, but we used to do it often. For whatever reason, maybe because we were there first, among presidential democracies, ours is one of the hardest to update, and I think that is costing us. Thomas Jefferson himself was the one who said we might as well require man to wear the jacket that fitted him when he was a boy as to require future generations to live under the regime.

1:08:00.1 Kara Swisher: So what's your first next amendment?

1:08:01.8 Pete Buttigieg: I mean, look, we'll get to the Electoral College. I don't know if that's my day one thing. I do think anything that will lead to more competitive amendment. I mean, really, if we've had to pick one to start with, how about something that corrects the harm of Citizens United and the idea that money should just freely flow into politics?

1:08:16.2 Kara Swisher: There you go. All right, that's a good one. I would agree. So let's get with the Q&A. We have about 15 minutes to do that, 20 minutes. I'm going to start. Who's coming up to do it?

1:08:30.6 Celeste Watkins-Hayes: I'm right here.

1:08:31.4 Kara Swisher: Okay, great. Let me just start with one my son asked, my son Louis, who just graduated college, so I'm going to take precedence. How do we rebuild American institutions when people don't believe in them or our leaders? How can one or all of us work to restore faith and political optimism?

1:08:53.2 Pete Buttigieg: So it is precisely because people don't believe in them that we have to rebuild them because this is the only country that we've got, and these institutions or whatever will replace them is all we've got to try to make it possible to have a better everyday life. By the way, it's not just up to the politicians, but if politicians fail, it is up to people to get better politicians. And we have this moment where precisely... I'm not going around... When I try to make the case for hope, and I get why that word is out of fashion in our politics, but when I try to make that case, I don't do it by going around saying things are better than they look. They're not. They're probably worse. That is exactly why we need to have a huge amount of propulsion in the project of coming up with something better. This country has been through several reconstructions, and we're in the middle of one of them. And it turns out it doesn't feel very good to be living through that upheaval. Think about it this way, though. One day, Donald Trump will not be active in American politics. His presidency will end. His grip on one of the major political parties in this country will end. And when the sun comes up on that day, then what? We should build our answer to that question and then bring it into the present to hasten that day through political action.

1:10:26.5 Kara Swisher: As long as it's not President Stephen Miller. Anyway, next question. Why would you like that? President Stephen Miller.

1:10:33.1 Pete Buttigieg: Why would you put that image in our...

1:10:34.5 Kara Swisher: I know. No. Just saying. Go ahead.

1:10:38.3 Celeste Watkins-Hayes: So the next question is about Doge.

1:10:40.9 Kara Swisher: Doge.

1:10:42.1 Celeste Watkins-Hayes: Americans want an effective government and their tax dollars to be well spent. Do you think Democrats created a vacuum of public support in which Doge was able to drive in and exploit people's lack of trust in government and bureaucratic institutions?

1:11:02.4 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah, I think there has been a view that Democrats are allergic to deep reform or change of government institutions. And we shouldn't be, we can't be, because it's not right, nor is it good politics. A department of government efficiency is a great idea. The department of government efficiency that we got was terrible because they didn't believe in government and they didn't really care about efficiency. Most of even the numbers, the so-called wall of receipts, turned out to be either exaggerated or wrong. So, but yeah, we shouldn't leave aside the idea that our government needs to run better. I experienced this. I led a department with 55,000 people and they were good, hardworking public servants. But some of the clutter that built up in our bureaucracy, in our regulatory framework, we had a regulation telling you exactly where the rear view mirror needed to be in a driverless car. Right, like this stuff does happen. And it doesn't happen because anybody's dumb or no one cares, but it happens because these things kind of build up. And as the only ones who seem right now on the political spectrum to actually care about having a government work well, we should be all over the project of changing it, reforming it, improving it, holding it accountable for results, making it easier to reward good performers and to shed people who are not adding value to the federal enterprise.

1:12:29.0 Pete Buttigieg: This is really important. And it is a mistake to allow that to be something that only Republicans talk about or to assume because they are Republicans and therefore might be less sympathetic to the agencies or the goals themselves, that none of what they point out has merit.

1:12:47.9 Kara Swisher: So give Elon a grade.

1:12:51.4 Pete Buttigieg: On Doge? What's lower than that? F minus? Is that a thing?

1:12:57.2 Kara Swisher: F minus.

1:12:59.1 Pete Buttigieg: Except for, again, launching, if there's any silver lining on it, it's that we're actually talking about it now in a way that I hope will become bipartisan.

