Pete Buttigieg: The Broken Promise: Democracy, the Economy & What Comes Next

Speaker 0:00 A graduate of Harvard, a Rhodes Scholar, a Naval Reserve officer who deployed to Afghanistan, and the mayor of a small city in Indiana

Trevor Noah 0:07 Buttigieg now the first openly LGBTQ elected official to run for president.

Speaker 0:12 I'm running for president because I think our country

Speaker 0:14 is running out of time. We cannot keep doing the same thing over and over and over again and expect it to get better.

Trevor Noah 0:20 The Senate overwhelmingly approved the nomination of Pete Buttigieg as Transportation Secretary.

Speaker 0:25 He's overseeing one of the most significant investments in America's bridges, roads, and rails in more than half a century.

Speaker 0:32 What made Peter stand out was his leadership. You kind of knew that there was an extraordinary potential there. [upbeat music]

Trevor Noah 0:44 This is What Now? with Trevor Noah. [upbeat music] Pete Buttigieg, do you miss being called Mayor Pete?

Speaker 1:02 Oh, I always go by Mayor Pete.

Trevor Noah 1:03 Oh, you still go by Mayor Pete?

Speaker 1:04 Yeah, sure.

Trevor Noah 1:04 I like that. Have you been on LinkedIn? [laughs]

Speaker 1:06 I haven't logged into LinkedIn in a while.

Trevor Noah 1:07 [laughs]

Speaker 1:07 But yeah, maybe. I don't know.

Trevor Noah 1:08 That would be great if you had a LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:10 I should. Maybe I do.

Trevor Noah 1:11 [laughs]

Speaker 1:11 I don't know. I should check now that you mention it. I still have my old, you know... I wonder if my MySpace is still up somewhere.

Trevor Noah 1:17 Just, like, someone trying to link with you there. You know, I- you know what I always think about, like, um, people's social media profiles is the people who don't pay attention to the world world- Mm-hmm ... but pay attention to the social media, and then they're friends with you on MySpace, and they're just like, "I wonder whatever happened to Pete." [laughs] Like, think about it. There's people like that- Mm. Mm ... out there-

Speaker 1:37 Oh, God

Trevor Noah 1:37 ... who were friends with you on, like, MySpace, Facebook, any of those things. Mm. You went off. You went and did things in the world. Mm. [laughs] They're still friends with you there, and they're like, "I wonder whatever happened to that guy." And now you've got a beard, so you look a little different. Mm. So they're just like, "I wonder where he is." You didn't always have a beard.

Speaker 1:51 No, no, this is, uh... It comes and goes, but, uh, I haven't had one in a while, so

Trevor Noah 1:55 Beard, beard crew, both of you. How did you make that decision-

Speaker 1:57 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:57 ... of this is it now?

Speaker 1:59 Uh, mostly my husband made that decision, so [laughs]

Trevor Noah 2:01 He was like, "I like you with a beard on."

Speaker 2:03 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 2:03 Oh, I don't like seeing your face. That's how, that's how-

Speaker 2:05 He's like, "Stop there"

Trevor Noah 2:05 ... 'cause how do... When a partner likes the beard, it's a hard one, eh?

Speaker 2:09 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 2:09 Yeah. How does your-

Speaker 2:10 I don't-

Trevor Noah 2:10 How did your beard come around?

Speaker 2:11 I think it's an easy one. You just give in.

Speaker 2:13 [laughs] Like...

Trevor Noah 2:13 I looked at myself in the mirror. I was like, "What is your aim in life?" [laughs] Then I was like, "What do you, w- what do you mean I'm doing everything right?" Then- [laughs] ... my face was like, "Is everything right for real, real, real?" Then I was like, "Yeah, maybe I'll try a mustache." Then I tried a mustache. Then I had a goatee.

Speaker 2:30 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 2:31 Then I would hear girls going, "Yeah, oh, you look, um, yeah, with a beard, kind of..." Then I was like, "Yeah," then I grew a little bit on the side, and I was like, "Uh, what do you think now?" Then I did a little bit of a poll.

Speaker 2:41 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 2:41 Then I went around and I was like, "What do you... [laughs] Hmm." Looked vulnerable. I was like, "Yeah, what do you think?" They were like, "Oh, yeah." Actually, then it became my identity.

Speaker 2:47 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 2:48 Then COVID happened. Couldn't go to the barber.

Speaker 2:50 Okay.

Trevor Noah 2:51 Then I was like, "Let me-

Speaker 2:51 Kinda grew on them

Trevor Noah 2:51 ... let me see how this thing goes." Yeah. Oh, that's when you went full beard. Yes.

Speaker 2:55 Yeah, I see.

Trevor Noah 2:55 Then I went full beard.

Speaker 2:56 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 2:56 Then when I came out of COVID, people were like, "This is you now."

Speaker 2:59 Mm.

Trevor Noah 2:59 Then two weeks, three weeks ago, I shaved everything off. Oof.

Speaker 3:02 Really?

Trevor Noah 3:03 I lost my aura.

Speaker 3:04 You had to get it right back?

Trevor Noah 3:05 Completely.

Speaker 3:05 Wow.

Trevor Noah 3:05 Yeah, it's gone. I was like, "I can't live like this anymore."

Speaker 3:07 Yeah, interesting.

Trevor Noah 3:08 I saw my dimple. I saw my, this part of my chin. I didn't like myself. [laughs] I was-

Speaker 3:13 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 3:14 Ah ... past mirrors, I couldn't look at myself, and it started growing back, and I was like, "I'm in now."

Speaker 3:19 Wow.

Trevor Noah 3:19 Yeah.

Speaker 3:19 I don't know if I'm that committed yet.

Trevor Noah 3:21 You are.

Speaker 3:21 I'm, uh-

Trevor Noah 3:22 You are here- Oh, yeah ... with it now still.

Speaker 3:23 Okay, if I've worn it here, it's over.

Trevor Noah 3:25 [laughs]

Speaker 3:25 It's, it's locked in.

Trevor Noah 3:26 Now it's official. If you want to see how your partner feels about your beard, call them and then turn on clippers. Then go, "Yeah, I'm just shaving," and just hear what they say.

Speaker 3:36 Then you know if it's gonna be good.

Trevor Noah 3:38 Yo. [laughs]

Speaker 3:38 It wouldn't be good.

Trevor Noah 3:39 [laughs] I like this. I like this. I didn't, I didn't expect to be in a beard conversation with you two. Thank you very much.

Speaker 3:44 Yeah, how long you been doing that?

Trevor Noah 3:45 The, don't even ask me those questions. [laughs] I can't grow a beard. Don't, there's no- What do you mean you can't grow a beard? I can't grow a beard. I've tried. I, it doesn't work. This is it. It doesn't, this, it's gone. It's, there's no chance. But your mustache game is strong, though. Thank you so much, Eugene. Yeah, the mustache. Thank you. This is what good friends do for you. They give you hope. Mm-hmm. I appreciate it. Mm-hmm. No, I can't, I can't grow a beard. So- But you can do the

Trevor Noah 4:03 sides. No, so when I was... You know what happened is when I was, um, when I was young, late, like early 20s, somewhere there- Yeah ... I had really, really bad acne. Like, really, really bad. So then whenever my hair would grow out, it would make things worse. Mm. So someone was like, "Oh, you must go and get laser so that the hair doesn't grow." So I went and I got laser. You got laser? Yeah, I got laser on my face. Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. Mm. And then it helped, and then I was like, "Oh, this is much better. Thank you." And then beards came into fashion. Then I was like, "I'm joining." And then my, my skin was like, "No, you're not." [laughs] So now I'm just, this is me. Um, thank you for being vulnerable with us. I mean, this is not something that most men like talking about. What? Not growing a beard? Yes. Or getting laser? Because what you are doing right now is you're opening up the podcast to a huge segment of men who are struggling with connecting beards, and some of them don't know what happened. But you particularly, you chose this platform to face this disability that you now have. That's what we all do. And- You've got to share your, you've got to share your vulnerabilities. Look, I would like to say I see you. Thank you. I respect your decision. Thank you. And Pete and I would like to say we'll think of you when we're oiling our beards all the time. Thank you, Eugene. You're welcome.

Trevor Noah 5:14 Pete, welcome to the, uh, podcast.

Speaker 5:16 Thank you.

Trevor Noah 5:16 Mayor Pete. [laughs]

Speaker 5:17 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:17 Uh, former Secretary of, uh, Transportation Pete. Which, which title do you prefer the most?

Speaker 5:22 Just Pete. Just Pete is good.

Trevor Noah 5:23 Just Pete?

Speaker 5:23 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:24 It's weird calling you just Pete because I feel like you're not just Pete.

Speaker 5:26 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:26 Like, you've done everything beyond just Pete. You know what I mean?

Speaker 5:28 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 5:28 It's like when someone-

Speaker 5:29 Yeah, His Excellency works if you want.

Trevor Noah 5:30 [laughs]

Speaker 5:31 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:31 You see? I'm in.

Speaker 5:32 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:32 His Excellency Pete. Now we're talking. [laughs] Now we are talking. Yeah, that's what I'm-

Speaker 5:39 No, I'm a M- Midwesterner. We're, we're, like, humble, straightforward people. Pete's good. Just Pete.

Trevor Noah 5:42 No, I like this. I like this a lot. Thank you so much for joining.

Speaker 5:45 Oh.

Trevor Noah 5:45 You know, you know why I'm, I'm, I'm excited to have you is because, like, from the very first time I heard of you and knew you, I was on The Daily Show back then.

Speaker 5:52 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:53 And then you were the mayor, and you know, it was like, so it was Mayor Pete.

Speaker 5:55 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:55 And then it was, like, Mayor Pete's running for president, and then it was, like, Mayor P- and then it was Mayor Pete's in the administration.

Speaker 6:00 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 6:01 You've always been- Inside the government in some way, shape, or form. And this is the first time where-

Pete Buttigieg 6:06 Yeah

Trevor Noah 6:06 ... we find you sort of like in an in-between space. So maybe we start there.

Pete Buttigieg 6:09 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 6:10 What are you up to these

Trevor Noah 6:11 days? Like, what are you doing?

Pete Buttigieg 6:11 Yeah, so this is the first time in 15 years that I haven't been either running for something or in some kind of public position or, or both.

Trevor Noah 6:19 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 6:20 Um, and it's kinda great. I mean, you know, I'm, most days I'm the one dropping the kids off at school-

Trevor Noah 6:25 Mm

Pete Buttigieg 6:25 ... or, or at camp this summer. Um, just able to, able to stop shaving for a few days, actually.

Trevor Noah 6:32 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 6:32 And, you know, uh, just things that, that weren't possible when there was that, like, every day grind. Um, so I'm enjoying that. I'm trying to make the most of that. But then I'm balancing that with the fact that there's things going on in the world that I feel like I need to be part of or making myself useful around all the time, which is why I'm, I'm, I'm in the media, and I'm traveling, and I'm, I'm doing what I can, working with candidates I believe in, and, uh, promoting causes I believe in, and, uh, uh, you know, just being active politically without being, uh, in an active campaign.

Trevor Noah 7:03 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 7:03 And it's, it's different. I mean, it's, it's ... It can be strange, uh, uh, sometimes because I am so used to there being-

Trevor Noah 7:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Pete Buttigieg 7:08 ... like, the one big thing that, that you organize your life around. Um, but, you know, that can, that can do a lot of work for you in your life, and it can also

Pete Buttigieg 7:17 be very unhealthy, right? I think one of the-

Trevor Noah 7:19 Mm

Pete Buttigieg 7:19 ... occupational hazards for people, including people in public service who have a lot of purpose in their work, is that your work becomes your purpose-

Trevor Noah 7:26 Mm-hmm

Pete Buttigieg 7:26 ... and then you can't live without it.

Trevor Noah 7:27 Right.

Pete Buttigieg 7:28 And that's, that's especially dangerous in, uh, politics because sometimes doing right by your job means putting your job on the line.

Trevor Noah 7:35 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 7:35 It's the only way to do your job well, uh, and maybe losing it. And it's, it's that much harder if, if you draw meaning from work. So yeah, I've been wrestling with all of that, um, but also really m- enjoying a life where I'm, I'm just around my husband and kids more, and at the same time, getting out on the road and, and, and trying to be part of the political conversation, 'cause obviously there's a lot to talk about.

Trevor Noah 7:54 It almost feels like you're like a retired superhero.

Pete Buttigieg 7:57 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 7:58 I have to say.

Pete Buttigieg 7:59 Wow.

Trevor Noah 7:59 Do you know what I mean? You, you were thinking the same thing.

Pete Buttigieg 8:01 Exactly.

Trevor Noah 8:01 No, you know, you know why? Because e- w- we never think of it.

Pete Buttigieg 8:03 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 8:03 But at some point, a superhero goes, "I'm, I wanna be done."

Pete Buttigieg 8:06 Yes.

Trevor Noah 8:07 "I wanna be with my family."

Pete Buttigieg 8:08 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 8:08 "I wanna be ... " You know, it's like, "I wanna be Clark Kent."

Pete Buttigieg 8:11 Yes.

Trevor Noah 8:11 "I don't wanna spend as much time being Superman." But then what happens?

Pete Buttigieg 8:14 Dust off the cape once in a while.

Trevor Noah 8:15 Exactly, then there's something happening. They're like, "Oh, a tower is falling."

Pete Buttigieg 8:19 Mm.

Trevor Noah 8:19 Or they're like, "Oh, there's a big invasion." Or, and then it's like, "Where's Superman?" And if you were a superhero-

Pete Buttigieg 8:25 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 8:25 ... in any capacity, I think it feels weird just sitting at home. 'Cause h- here, here's what I mean.

Pete Buttigieg 8:31 Mm.

Trevor Noah 8:31 Most of us watch the news.

Pete Buttigieg 8:32 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 8:32 And we can only respond or react to the news.

Pete Buttigieg 8:35 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 8:35 Like most people.

Pete Buttigieg 8:36 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 8:36 You just go, "I can't believe that happened. Man, that sucks." And then the most you can sort of do if we're honest is, like, wait to vote.

Pete Buttigieg 8:44 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 8:44 Or maybe phone a lawmaker maybe.

Trevor Noah 8:48 But if you were in the inner workings of it-

Pete Buttigieg 8:50 Mm

Trevor Noah 8:51 ... you have more access to the levers that can actually change something and do something. So l- maybe, maybe that's a good question is, like, what would you say is something you've seen recently in the past few months that has made you go, "Ah, I gotta get off the couch and shave a little bit"?

Pete Buttigieg 9:04 Yeah. [laughs] I mean, where do you start, right? I mean, obviously so many things are happening in the country under this administration, from these, like, massive things that I think threaten the integrity of the Republic, like, like sending troops into the streets of American cities-

Trevor Noah 9:17 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 9:18 ... to, like, very specific policy things that I disagree with at, uh, the FTC or whatever, or at, at the department I used to serve in. I mean, one thing that's hard, even if, even if somebody comes in who you agree with, it's, I think it's hard for anyone who leaves a high office to watch their successor. Uh, but it's especially hard for me to watch them dismantle the airline passenger protections-

Trevor Noah 9:38 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Pete Buttigieg 9:38 ... we put in, for example. We worked really hard on that. It was the right thing to do. You know, we took on the airlines, and we won, and now they're just unraveling it. So there's a lot of things like that that are very hard to watch. But, you know, what I've realized is I don't have to be in a seat of political power to be talking about it. I mean, one of the, uh, advantage, uh, privileges, I guess, that comes with just kind of where I fit in the picture right now is, you know, I've ... You know,

Pete Buttigieg 10:02 like, my unexpected specialty of going on Fox News a lot, right? Like, part of that was I was like everybody else, occasionally finding myself watching that network and being like, "Man, somebody ought to go on there and say this." And then I got to actually be the guy who went on there and said this, right?

Trevor Noah 10:15 Be the change.

Pete Buttigieg 10:15 Mm-hmm. Um, and I can still do that. I mean, I'm not doing it from a position of power.

Trevor Noah 10:20 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 10:21 Uh, but, uh, you know, as a citizen, I'm out there talking about this stuff and, and, and I'm hopeful that that matters.

Trevor Noah 10:27 I, I wanna talk about each of those things that you said individually.

Pete Buttigieg 10:29 Mm.

Trevor Noah 10:30 Because I think they branch out into topics and ideas that everybody's grappling with right now. So let's start with, like, the first part of it, you know, leaving a position, seeing somebody else step into that position. I think w- we all take that for granted in many ways, 'cause that's, it's very rare that that happens.

Pete Buttigieg 10:48 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 10:48 Most of the time if you leave a position, the person who fills the position after you is generally trying to do the same job as you.

Pete Buttigieg 10:53 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 10:53 Just generally.

Pete Buttigieg 10:54 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 10:55 Do, do you know what I mean?

Pete Buttigieg 10:55 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 10:55 It doesn't matter what level you're on. So i- i- in, in my case, it's like Jon Stewart hosting The Daily Show.

Pete Buttigieg 11:01 Mm.

Trevor Noah 11:01 I come after him. W- we're sort of aligned.

Pete Buttigieg 11:03 Mm.

Trevor Noah 11:04 Do you know what I mean? And obviously we knew each other as people, but we're, we're-

Pete Buttigieg 11:06 Yeah

Trevor Noah 11:06 ... heading in a similar direction as human beings a- and, and so on and so forth. In your office, you leave your job as the head of HR. The next person who comes in does HR. It's weird if they're like, "Nah, I don't believe in HR."

Pete Buttigieg 11:18 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 11:19 "I don't believe in people."

Pete Buttigieg 11:20 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 11:20 And you're like, "What? What, what happened?" They're like, "Yeah, that's, that's not how I roll." [laughs]

Pete Buttigieg 11:24 True. Well, and you could take it one further.

Trevor Noah 11:26 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 11:26 So I would say actually in my department, for example-

Trevor Noah 11:28 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 11:28 ... I disagree with my successor, but, like, I think he believes in continuing the department, right?

Trevor Noah 11:34 Okay.

Pete Buttigieg 11:34 You go to the Department of Education.

Trevor Noah 11:36 Oh, yeah, that's out.

Pete Buttigieg 11:36 The secretary's mission is to demolish the Department of Education, right? Or you have people in charge of environmental protection who don't believe in environmental protection, right? Or, you know, they, they inherit USAID, the International Development Agency, and then they just burn it to the ground. So yeah, there are ... I, I shouldn't com- I should only complain so much maybe about where I used to work-

Trevor Noah 11:55 Because at least he believes

Trevor Noah 11:56 in transportation

Pete Buttigieg 11:56 ... because at least it's still there. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 11:57 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 11:57 And even the projects, they killed some really good projects, but most of the projects that I launched, uh, they're still doing. They just put a Trump sign on them so they can take credit for it, but they're still doing the projects. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 12:06 Do you mind when that happens?

Pete Buttigieg 12:07 Yeah, of course I do.

Trevor Noah 12:08 [laughs] Okay, I like that.

Pete Buttigieg 12:09 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 12:09 Honest. All right.