1:13:08.4 Kara Swisher: Unless it changes people not wanting to do it again, because it was such a bad experience.

1:13:11.6 Pete Buttigieg: Right, but that's my point. That can't be the response. That would be the wrong response.

1:13:15.4 Celeste Watkins-Hayes: So I'm going to combine two questions that are about elections. And one question is about the question of does integrity still exist within our government for there to be no foul play in the midterm elections? How do you respond to people who are concerned about a free and fair election? And the next question is about the money question in politics. And have things gone so far towards money and politics that it is almost impossible to roll it back and to have a different kind of system?

1:13:53.9 Pete Buttigieg: I just refuse to accept that the answer is yes. Definitely it's bad how much money has gone into politics. But this is not the only time in the world or in history or even here in the US. That there has been an extreme level of both inequality, which is extreme right now, and a relationship between money and power. And we've never fully cured that, but we've had seasons where we're better at it as a country than we are now. In terms of election integrity, this is going to be a huge challenge. The backstop on election integrity has been the integrity of the individuals, usually local, often volunteer, county volunteers or personnel who make sure and they take their jobs and their roles so seriously and they understand what's at stake. And they have led elections with integrity, which is part of why, in terms of a vote being manipulated, like you voted for this person and it gets changed to that, for all of the claims of that, there has been no evidence that that has happened in the US. And for documented cases of somebody voting who shouldn't have voted, it is unbelievably, unbelievably tiny.

1:15:08.1 Pete Buttigieg: That reflects, and we're talking like billions of votes where you find a few dozen cases, some of the people who didn't even realize that they were registered in the wrong place. So that reflects that we have the capacity to have elections with integrity, as we must. But the problem is every election is an exchange of trust. The system, so to speak, trusts the voter to go out and choose the leaders who are going to run the system. And the voters trust the leaders or would-be leaders to accept the results of the election. If that trust breaks down, we don't have much left. Remember, this isn't just like a thing we do in America, among other things we do in America. This is one of the things that makes America America. We fought off the Brits in order to be able to do this. It's that fundamental to what makes our country exist. And we have got to safeguard that with everything we've got. And one of the best tools we have on that is transparency.

1:16:11.5 Celeste Watkins-Hayes: Talk about young voters and the trends that you're seeing in terms of the political shifts among young voters. A question in the audience is why has Trump become increasingly popular among young people overall and even more so among young men? And what do Democrats need to do to recapture this traditionally more liberal demographic?

1:16:33.5 Kara Swisher: Just FYI, those numbers have changed pretty dramatically recently. They were certainly up men, young men, Trump, young women, the other way. It's a real bifurcation, but it's changing pretty rapidly right now.

1:16:48.7 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah, my experience is that there are a lot of young voters who voted for Trump in 2024 who are not automatically conservative ideologues or habitual Republicans. But if we, meaning Democrats, lose their votes repeatedly, that will, of course, become a pattern that will be habit-forming. But I don't think we're there yet. And so I think we really need to contest that space and speak to young voters. And I think we did cede a lot of the playing field. But I don't want to just say it's like we forgot. I mean, there's also been a lot of work to just get right-wing messages in front of young people more directly and sometimes with more ruthless efficiency than anybody left of center has done. I think the biggest sin probably among Democrats and leftists is to just assume that young people, because they are young, would vote for us. And I think it's really important to recognize the level of policy failure that young people attribute to the entire system so that it becomes a competition not over who's more left or right or even who agrees with me more, but just who looks most likely to burn down the system.

1:18:06.2 Pete Buttigieg: Now, I think, having seen what that actually looks like, many people feel differently about their votes. But I get it. The idea that if you were born the year my mother was born, you had a 90% chance of coming out economically ahead of your parents. If you were born the year I was born, it was a coin flip. And if you're under 40 right now, increasingly you wonder if you're ever going to be able to even buy a house or afford to have kids. That is a massive problem that is so deep that it can lead to cynicism about the entire structure and concept of American politics, let alone the Democratic Party. And unless we are speaking to it, we will not win.

1:18:47.6 Kara Swisher: What do you think of that, just very, on the efforts by some Democrats to create like a left-wing Joe Rogan? I find this the stupid, it's even dumber than Chuck Schumer's social media, I have to say.