Pete Buttigieg 12:10 Because he He promised when he was president-

Trevor Noah 12:14 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 12:14 ... that he was gonna do a big infrastructure package, and then he failed.

Trevor Noah 12:17 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 12:17 And then we set out to a big, do a big infrastructure package, and he campaigned against it. Uh, people forget this.

Trevor Noah 12:23 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 12:23 It's not just that he didn't do it, it's when we did it, he threatened any Republican who was part of the bipartisan majority that voted to do the infrastructure bill-

Trevor Noah 12:32 Yeah, he would go up against them

Pete Buttigieg 12:33 ... and said, "We will remember."

Trevor Noah 12:34 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 12:34 And you know, most of them either got taken out or took themselves out for the crime of having joined us to like vote for more road funding, right? Um, and now they're literally like slapping Trump signs on projects that were funded by our department, our administration, with a bill that Trump tried to stop. So yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm kinda pissed off about that.

Trevor Noah 12:56 I, I always wonder if there's a way to like fix that in American politics. Uh, the first time I remember thinking about it was when I first moved to the US. I was reading a newspaper, and well, not a physical one, like digitally. Relax. I saw the way you looked at me. And, um, and I was reading, I was reading the newspaper.

Pete Buttigieg 13:15 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 13:15 And it, it was interesting because it had names.

Pete Buttigieg 13:18 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 13:18 And behind every name it had a little D or a little R.

Pete Buttigieg 13:20 Mm.

Trevor Noah 13:21 And you know, it would say like, "Congressperson da, da, da says this, D, R. Congressperson this, D, R." And I was like, "What, what is, what is that?" And then someone was like, "Oh, that's Democrat, Republican." And it was so normal-

Pete Buttigieg 13:31 Mm

Trevor Noah 13:32 ... to my, to my American friends to say that, but I-

Pete Buttigieg 13:34 Interesting

Trevor Noah 13:34 ... for the life of me, I couldn't understand why news in America-

Pete Buttigieg 13:38 Yeah

Trevor Noah 13:38 ... is filtered through the lens of politics before it's filtered through the news of, of, of, through the lens of news.

Pete Buttigieg 13:44 I hadn't thought about that. Yeah, any other country, I guess you don't see-

Trevor Noah 13:47 No

Pete Buttigieg 13:47 ... the party label-

Trevor Noah 13:48 No, not, not behind your name

Pete Buttigieg 13:49 ... literally placed on it.

Trevor Noah 13:49 Not behind your ... Like in South Africa, for instance, they don't do that.

Pete Buttigieg 13:52 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 13:52 They'll tell you if it's a story about a person who's in the ANC or a person in the DA. They'll say that, but it's not next to your name.

Pete Buttigieg 13:57 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 13:58 It is not the thing that defines-

Pete Buttigieg 13:59 Mm, doesn't become your identity.

Trevor Noah 14:00 Exactly.

Pete Buttigieg 14:01 Mm.

Trevor Noah 14:01 And so even when they propose something-

Pete Buttigieg 14:03 Yeah

Trevor Noah 14:03 ... I, I always wonder how much it blocks Americans in their ability to be for or against an idea.

Pete Buttigieg 14:09 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 14:09 If the, if the idea is Eugene Coza, Republican, says he's for beards, then I'm like, "But I, I like beards, but do I wanna support a Republican?"

Pete Buttigieg 14:17 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 14:17 Do you know what I mean? Like, I wonder how much that actually blocks people from, from thinking of embracing an idea just because it might come from the, quote-unquote, "wrong side."

Pete Buttigieg 14:24 Yeah, I'm sure it's not ... You know, I have a little, um, a, a little experience on that through the lens of being a mayor, because, you know, there are some, every state, every city has a different system.

Trevor Noah 14:33 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 14:33 Some of them it's like national politics. They have a primary, and there's a Republican primary, and there's a Democratic primary, and there's two candidates. Others, um, there's a nonpartisan system, and so someone emerges-

Trevor Noah 14:43 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah

Pete Buttigieg 14:44 ... they might be, they might proudly be a Republican or a Democrat, but, uh, they might actually not tell anybody which they are too. It just depends. And so I would find myself at mayors conferences where there's other mayors, uh, you know, these are elected officials, uh, in positions of major responsibility, and get to know them well, and not know. Like, I'd have to go back online and look up-

Trevor Noah 15:06 Wow

Pete Buttigieg 15:06 ... whether they're a Democrat-

Trevor Noah 15:07 That's amazing

Pete Buttigieg 15:07 ... or Republican.

Trevor Noah 15:08 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 15:08 Right? Uh, so I, I do think you view people and you view their ideas differently if you don't know right off the bat what, uh, you know, what team they're,

Pete Buttigieg 15:16 they're from.

Trevor Noah 15:16 It is, it is weird to see America flip and flop, though. I will say that. Like, when you're talking about like one administration wants this, then the next administration wants that, the next administration ... I, I, I was at an event in, um, I wonder where it was. I don't, I don't remember now. Europe, Middle East, somewhere, and there were some world lead- leaders gathered.

Pete Buttigieg 15:34 Mm.

Trevor Noah 15:34 And they were having this discussion about America and its new place in the world, and one of the world leaders said something that was the most interesting thing I'd ever heard, because it gave me a different perspective. The moderator said, "How do you feel about what's happening in America right now, and what do you think this means for the future?" And he said, "Well, I don't really worry about the future. I just know we have to weather this moment for the next three or four years, and then America will flip this way, and then it'll flip that way, and it'll flip that way, and it'll flip this way."

Pete Buttigieg 16:06 Mm.

Trevor Noah 16:07 And he said, "We think longer term."

Pete Buttigieg 16:10 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 16:10 "And we try to think-"

Pete Buttigieg 16:12 Mm

Trevor Noah 16:12 "... beyond one cycle at a time." And there was a, there was a general concession and a, and an agreement amongst the world leaders there who went, "Yeah, that's pretty much America." And if you think about it-

Pete Buttigieg 16:23 Mm

Trevor Noah 16:23 ... it's, it, it is true for the most part.

Pete Buttigieg 16:25 Mm.

Trevor Noah 16:26 America's one of the largest, most prominent countries that completely switches the direction it's going in every single-ish four years. Which is a ... That's like not a thing, really, when you think about it.

Pete Buttigieg 16:41 Yeah. I think, I'm trying to decide if I, if I buy that. I, I, I think that's somewhat true if we're in a normal political pattern. I think we're outside of that now. Like, I, I, worry that even in my party, I worry that people are acting as if we're in this kinda normal pattern of elections and politics-

Trevor Noah 17:00 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 17:00 ... when we're actually increasingly outside of it, right? So-

Trevor Noah 17:02 In, in what way?

Pete Buttigieg 17:03 We've always had, uh, someone win an election, somebody aggressively or, or not, like promote their agenda. They win, they lose, whatever.

Pete Buttigieg 17:12 But we have not had an American government try to consolidate its power over civil society-

Trevor Noah 17:21 Right

Pete Buttigieg 17:21 ... over broadcast companies-

Trevor Noah 17:23 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 17:23 ... over law firms, over universities. Uh, you know, you just go on down the list-

Trevor Noah 17:29 Yeah, yeah

Pete Buttigieg 17:30 ... the way that we have now. And what I see is, is a real risk that what happens is way beyond, uh, what happens in one election-

Trevor Noah 17:40 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 17:40 ... or two elections. I think we, I think my party could win in 2026 and not get the message. I think we could even win in 2028 and not fully grasp-

Trevor Noah 17:48 Mm

Pete Buttigieg 17:48 ... the level of change that, that these guys in charge now are trying to achieve.

Trevor Noah 17:53 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 17:53 Which is why I'm trying to push people who are in the opposition to Trump, whether they think of themselves as Democrats or not, to think at a higher altitude as well about ... Like even my, my organization, a, a nonprofit and a PAC, we call it Win the Era. Um, not that I don't care about winning the election.

Trevor Noah 18:10 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 18:10 But I think what's more important is to win the era.

Trevor Noah 18:12 Right.

Pete Buttigieg 18:14 When you're thinking of it in those terms, you start looking at, okay, what does it mean to get ready for the next, the way some of these other countries you talked about plan? What does it look like to get ready for the next 5, 10, 20, 30 years?

Trevor Noah 18:24 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 18:24 Especially because I think we're also at a change or an end of a certain cycle that has gone on for decades. Like, certain patterns, assumptions, institutions about how the world works and about how the country works that were set up in the '40s and '50s are falling apart. And I don't think we can just go take power, find all the pieces, tape them back together, and have things be the way

Pete Buttigieg 18:50 they used to be. I think so many of our institutions have needed to be rebuilt for a long time. They're being smashed to pieces now by the current administration, whi- which is wrong. But it would also be wrong to imagine that this, the answer is to just go back and try to put them back the way they were.

Trevor Noah 19:05 Put it back to the way it was.

Pete Buttigieg 19:06 I know you could say that about anything from the Department of Education to, um, tax policy in this country, uh, which I think we might have to start over on if, if they really break the, the fiscal viability of the country, which I think they're trying, um, to things like international development and USAID.

Trevor Noah 19:21 You know what I always wonder? I wonder who pays the actual price.

Pete Buttigieg 19:27 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 19:28 'Cause politics is weird in that when you look at the term generally of a president in a democratic country, it, it's not really enough time to implement change-

Pete Buttigieg 19:40 Make everything change. Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 19:40 ... and see the effects of that change. Just generally speaking, not all the time.

Pete Buttigieg 19:44 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 19:44 But, like, economies move slowly. Effects generally, you know, happen over time. But I think to myself,

Trevor Noah 19:53 like, wouldn't it be crazy? And we've seen this sort of happen before in America. W- wouldn't it be crazy if, like, Trump does all of these things, and then only at the end of his term do you sort of start to see the results? But that means whoever comes in next takes all of the blame.

Pete Buttigieg 20:06 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:06 Because that's when you might see the biggest results of education.

Pete Buttigieg 20:08 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:08 That's when you might see the biggest results of-

Pete Buttigieg 20:10 Yeah

Trevor Noah 20:10 ... taxes and how they've changed and healthcare that's been cut and-

Pete Buttigieg 20:12 Not only that, some of them are doing that by design, right? Some of the healthcare cuts they're doing that'll take people off Medicaid, they set up to only take effect after the next election.

Trevor Noah 20:19 Oh yeah, they did that.

Pete Buttigieg 20:20 Right?

Trevor Noah 20:20 I forget. Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 20:20 They're not stupid [laughs] . Like, they, they know that, that that can happen. But you're right. Even if you are trying to do something immediately, it takes a while to filter through. Uh, I mean, I saw this back when I was mayor. I spent a lot of my first year as mayor doing things that upset people and cost political capital and weren't necessarily popular, believing that if I was right, if they were the right things to do-

Trevor Noah 20:43 Mm-hmm

Pete Buttigieg 20:43 ... by year four, I would have something to show for it, and people would trust me, reelect me, and give me the benefit of the doubt.

Trevor Noah 20:50 Oh.

Pete Buttigieg 20:50 And that's, that's kind of what happened. Um, everything from the way we designed our streets to the way I organized the city administration, people were mad. Uh, we, we stuck to ... I heard them out, but we also stuck to it in some important ways. And, and, and then it, things worked, and then they gave me a little more, uh, credit or a little more trust-

Trevor Noah 21:07 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Pete Buttigieg 21:07 ... the next time around. So I think that, in an ideal sense, is how it's supposed to work, but I agree with you that I think a lot about if, if there was a f- four-year, if there was a five-year instead of a four-year term, and we were able to do just a little more on the bridges and the tunnels and the roads and the stuff that, the, at, at least the, the little piece of it that I worked on-

Trevor Noah 21:27 Mm-hmm

Pete Buttigieg 21:27 ... how would things have been different?

Trevor Noah 21:30 I come from a country where there were general elections last year, and no one party won outright.

21:34 Whoa, whoa, we.

21:36 I come from a country where [laughs]

21:41 [laughs]

21:41 I like how you just kicked me out of my own country.

Pete Buttigieg 21:44 Whoa.

Trevor Noah 21:45 Wow. Wow, wow, wow, Eugene.

21:47 [laughs]

21:48 [laughs]

21:49 Look, I'm sorry.

21:50 You gotta understand, there's nothing that's changed about me, Eugene.

21:52 Well, I'll tell-

21:53 I'm proudly South African, okay?

21:55 Well, I'll tell you what.

21:56 I'll tell you what [laughs] .

21:58 [laughs]

Pete Buttigieg 21:58 Can I just give you guys a couple of minutes?

Trevor Noah 22:01 Where no, no one party won outright. The ANC for the first time had to share power with another party, which is an opposition party, which is now in government. But what I've realized is when people oppose someone's idea, as soon as they get into power, they get co-opted into believing in the same thing as well.

Pete Buttigieg 22:17 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 22:17 And I think that's what's causing distrust in my country-

Pete Buttigieg 22:20 Interesting

Trevor Noah 22:20 ... about political parties, and if you've been opposing for so long, the next thing you become minister of whatever. Now you're like, "I'm enjoying the perks, the blue lights, and the, and the great-"

22:28 Oh, yeah. You just start enjoying that. Yeah

22:28 ... "and the great salary." Yeah. "What happened to that thing where you said you hated the..."

Pete Buttigieg 22:31 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 22:31 "Hold on, hold on. We'll deal with it when we get there."

Pete Buttigieg 22:33 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 22:33 And I think that's what caused a lot of distrust. And I've said to many of my friends, it looks like most politicians want young people to be interested in voting, but not to actually vote.

Pete Buttigieg 22:42 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 22:43 Is, do you think that might be true for many countries, not just for the US or South Africa?

Pete Buttigieg 22:48 I don't know. That's a really interesting warning for those of us who sometimes fantasize about what it would be like if America had five political parties.

Trevor Noah 22:56 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 22:57 Um, and you know, there was a s- there was a minute last year when, uh, Speaker, Speaker McCarthy or whenever it was, McCarthy was losing his grip on the US House. It looked for a minute like he could maybe keep his speakership by getting some Democratic votes. And I thought, "If Democrats name their price and McCarthy goes with it, we could see a coalition government-"

Trevor Noah 23:17 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 23:17 ... "on American soil for the first time in my life."

Trevor Noah 23:19 The centro appeared. That's it.

23:19 Hmm.

23:19 Yes.

Pete Buttigieg 23:20 And I was actually kind of intrigued by that idea.

Trevor Noah 23:22 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 23:22 It didn't happen, obviously, but I, I wondered what the, whether that might give us some chance of breaking out of this really stultified-

Trevor Noah 23:30 Kind of-

Pete Buttigieg 23:30 ... paralyzed state that we're in, but-

Trevor Noah 23:32 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 23:32 ... it sounds like what you're saying is not to romanticize that model too much, 'cause it has its other, um, its other downsides, which, which makes sense. I think for us, the problem we have is here in America, there's no party that actually commands a majority.

Trevor Noah 23:45 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 23:46 Right? I mean, both parties, in terms of people who really are like, "Yeah, that's my party," are at, like, something like 30%, right? But every election, y- functionally, pretty much every election for Congress and certainly for the president, it kind of comes down to two, and people are supposed to pick. And then people are dissatisfied with what they get, right? Um, part of what I wish we could do to respond to that is just expand the scope of things that both parties think are inarguably true.

Trevor Noah 24:16 Mm-hmm

Pete Buttigieg 24:17 And will defend, and then go out, argue about the other stuff. So I don't know about South Africa, but I know a lot of countries where if there's a center right party and a center left party, they both, for example, acknowledge the reality of climate change.

Pete Buttigieg 24:31 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They'll fight over, they'll fight over who's doing a better job fighting it. Oh, yeah. No, no, that's ... Yes. Yeah. But they won't fight over whether it's a thing. Yeah. Right? Universal healthcare. Here, yeah, a lot of these things are just a given. Education. Yeah. And I'd like to invest a little more in what I think of as the inarguables, that we all ought to be, or most of us ought to be able to, to say we care about. Yeah. Yeah. But then there are all these other things that are contested, that, that, that are fought over, that we still have, like, two-thirds support in the country for. Hm. Um, importantly, lots of things that Democrats are for and Republicans are against, that two-thirds of Americans agree on. I mean, the idea that we gotta tax the wealthy more. The idea that we ought to have a, a, a stronger minimum wage. The idea that, uh, there ought to be paid family leave- Yeah ... in this country when you have a kid. Uh, ideas around a woman's right to choose, or, uh, freedom to marry. Mm-hmm. Or climate change. Mm-hmm. Or background checks on guns. These are not, like, 51/49 things. These are actually, like, 60 or 70% consensus positions in the country. Wow. Yeah. And yet my party can't figure out how to get 51%, let alone 60 or 70. Mm-hmm. Uh, on our candidates. I think that needs to lead to some introspection on, on how we, how we approach these issues.

Pete Buttigieg 25:40 And then this, this other set of issues that I'm spending a lot of time thinking about, that don't have any left to right pattern yet. I'm thinking about, a lot about artificial intelligence, right? Where I think most people, left, right, or center, are skeptical of a lot of these tech companies. Yeah. Interested in AI. Mm-hmm. If only 'cause we use it, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ChatGPT or whatever, we use more and more in our day-to-day lives. Excited about what it can do, but also very worried about what it might do to us. And there's this moment where it hasn't fallen into this obvious left/right fight yet. Mm-hmm. That's interesting. Mm-hmm. But what COVID taught us the hard way is that even something like public health and getting vaccinated, uh, that you would think was not a partisan thing, almost overnight became one. Yeah. Which tells me that this is a very special and narrow window around AI, to talk about things that might be shared principles before we figure out what to fight over [laughs] Huh ... between Democrats and Republicans. That's really good. You know what I mean? That, that ... Yeah, that actually is a fascinating idea to think about- Mm-hmm ... is like, when does an issue suddenly become politicized? Mm-hmm. And when is it not? I distinctly remember, because, I mean, I was, like, in the thick of things when it was COVID, and it was ... I distinctly remember seeing one of the strangest flips. Hm. And it was how Donald Trump was pushing forward for a vaccine. Right. Donald Trump was. Mm-hmm. I'll say this again. Donald Trump was pushing forward with a vaccine, and he was leading a team that was, like,