1:19:01.2 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah, the reason it doesn't work is that Joe Rogan's relationship to his audience is not one where they think of him as belonging to the right. So it just conceptually isn't coherent to try to craft a Joe Rogan to the left. Now, the insight behind it, so I agree with you that it really misses the mark, but the insight behind it is that you get a lot of people, you know, we talked about me going on Fox News. A lot of the people who we aren't speaking to, they're not watching Fox either, they're not watching any TV. And they are listening to these podcast formats that are the exact, because they're three hours long and you could get any number of crazy questions. They're the exact spaces that a candidate will be told by their consultants to avoid. And yet it's for that very reason, the long format, the fact that they kind of bring out authentically what you're like, good, bad or indifferent, is for that reason that so many people are listening to it. So we do need to contest the Rogan-esque podcast space. I'm trying. If you're listening, Joe, I'd love to come on.

1:20:04.7 Kara Swisher: Have you been on that show? Have you been on there?

1:20:07.1 Pete Buttigieg: No, but I would. Obviously, there's more to it than that, but I think that's really important.

1:20:13.8 Kara Swisher: Okay. Two more.

1:20:15.7 Celeste Watkins-Hayes: So this question is also leading on the information environment and the fact that so many of us are in our silos. Are there truly, this question asks, good faith communicators on the right that you can think of and would consider engaging in maybe a series of public dialogues with them that might result in two disparate audiences hearing the same message of calm at the same time? I think this question is, how do you ensure or create an environment where people are hearing the same message, even if the perspectives are different?

1:20:48.8 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah, and I think that's what we need more of. Not to sound like an old timer, but I grew up in a world where there's a controversial issue. You would see a story and you would hear from the different sides. And the side that you agreed with would say something and the side you disagreed with would say something. Sometimes you would come away more persuaded, even more persuaded about what you already thought. Other times you would stop and consider the other side. The point is you would think about it. And now instead we have a feed, which gives you two things. Here's this person I already like doing something that reminds me why I like them. And then more frequently, here's this person I already don't like in a moment where they're doing something that reminds me why I don't like them. Which is not the same thing as here's this person I disagree with having a chance to participate in this contest over ideas. So yes, look, but also in terms of some of the shows I'll go on, I don't even assume that there's necessarily a level of good faith on the part of the network or the host. But I do assume that there's a level of good faith on the part of the audience. And I think that's the really important thing to think about. That people are tuning in in good faith or following or whatever you want to call it. And that's who I want to be talking directly to. So yeah, of course, I love debate. There is not enough debate, actual debate.

1:22:07.3 Kara Swisher: Would you start a podcast?

1:22:11.2 Pete Buttigieg: I have found it's more efficient to just go on everybody else's. You do all the work. Also, I know a lot of my peers are doing this. I briefly did one in 2020, which I enjoyed. But one of the things I learned doing that, and we had a great, if anybody feels like checking it out, it's called The Deciding Decade. I don't know how some of those things aged.

1:22:35.3 Kara Swisher: Wow, that's an exciting title

1:22:38.8 Pete Buttigieg: Was that sarcastic?

1:22:39.6 Kara Swisher: Yes.

1:22:42.8 Pete Buttigieg: Well, fine. We can talk about better podcast names if I ever do a podcast.

1:22:45.8 Kara Swisher: You know what I'd call your podcast.

1:22:46.9 Pete Buttigieg: What's wrong with The Deciding Decade?

1:22:48.3 Kara Swisher: What?

1:22:49.1 Pete Buttigieg: It is The Deciding Decade.

1:22:50.1 Kara Swisher: The Deciding Decade? Oh, my God. Please, please don't listen.

1:22:58.3 Pete Buttigieg: Anyway.

1:22:59.5 Kara Swisher: Grandpa's pulling up a chair and he's going to talk your ear off. Just the whole thing. We'll talk later. I'm very successful at podcasting.

1:23:06.1 Pete Buttigieg: I noticed, yeah. That's why I just go on yours. The other thing is, frankly, and I'm not sucking up or anything, but interviewing is actually a craft. It's a skill. And not everybody has it. And just because you're really good at being a politician doesn't mean that you're going to be good at interviewing. And I think a lot of my peers are trying to go into this space, and I'm tempted to go into this space. But I've realized that if you're going to adopt the posture of a journalist, which is what I think a lot of my peers do when they do this, you need to learn certain aspects of that craft that I haven't learned and that are really important. So that's another reason, as well as just all the work of it, that I'm not rushing to launch your podcast.

1:23:49.0 Kara Swisher: I think you're trying to say Gavin does suck at podcasting, but I've texted him this many times. Some politicians are good, actually. Go ahead. Last question.

1:23:56.2 Celeste Watkins-Hayes: Last question. So first I want to start with a thank you. On behalf of the audience, on behalf of the Ford School, on behalf of the University of Michigan, to you both, this is a very complicated moment, and the idea that we could come together and have this kind of dialogue just means the world to us. So thank you so much. And I want to ask you, Secretary... In your dark moments where you're not feeling so hopeful and you're not feeling so optimistic in such a divisive and polarizing and complicated time, how do you lift yourself up? How do you talk yourself into taking that next step forward and continuing to engage, continuing to connect, continuing to pursue a more democratic society and a more hopeful society?

1:24:57.6 Pete Buttigieg: Well, first of all, I draw energy and strength from the things that I believe in. I believe that this ought to be a country where people pay their fair share. And the wealthier you are, the more you are held to account for paying your fair share. And a country where you are set up for success before you're even born because your parents had access to paid family leave and health care. And by the time you are born, you have that beginning and then get to go into a school that is actually funded to work properly and that you're breathing clean air, you have clean, safe drinking water, and get a job when you're old enough to get a job that means something to you and build a good life. And I believe that there are specific policies that I'm for and that other people are against that are worth getting out there and making the case for and defending and making our country better. And I just believe in that project. That's why I believe in politics as much as it's fashionable to just be cynical about politics. And I believe that even more now because Chasten and I have kids.

1:26:09.9 Pete Buttigieg: We've got twins. We've got a son and a daughter. They're four years old. And they don't get to vote. They don't get to go on podcasts, although I'm pretty sure, especially our daughter, like she'll be ready any minute. And yet they have everything on the line. Like I hope and expect they'll be around here in the turn of the next century, 2100. And by then, or honestly even just by 2050 when they're in the early stages of their careers, so many of their opportunities will have either been opened up or destroyed based on what we did in the 2020s. And so frankly, I don't have the right to lose hope or lose propulsion. And then the third thing, and this was on my mind the last time I found myself here at the Ford School in January, and it's still how I think about this. None of the people who inspire us to be involved in our community or in politics, the people whose statues you have looked at or monuments you've visited or stories you've read about in history books, who led you to choose a certain career or adopt a certain belief system, like none of them did the things that made them go down in the history books under circumstances where things were going along just fine.

1:27:31.6 Pete Buttigieg: In fact, the worse things were going for them, the bigger the dragons that they were slaying, often the more inspiring their example is. That might be cold comfort right now for those in this moment, because it turns out in those moments it's really hard, but it does mean that we are living in times so bad that they will someday be romanticized by future generations who will look at this moment and say, what were they doing when they were confronted with everything from the foundations of knowledge and access to the truth being shaken by social media and AI to the rise of authoritarianism or an attempt at it on American soil? And everything will depend on what we do, what we do right now. One day I'll be old enough to get asked the question, what were you doing in the 2020s? And here we are. How could we do anything but everything that we can to make it better?

1:28:34.5 Kara Swisher: Can I do a final? This is my final question. I'm just picking up on something. You mentioned your kids. Between us, we have six kids, which is great. And I think a lot about that, what you're just saying, like why you do what you do. And in like just a few words, what is the one thing that parenting has given you and changed you in the way? And I'll start when I think about all this stuff that they're doing, especially to hurt gay marriage, trans people, everything. My whole thing is about the kids and it's like, oh, no, you don't. That's my whole thing. No, you don't. You shall not do this. What did you learn from parenting?

1:29:26.2 Pete Buttigieg: Yeah, I mean, there's an inverse version of that same thought, which is like it's the yes part, right? It's like I'm going to make sure that you inherit a world where things that don't make sense right now make a little more sense. And that's going to take all kinds of pain and work, but like I'm going to make sure of that. And I think that's the propulsion I get from them. But also like every parent, the other thing that they've given me is humility because they don't care what I do for a living. They don't care how successful or not I've been politically. They just need me. And also whether it's changing a diaper or picking up after them or the fun stuff, like I'm just Papa. And in my line of work, that's really good for you.

1:30:34.2 Kara Swisher: Anyway, perfect way to end. Secretary Buttigieg, thank you so much for your time.

1:30:44.3 Celeste Watkins-Hayes: Thank you, Kara Swisher. Thank you, Secretary Buttigieg. Thank you.

1:30:49.4 Pete Buttigieg: Thank you so much.

1:30:51.2 Celeste Watkins-Hayes: Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you all for coming. Thank you for being such an amazing audience. Have a great evening. Good night.