Pete Buttigieg 27:07 it was Operation something. Yeah, Warp Speed. Warp Speed. Yeah. Operation Warp Speed. Yeah. And it was like Donald Trump. And I, I'll never forget this moment. I would see liberals, progressives, Democrats, whoever, whatever they wanna call, I would see tons of them going, "I don't trust his vaccine. Hm. This man is ... How are they making it so quickly?" Hm. "How are they rushing the ... I don't trust. Donald Trump's gonna make a v-" [laughs] And then I was like, "Guys, Donald Trump's not in the lab." Mm-hmm. It's not like he's there with, like, his little vial, and he's like, "Add two, add two of these. Four drops. I think I got it. Whoopee doopey doo." [laughs] No. He's leading a task force- Yeah ... that is trying to get it. Yeah. Then they were like, "I just don't trust it. I just don't trust it." Hm. And then Biden wins. Mm. During COVID. Mm. Biden's in charge now. Mm. They keep moving forward with the vaccine, which I still say is Trump's vaccine, and by the way, which Trump has said is his vaccine. Mm. And then I noticed everyone flip. All of a sudden, people were like, "Well, I ... Of course I trust it." And then now the flip happened the other way, the other way around. Yes. It's like people were like, "I don't trust that vaccine. I don't trust the Democrats." Right. And I was like, what just happened here? Yeah. Has it become so, like, red and blue that it, you, you, do, you get what I'm saying? Yeah. You can literally just flip- Yeah ... based on- No, it's true ... who's, who's telling you something. Yeah, who's telling ... And then Trump- Mm-hmm ... he went to, I don't know if you saw this, he went to one of his rallies. I will never forget this. And then he said, "It's my vaccine." Say it in his voice. In, in the crowd. Oh, he's there, and he's like, "It's my ... I, I created the vaccine. Joe Biden taking credit for my vaccine, taking credit. I did it. I did it." And then the crowd was like, "Boo. Boo." [laughs] Crowd was like, "Boo." And then he's like, "Yeah, a lot of people don't like it, but it was mine. It was mine. I did it. I did it." [laughs] And his crowd was booing- Hm ... the idea of the vaccine. Yes. And Trump was like, "No, no, no. It's mine." It's mine. Yes. And even now in moments, you'll see him slip. If someone asks him- Hm ... "Who made it?" He'll be like, "Well, I made it." But then he sort of says it like Joe's, Joe's, Joe spoiled it. Hm. But he still goes, "He made it." And I'm like, what happened in that moment? I love that you brought up the AI thing. Mm-hmm. Because it's like, when does a topic or an issue become politicized in America? Yeah. And I, I was wondering, do ... 'Cause I know you, you spend a lot of time thinking about this. Is it when the groups know which lever to pull? Hm. Is it when ... Like s- like for instance, I, I, I often think that sometimes American politics is thought of as this, um, this pure ideal, idea and ideal that's hanging on its own,

Pete Buttigieg 29:35 and we sometimes forget how many outside forces are poking and prodding at it. Hm. Yeah. Right? So if I run a major corporation, and I'm trying to get AI, you know, I, I wanna get as few restrictions as possible. I wanna be in a power position. I think all I would do is look at which party would be more amenable to getting me what I want. Mm. And then I would try frame it so that AI is in or out of the other party's wheelhouse. Does that, does that- Yeah, for sure ... does that sound, like, real to you? Yeah. Or even familiar to you? No, that's right, and I think companies do that all the time. Mm-hmm. Like, they figure out a way, if, if, you know, you're running a clean tech company- Yeah ... and Trump wins, and suddenly anything green is out of fashion, maybe it's smarter to talk about it in terms of, uh, contributing to American energy independence- Oh, there you go ... or American energy dominance. Okay. Which is also true, right? Mm-hmm. That's one thing that, like, green energy has to say for itself. Now, it doesn't ... Well, I mean, Trump's still killing wind power, but that, I think that happens all the time on some level. I think also, though, a lot of this is downstream from culture, as they say, right? Yeah. That, that the politic, politicians kind of flatter themselves or ourselves that, that we're shaping things. Yeah. Hm. Sometimes we do. Obviously leadership decisions matter hugely. But l- a lot of times A lot of things have worked through the culture before you even get to the, the, the, the left and right boundaries of what politicians get to do.

Trevor Noah 30:51 Oh, that's interesting.

Pete Buttigieg 30:51 Right. And then sometimes it can come back out. So think about tech, right? Think, um, not AI. Think about social media.

Trevor Noah 30:59 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 31:00 So it starts with kind of like left vibes, right?

Trevor Noah 31:04 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 31:04 Think of like early internet days.

Trevor Noah 31:05 Yes.

Pete Buttigieg 31:05 These guys like basically seem like Democrats, 'cause they're, maybe they're more libertarian

Pete Buttigieg 31:10 deep down.

Trevor Noah 31:10 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 31:10 But like they're young, they're socially liberal, they think climate change is real, they care about immigration, you know. And, you know, you've got Obama hanging out with tech CEOs. That seems like a very natural thing-

Trevor Noah 31:22 Right. Yes

Pete Buttigieg 31:22 ... in like 2012, say. Right? Then these things happen with the way social media affects the election, the role of Twitter, and suddenly it's, gets more complicated than that. And you come to this point where actually now when you think tech CEO, Silicon Valley tech CEO-

Trevor Noah 31:39 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 31:40 ... you are more likely to think of them at that dinner in the Trump f- you know, White House-

Trevor Noah 31:45 Right. Right

Pete Buttigieg 31:46 ... than, um, thinking of them like rubbing elbows with Obama, right?

Trevor Noah 31:50 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 31:51 And yet-

Trevor Noah 31:51 Wow

Pete Buttigieg 31:52 ... even though the, that's been kind of coded either way, one of the few like kind of areas where the horseshoe has come together on our political spectrum is the idea of getting phones and social media apps out of our schools.

Trevor Noah 32:05 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 32:06 So you've got really right-wing, like MAGA right-wing politicians. Uh, Josh Hawley comes to mind-

Trevor Noah 32:14 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 32:14 ... who I would disagree with on ferociously, [laughs] strongly on lots and lots of things, um, uh, teaming up with more liberal politicians. A- and not just federally, but the state level.

Trevor Noah 32:24 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 32:25 Saying things like, "Yeah, a, a, a, a screen should not be with a kid, uh, during the hours that they're in school."

Trevor Noah 32:31 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 32:31 "Because that's a distraction, it's a problem, it's a vector for a lot of bad things to get into their, their minds." And there's actually something of a consensus. I don't think that's happening because the politicians got together and said, "Hey, we gotta find something that we can agree on. What about this?" Or put, to put it another way, if that happened, it happened after more and more parents who didn't agree on politics-

Trevor Noah 32:51 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 32:51 ... didn't agree on what they thought of, you know, this or that election or how-

Trevor Noah 32:54 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 32:54 ... social media played, but definitely agreed on, "Oh wow, this could be screwing up my kid"

Trevor Noah 32:57 Hmm

Pete Buttigieg 32:59 ... uh, start to feel the same way about this issue. And that pressure then finds its w- which is healthy, by the way.

Trevor Noah 33:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 33:04 That pressure finds its way into the political system.

Trevor Noah 33:05 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 33:06 And then politicians are saying, "Yeah, we, we gotta do something about that," right? [upbeat music]

Trevor Noah 33:10 We're gonna continue this conversation right after this. [upbeat music]

Trevor Noah 33:22 What always helps a voter not feel helpless? Because sometimes people think-

Pete Buttigieg 33:26 Yeah

Trevor Noah 33:26 ... of government as this big juggernaut that's gonna-

Pete Buttigieg 33:28 Yeah

Trevor Noah 33:28 ... happen with or without you, and you're just happy for smaller wins. Like, for example, in my country, people who are-

Pete Buttigieg 33:33 Our country.

Trevor Noah 33:36 Pete, you know what I mean. [laughs]

Pete Buttigieg 33:39 [laughs] I'll stay out of this one.

Trevor Noah 33:44 [laughs] Our country, Trevor.

33:47 Thank you, Eugene.

33:48 You're welcome. People who are mostly underprivileged or underserviced will always worry about social grants. If you can sort that out-

Pete Buttigieg 33:57 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 33:57 ... or cheaper housing. If you can sort that out, whether it takes you four years of your tenure or the last two months of it, it will happen. Just the hope of it-

Pete Buttigieg 34:05 Yeah

Trevor Noah 34:05 ... is always enough. So how do people feel empowered that whoever they voted for, um, will always do what they promised? How do you hold the person that you voted for accountable?

Pete Buttigieg 34:15 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 34:16 Because obviously that seems like protesting on social media becomes a thing.

34:19 Right. I think that's, I think that's universal.

34:21 Yeah.

34:21 I think that's every country-

34:21 Yeah

34:21 ... to be honest. It is a great question.

34:23 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 34:24 Well, look, the answer is supposed to be the election, right?

Trevor Noah 34:26 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 34:27 But look at our system. I mean, in addition to the, um, all the problems around presidential elections, including the fact that we're the only presidential democracy in the world where the person who gets the second most votes can get the office and the person who gets the most votes loses-

Trevor Noah 34:42 Mm-hmm

Pete Buttigieg 34:42 ... because of the electoral college. But in addition to that, you look at the congressional level, and out of 435 seats in the US House, less than one in 10, less than 40, are actually considered competitive.

Trevor Noah 34:56 Less than 40?

Pete Buttigieg 34:57 Yeah. So even though we are, let's say, typically a 55/45 country in terms of which way the country feels, which party the country supports, you, you have states, like where I grew up in Indiana.

Trevor Noah 35:10 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 35:10 I remember when it was five and four. Five Republicans, four Democrats in the House. Then it was seven and two, 'cause they gerrymandered it. Now they're under pressure to make it, like, nine and zero. And even if Indiana's a more Republican state, like a 60/40, that's probably true about Indiana right now, it's not 100 to zero, right? And so the, there's this thumb on the scale, not in terms of somebody, like, secretly going in and changing what's in the ballot machines, but out in the open-

Trevor Noah 35:34 Mm-hmm

Pete Buttigieg 35:34 ... the way they red- redraw these districts, that has made more and more of our elections less competitive. So big picture, we need to reform that.

Trevor Noah 35:42 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 35:43 In the meantime, since that's not gonna happen overnight, I think the best ways and places to feel empowered are, first of all, closer to home, because a lot of these processes are actually playing out locally. A lot of decisions about vaccinations are happening at the state level-

Trevor Noah 35:57 Oh, wow

Pete Buttigieg 35:58 ... or even the county level.

Trevor Noah 35:59 Yeah.

35:59 Wow.

Pete Buttigieg 35:59 Right? Uh, most decisions about policing happen at the local city level. A lot of decisions about resources for mental health or the policies we were just talking about, about smartphones or any number of things are happening either at a state or a local level. There's a much better chance of getting somebody's attention at that level.

Trevor Noah 36:18 At a local level.

Pete Buttigieg 36:18 Yeah. And look, I came out, I got started as mayor, right? So part of it is I, I think in those terms. But I saw, like, a city council make a different decision because a bunch of people lined up, many of them too young to

Pete Buttigieg 36:32 even be eligible to vote, and said, "Hey, this decision's gonna impact me." And they spoke with a kind of moral authority that, that young people have.

Trevor Noah 36:40 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 36:41 And it got people's attention, and it, it, it changed things So that's one example of, of where I think people sometimes have more power than they might imagine.

Trevor Noah 36:50 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 36:50 Even if I understand why, and share why so many of us feel disempowered when it comes to national politics. Another thing is to recognize that you don't have to wait for the next election-

Trevor Noah 37:01 Ah

Pete Buttigieg 37:01 ... to be having an effect.

Trevor Noah 37:02 There you go. Yes.

Pete Buttigieg 37:02 So of course, periodically you have these elections, that's the kind of ultimate check on some-

Trevor Noah 37:06 Mm-hmm

Pete Buttigieg 37:06 ... on power, assuming the elections take place appropriately. But in the meantime, some stuff that sounds very old-fashioned, like getting in the streets or calling your member of Congress, matters. You can tell it matters because of, uh, what happened at these town halls, where a lot of people-

Trevor Noah 37:22 Yes

Pete Buttigieg 37:22 ... especially when the Republicans were cutting Medicaid, a lot of people went to the town halls and said, "If you cut Medicaid to give tax cuts to wealthy people, it's gonna do this to me, and I'm pissed."

Trevor Noah 37:31 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 37:32 And it mattered enough that, uh, a lot of these members either stopped doing the town halls completely-

Trevor Noah 37:36 Mm-hmm, mm

Pete Buttigieg 37:37 ... or had these moments that showed that that really shook them, right? So I think that we need to get more in the habit of flexing political muscle offline.

Trevor Noah 37:46 As citizens.

Pete Buttigieg 37:47 Not just-

Trevor Noah 37:48 Mm-hmm

Pete Buttigieg 37:48 ... on our, you know, on our smartphones. But yeah, as citizens in a very real IRL human 3D format. And the, the other thing I would say, back to our thing about culture, is that a lot of the, the kind of battlefield of ideas in politics is inside people's social circles and their families.

Trevor Noah 38:07 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 38:08 And I wonder if actually because it's so easy for us to spout off on politics online, we're actually less likely to have a hard political conversation with someone we know or care about.

Trevor Noah 38:18 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 38:19 But those are the people you can actually move, right? Like, we, we know time and time again, we've seen, like, people's hearts and minds change when somebody they already know and trust shapes the way they think about something. And I th- I worry that we might be doing less of that in a moment-

Trevor Noah 38:35 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 38:35 ... where we need to be doing more.

Trevor Noah 38:36 Yeah, interpersonal mobilization.

Pete Buttigieg 38:38 Absolutely.

Trevor Noah 38:38 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 38:39 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 38:39 Mm.

Trevor Noah 38:40 You know, it's funny, I, I think of it less as changing people's minds, and I think of it more as just being around people who change you and how your mind works.

Pete Buttigieg 38:49 Mm.

Trevor Noah 38:49 Right.

38:50 Like, the reason I, I think of it is I remember reading a book about how the views and opinions that we hold are oftentimes more influenced by our locales and our location-

Pete Buttigieg 39:03 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 39:03 Right

39:04 ... than how we think we think.

Pete Buttigieg 39:05 Mm.

Trevor Noah 39:06 Right?

39:06 Mm-hmm.

39:07 And I, I remember f- I finished reading the book and I thought to myself, "Huh, maybe you're not conservative, you just live in a rural area."

Pete Buttigieg 39:14 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 39:14 Right.

39:15 "And maybe you're not actually liberal-

Pete Buttigieg 39:17 Yeah

Trevor Noah 39:17 ... you just live in a major metropolis."

Pete Buttigieg 39:20 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 39:20 And I'm not dismissing anybody's political views, but I think it's inevitable that if you move to a major city where there are more people who have come from more places, you're gonna be exposed. You're in New York, you're walking around, and you're like, "This is how I think men dress." Within the day you're like, "Well, I, maybe I don't know how men dress." And if you-

39:36 I've been resisting that.

39:37 Yeah. [laughs] When you're around it. But when you're around it enough-

39:40 Pete, I have been resisting.

39:42 [laughs]

39:43 'Cause I'm keeping my fashion sense until I leave. [laughs]

39:45 Stay here long enough.

39:46 I've seen what the men here

39:47 Stay here long enough, you'll see.

39:48 [laughs]

Pete Buttigieg 39:48 What, what are, what are your tools of resistance?

Trevor Noah 39:50 My wardrobe.

Pete Buttigieg 39:51 Oh.

Trevor Noah 39:51 [laughs]

39:52 [laughs]

Pete Buttigieg 39:52 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 39:53 But it's, but this is what I mean. So-

Pete Buttigieg 39:54 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 39:54 And, and, and you don't even realize it's happening to you. So-

Pete Buttigieg 39:57 Mm

Trevor Noah 39:57 ... like, you know, the Overton window is such a powerful thing in our lives.

40:00 Yeah, yeah.

40:00 Because it's where we perceive the, the bulk of reality to exist.

Pete Buttigieg 40:05 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 40:06 And then it shifts without us realizing it's shifting.

Pete Buttigieg 40:09 Totally.

Trevor Noah 40:09 So-

40:09 Wow

40:10 ... you look at yourself ... Like, beards are a good example.

Pete Buttigieg 40:12 Mm.

Trevor Noah 40:12 I remember a time, and I, I know I have a personal, you know, feeling to- and I'm, I will ex- I will say I'm biased. But I remember a time when a beard was considered the number one, um, indicator of your unprofessionalism.

Pete Buttigieg 40:26 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 40:26 Mm.

40:27 You could not be elected with a beard.

Pete Buttigieg 40:29 Mm.

Trevor Noah 40:29 You could not be on TV with a beard.

40:30 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 40:31 Mm.

Trevor Noah 40:31 You could not get an interview. People were like, "The dude with the beard."

40:34 Can't read the news with a beard.

Pete Buttigieg 40:36 Mm.

Trevor Noah 40:36 You can't read the news with a beard.

Pete Buttigieg 40:36 Interesting.

Trevor Noah 40:36 And then-

Pete Buttigieg 40:37 Huh

Trevor Noah 40:37 ... part of it is COVID.

Pete Buttigieg 40:39 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 40:40 You know, whatever it is, shifts in society, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, look at that. Oh, uh, that, that news anchor has a beard, oh, and that TV presenter has a beard.

Pete Buttigieg 40:48 Ah.

Trevor Noah 40:48 And your teacher has a beard. And, and then society doesn't realize that the Overton window of a beard has shifted. Same thing happened with tattoos, right?

Pete Buttigieg 40:55 Mm. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 40:55 There was a time when a tattoo was a great way to know who you shouldn't hire.

40:59 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 40:59 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 40:59 That's how people thought of it.

Pete Buttigieg 41:00 Mm.

Trevor Noah 41:00 Oh, tattoo.

Pete Buttigieg 41:01 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 41:01 I guess we're not hiring you.

Pete Buttigieg 41:02 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 41:03 And then now, a tattoo almost means nothing.

Pete Buttigieg 41:06 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 41:06 It's like it's not ... It, it, it is not a signifier that tells you about how somebody does or doesn't live their lives. Not that it ever was.

41:12 Yeah.

41:12 But now it definitely isn't, even in society's view, for the most part.

Pete Buttigieg 41:15 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 41:16 And so when, when I think about these things, and I think about, like, the Overton window and-

Pete Buttigieg 41:20 Mm

Trevor Noah 41:20 ... and how it shifts in politics, I w- I wonder if you've thought about it on a local level versus a national level, because you, you are in an interesting position.

Pete Buttigieg 41:30 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 41:30 You were a mayor.

Pete Buttigieg 41:31 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 41:32 As a mayor, you're only trying to shape the lives of the people who are in the same town that you live in.

Pete Buttigieg 41:39 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 41:39 You know?

41:39 Mm.

41:40 We all know the streets. We all know that corner.

Pete Buttigieg 41:43 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 41:43 We all know that shop.

Pete Buttigieg 41:44 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 41:44 Let's get something done. I would love to know how you think the nationali- nationalization of all politics has adversely or maybe beneficially affected politics in America because-

Pete Buttigieg 41:59 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 41:59 ... I'm, I'm assuming there's a big difference between what people need on the ground and what they're reading about as, like, national news.

Pete Buttigieg 42:05 Totally. I thrived on the fact when I was mayor that

Pete Buttigieg 42:09 our work was distant from what was going on in Washington-

Trevor Noah 42:14 Oh, okay

Pete Buttigieg 42:14 ... or national politics.

Trevor Noah 42:15 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 42:16 And I think that's one of the reasons, without ever concealing where I was, that I was a Democrat, that I was more progressive than probably most people in my city, I had, you know, e- before I became more of a national figure, I had, like, equal approval rating among Republicans, Democrats, and independents in the city.

Trevor Noah 42:32 Oh, wow.

Pete Buttigieg 42:32 Because they weren't ... They just wanted to know if I was gonna get the trash picked up.

Trevor Noah 42:35 Yes.

Pete Buttigieg 42:35 And are we gonna-

Trevor Noah 42:36 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 42:36 ... like, grow the local economy.

Trevor Noah 42:37 Yes.

Pete Buttigieg 42:37 You know, what were we doing about these, this blocking and tackling, like, basic things to take care of the city. And so I guess to your question, I'd say it's one, in one way easier, in one way harder. The, the way that it was easier was we were all operating from pretty consistent- Sense of the facts.

Trevor Noah 42:56 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 42:57 So if there was a hole in the road, as the mayor, I couldn't be like, "That's the best road ever. There's no holes in it." And-

Trevor Noah 43:04 Yeah, there's a pothole

Pete Buttigieg 43:04 ... you know, like people could see, and they'd be like, "There's a hole in the road. What are you gonna do about it?" Right? If something was good or something was bad, people could just tell. And so there was much less of a contest over what the facts were.

Trevor Noah 43:14 Wow. Yes.

Pete Buttigieg 43:15 And much more of a contest of, given these facts, what are you gonna do about it?

Trevor Noah 43:17 What you gonna do about it?

Pete Buttigieg 43:18 Right?

Trevor Noah 43:18 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 43:19 There's the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Trevor Noah 43:20 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 43:20 And the ugly was we had, because we'd been a factory town, we had acres of collapsing auto factories everywhere.

Trevor Noah 43:27 Interesting. Damn.

Pete Buttigieg 43:27 And vacant and abandoned houses everywhere,

Pete Buttigieg 43:30 and you couldn't escape it. You couldn't pretend otherwise. And so what was easier was we at least had the same reality.

Trevor Noah 43:36 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 43:37 Uh, compared to nationally, where ... I mean, you can tell, like the way, like the way Donald Trump talks about American cities-

Trevor Noah 43:42 Yes

Pete Buttigieg 43:43 ... he's clearly just using his imagination.

Trevor Noah 43:45 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 43:45 Right? This is not based on any experience of what it's actually like.

Trevor Noah 43:48 Yeah, or maybe-

Pete Buttigieg 43:49 To be in these cities

Trevor Noah 43:49 ... it's social media feed. 'Cause I think we take for granted how much that man is on social media.

Pete Buttigieg 43:53 Totally.

Trevor Noah 43:53 Do you know what I mean?

Pete Buttigieg 43:54 Totally. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 43:54 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 43:55 Now, here's the way it's harder. It's harder because if you're trying to pry open an O- Overton Window, the more that the reality you're trying to describe that's different is kind of in somebody's face, I think the harder it is to picture something different. I, I, I can try to open somebody's Overton Window, and I have, about changing the electoral college.

Trevor Noah 44:13 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 44:13 Like, I talked about that when I was running for president, which probably not the smartest thing to do in New Hampshire.

Trevor Noah 44:17 [laughs]

Pete Buttigieg 44:18 And I definitely didn't think that that was gonna, like, happen in five years, but I just think, like, I should lay down a marker from the earliest in my career till the end about that being important and try to, like, push, push, push, so like one day 20 years from now, maybe we will fix it. But when you're asking people to look around the vacant and abandoned houses in their neighborhood or look at the abandoned factory downtown-

Trevor Noah 44:41 Mm-hmm

Pete Buttigieg 44:41 ... and say with a straight face, "It doesn't have to be this way. We can change it."

Trevor Noah 44:46 Wow.

Pete Buttigieg 44:46 "If you trust me, I will change it."

Trevor Noah 44:47 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 44:48 "Give me a chance."

Trevor Noah 44:49 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 44:50 Um, that can require even more of a, a push on the imagination than I want it when I'm talking in abstract terms about what we might want our country to be like.

Trevor Noah 44:59 Okay.

Pete Buttigieg 44:59 Right?

Trevor Noah 45:00 Yeah, that makes sense.

Pete Buttigieg 45:00 But I think the other thing that's at stake in what you're saying is, um, a kind of a humility about what we believe. Like, I passionately believe in all of the things that I passionately believe in.

Trevor Noah 45:11 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 45:11 By definition, I think I'm, I think I'm right about the things I, I believe. But I recognize that if I were born in a different family and raised in a different community-

Trevor Noah 45:21 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 45:21 ... and soaked up different values-

Trevor Noah 45:22 Mm-hmm

Pete Buttigieg 45:22 ... I would probably think differently about a whole bunch of things. And that's just a basic thing that's definitely true about how we all form our political values. And yet there's even less room to show regard for that now than there's ever been because instead of a news story, and I ... Now I sound like a grumpy old timer, but I can say, like, I grew up in a time when the way I learned the news was I watched a TV bit or read an article, and that article on a controversial issue contained the perspectives of the two different sides.

Trevor Noah 46:00 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 46:01 Whatever it was, abortion, taxes, you know. And it's not that I read both sides and wound up in the middle. Like, maybe I read both sides, and seeing the other side made me feel my side even more strongly.

Trevor Noah 46:12 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 46:13 Or maybe not. Maybe the other side made me stop and think, but the point is you would think about it. Now I have a feed, and what does the feed give me? Gives me two things. Here's this person I already like

Pete Buttigieg 46:24 doing something that, that looks good-

Trevor Noah 46:26 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 46:27 ... and reminds me why they're amazing.

Trevor Noah 46:28 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 46:29 And here's this person I already don't like doing something which reminds me why I don't like them.

Trevor Noah 46:33 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 46:33 And that's it. Right? And I think it, it, it makes it that much harder for us to have any humility about why we are where we are on the political spectrum and, and, and why we believe what we believe about what ought to happen next.

Trevor Noah 46:47 Yeah. I think as you separate communities, that becomes the first thing. Like, we had, um, Robert Putnam on the podcast-

Pete Buttigieg 46:54 Mm

Trevor Noah 46:54 ... a while ago, and he wrote that amazing book, Bowling Alone.

Pete Buttigieg 46:57 Yes.

Trevor Noah 46:57 And the fundamental ... I mean, you, you're familiar with it, but for those who don't know, the fundamental premise of the book was he wanted to study why some societies work and why some don't, and when he was in Italy, where he was studying it, he came to realize that in Italy, which is a relatively small country-

Pete Buttigieg 47:14 Mm

Trevor Noah 47:14 ... especially in, like, in size itself, he saw that some towns and cities were doing particularly well, and people trusted the government. They engaged in the government, and there was low levels of corruption. And this is what interested me 'cause, you know, from our country, I, uh [laughs] I was thinking. I was like, "Why is corruption worse or better in some places?" And he found one of the most interesting correlations, and it was just about how strong

Trevor Noah 47:40 community bonds were.

Pete Buttigieg 47:41 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 47:41 So in places where there were still church choirs and community bowls and clubs, whether it was coffee-

Pete Buttigieg 47:49 Social clubs

Trevor Noah 47:49 ... or debate. Social clubs.

Pete Buttigieg 47:51 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 47:51 He found was the biggest correlation-

Pete Buttigieg 47:54 Interesting

Trevor Noah 47:54 ... between how the thing worked. And then when he brought it to America, he almost instantly found it was, it was true.

Pete Buttigieg 48:00 Mm.

Trevor Noah 48:01 Where people had bowling clubs is where they generally were less polarized-

Pete Buttigieg 48:05 Mm

Trevor Noah 48:05 ... and where they had more community, and they, they, they, they moved in unison in a different way. Didn't mean- It doesn't mean they all had the same view.

Pete Buttigieg 48:11 Mm.

Trevor Noah 48:12 But he found it was because you had spaces where people could sit together, not coming to talk about politics, but because of the in-between time, would just talk about things-

Pete Buttigieg 48:22 Yeah

Trevor Noah 48:22 ... that might be political. So they would say, to your point-

Pete Buttigieg 48:25 Mm

Trevor Noah 48:25 ... "Hey, man, you see that hole in the road? What's been going on?"

Pete Buttigieg 48:28 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 48:28 Another person goes like, "Well, I heard, uh, this guy Mayor Pete says he's gonna fix ... What do you think of that guy?"

Pete Buttigieg 48:32 Mm.

Trevor Noah 48:32 "I don't know, man. What do you think? What do you think?" But because you know me and I know you and we're bowling together-

Pete Buttigieg 48:37 Mm

Trevor Noah 48:37 ... we're more likely to form opinions that are-

Pete Buttigieg 48:41 Yeah

Trevor Noah 48:41 ... shaped by the collective as opposed to individually, and it's less of an echo chamber.

Pete Buttigieg 48:44 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 48:45 Right? And that made me rethink everything. I even started, quote-unquote, "judging America less" because I went, "Maybe America's not polarized. Maybe America's just isolated."

Pete Buttigieg 48:56 You know? And he shows it, like, starts with TV.

Trevor Noah 48:58 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 48:59 He goes, "As soon as TV came, people just stopped hanging out, and when they stopped hanging out, that's where you start to see the split in American politics." And I was like, oh, man, what if it's not that people don't get along, it's just that people don't hang out?

Trevor Noah 49:11 Yeah. I- I also think, uh, COVID played a big part in exposing people's vulnerabilities.

Pete Buttigieg 49:15 You're not wrong.

Trevor Noah 49:16 I think the rise of the n- of, of the political strongman, which, in most cases,

Trevor Noah 49:20 would be called a dictator before-

Pete Buttigieg 49:21 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 49:22 ... has become more prevalent. We see it now-

Pete Buttigieg 49:24 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 49:24 ... with countries that we won't mention their names, and we know them.

Pete Buttigieg 49:26 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 49:26 And India [coughs] and South Africa. So we know those countries, and the strongman is, is ... And I think it makes sense now, 'cause I've been battling with this question, is why councilors locally and municipal managers and mayors are not taken seriously-

Pete Buttigieg 49:43 Right

Trevor Noah 49:43 ... is because people think there's an overlord somewhere-

Pete Buttigieg 49:45 Yeah

Trevor Noah 49:45 ... that can effect change-

Pete Buttigieg 49:46 Oh, interesting

Trevor Noah 49:46 ... immediately.

Pete Buttigieg 49:47 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 49:47 Then you go, "No, don't worry about him."

Pete Buttigieg 49:48 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 49:48 "He probably doesn't even know there's a pothole in this street, but I do." But people have looked at the world now, like I said.

Pete Buttigieg 49:54 Right.

Trevor Noah 49:54 People would have assumed before-

Pete Buttigieg 49:56 Yeah

Trevor Noah 49:56 ... that a Putin, a Zelenskyy, a Trump, or Ramaphosa, whoever in Africa, would've been a dictator 10 years ago.

Pete Buttigieg 50:01 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 50:02 But since now, it looks like if he's a strongman and he's rolling with strongmen, it looks like we're safe, generally, as a population. But I also think, [sighs] I think people generally, as voters, have lost hope in the system.

Pete Buttigieg 50:15 Mm.

Trevor Noah 50:16 I, I see it every time. I see when people go, "Ah, what can we do?"

Pete Buttigieg 50:18 I think that's true everywhere.

Trevor Noah 50:19 That, that phrase-

Trevor Noah 50:20 Yeah ... is, is very prevalent everywhere now when you travel the world.

Pete Buttigieg 50:22 I think that's true everywhere, yeah.

Trevor Noah 50:23 "What can we do?"

Pete Buttigieg 50:24 Hmm. But in a democratic, even a complicated democratic society like ours, I think the answer comes back on us.

Trevor Noah 50:32 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 50:32 Like, if there's something wrong, either with an individual policy in our system or with the system itself, we're responsible, 'cause who else is gonna, right?

Trevor Noah 50:44 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 50:44 I mean, it's either the strongman-

Trevor Noah 50:46 Mm-hmm

Pete Buttigieg 50:46 ... or it's us. And if it's us, if the entire ... And, and I would argue, I have a very different view of what it means to be American than people like JD Vance. My view is what it means to be an American has a lot to do with this civic structure we created, this democratic structure we have. Um-

Trevor Noah 51:01 Go deeper into that.

Pete Buttigieg 51:03 Well, one way to think of it is this. The fact that we have a word un-American-

Trevor Noah 51:08 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 51:08 ... which gets abused and, and, and, and, um, used as a weapon. But the fact that we even have that word-

Trevor Noah 51:15 Hmm

Pete Buttigieg 51:15 ... is telling, because I don't know what you could do to be un-French-

Trevor Noah 51:21 South African

Pete Buttigieg 51:21 ... or un-South African.

Trevor Noah 51:22 Yeah, we don't, we don't-

Pete Buttigieg 51:22 Unghanese

Trevor Noah 51:23 ... we generally don't have that as a thing.

Pete Buttigieg 51:25 Yeah. And I think what it signals is we believe that actually a certain set, a, a certain creed. I mean, the Declaration, right? The things that are in there. Not some ethno-national affinity, but the creed is what makes America America. Of course, we came out of a specific place and, and, and have a specific story and heritage and a s- certain land mass, obviously, but that's not what

Pete Buttigieg 51:47 makes America America.

Trevor Noah 51:48 Right.

Pete Buttigieg 51:48 What makes America America is our fidelity to this national experiment in democracy-

Trevor Noah 51:54 Right

Pete Buttigieg 51:54 ... that we've been running for 249 years.

Trevor Noah 51:57 Right.

Pete Buttigieg 51:58 And it follows from that, that, that all of us, just in as much as we are Americans, have some responsibility toward that in a way that I think is just different than the way you would say somebody in any other c- or other countries I can think of-

Trevor Noah 52:11 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 52:11 ... you know, uh, relate to their country. Um, and so I, I, I just think it, it's too easy of an out to say, "Ah, what can we do?" Um, we're in charge. Like, we the people, collectively-

Trevor Noah 52:24 Mm

Pete Buttigieg 52:24 ... are in charge.

Trevor Noah 52:25 What threat does the strongman pose to those ideals? Like, it almost feels like everywhere we have spoken about a strongman, people have voted for an Andrew Tate to be a president.

Pete Buttigieg 52:34 Yeah. It's bad. And I think the threat is all of these commitments, all of these freedoms that we care about-

Trevor Noah 52:43 Mm

Pete Buttigieg 52:44 ... by the time everybody wakes up and sees that they're gone, it's too late. And this happens. I mean, when strongmen come to power in elections, when they don't just emerge as figures but then actually win an election-

Trevor Noah 52:54 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 52:55 ... very hard to get them out.

Trevor Noah 52:57 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 52:58 I mean, history has shown that again and again and again. And so I think the challenge, especially for an opposition, is to do two things at once. We have to talk about those freedoms and that democratic commitment itself-

Trevor Noah 53:11 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 53:12 ... and talk about the things that are a little more immediate in people's lives, because the other thing we have learned, definitely, the hard way over the last 100 years, is that these authoritarian systems are systematically worse at taking care of your needs. At the end of the day, they will not help you be able to afford, uh, to, to buy a home. They will not help you-

Trevor Noah 53:29 Mm

Pete Buttigieg 53:30 ... get healthcare. They will not deliver these things as well, uh, because they don't have to be responsive to you.

Trevor Noah 53:36 They don't have to be responsive to you.

Pete Buttigieg 53:38 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 53:38 But I think that misses the point of what they're trying to do, actually.

Pete Buttigieg 53:41 Right. How do you mean?

Trevor Noah 53:43 I hear what you're saying, but the more I talk to people, the more I realize that some of the allure of the strongman, some of the allure of the populist, is not the fact that people actually think they're gonna fix it. Some people enjoy the fact that they're gonna break it for everyone.

Pete Buttigieg 53:57 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 53:58 Do you get what I'm saying?

Pete Buttigieg 53:59 Yes.

Trevor Noah 54:00 So there's people in South Africa-

Pete Buttigieg 54:01 If I can't have it, no one will

Trevor Noah 54:02 ... there's people in the UK-

Pete Buttigieg 54:03 Hmm

Trevor Noah 54:03 ... there's people in America-

Pete Buttigieg 54:04 Yeah

Trevor Noah 54:04 ... there's people in Brazil-

Pete Buttigieg 54:05 Hmm

Trevor Noah 54:05 ... there's people in wherever, where they go like-

Pete Buttigieg 54:07 Yeah

Trevor Noah 54:07 ... "No, no, no, no, no. I don't think that person's gonna fix it."

Pete Buttigieg 54:10 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 54:10 "But do you know what I like?"

Pete Buttigieg 54:11 Right.

Trevor Noah 54:11 "They're gonna break it for everyone."

Pete Buttigieg 54:12 It's almost like-

Trevor Noah 54:13 Hmm

Pete Buttigieg 54:13 ... being on their side means you're in on the joke.

Trevor Noah 54:15 Yeah, because they go-

Pete Buttigieg 54:16 Right?

Trevor Noah 54:16 They go, "Look, I was left behind."

Pete Buttigieg 54:18 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 54:18 "I was in that town that had, uh, cars that were being ... " You know, it was a manufacturing city.

Pete Buttigieg 54:23 Right.

Trevor Noah 54:23 "I was in that town that

Trevor Noah 54:25 had jobs. I was in that city that had this. I was ... And I don't have it. No one cares about me. No one looks at me. The news only pops up-

Pete Buttigieg 54:32 Yeah

Trevor Noah 54:32 ... when it's the next election and they're gonna ask my opinion. But no one's here for me."

Pete Buttigieg 54:36 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 54:36 "But now there's somebody who's gonna break all of it." And they go, "Look, I'm already living in the trash."

Pete Buttigieg 54:42 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 54:42 "You're gonna join me."

Pete Buttigieg 54:43 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 54:44 And I think that's sometimes what we forget. We, we always think of as a, as a logical push. We go like-

Pete Buttigieg 54:49 Hmm

Trevor Noah 54:49 ... "This person's not gonna help." Then they're like, "Yeah, I'm already homeless."

Pete Buttigieg 54:52 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 54:52 "I already don't have healthcare."

Pete Buttigieg 54:54 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 54:54 "I already don't have a job. My wages are already not keeping up, so I would like them to break it so that we're all on the same page." And I, I actually wonder if- That's something you look at. You know, when you talk about the Democrats now, there's a feeling that I hope you're aware of where a lot of people, and this isn't unique to, to the United States. When I was in the UK and I was talking to people who voted for the new government, now they go, "I mean, they're, they're useless."

Pete Buttigieg 55:19 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 55:19 That's what they go. They go, "We voted for this, this guy, and here's Keir Starmer and here's this, but they're useless."

Pete Buttigieg 55:24 Hm.

Trevor Noah 55:24 And the main thing that people say when, when I listen to them in different parts of the world, is they go, "It feels like liberals are selling an agenda that is beautiful on paper, but they're feckless when they get into power."

Pete Buttigieg 55:39 Hm.

Trevor Noah 55:39 They'll tell you about healthcare, they'll tell you about education, they'll tell you about jobs, but when they get in, they tell you about like, "Oh, you, you can't just do that overnight, and it's so hard and it's this and..."

Pete Buttigieg 55:47 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 55:47 And then they'll also tell you things like in America, for instance, "We gotta get the Republicans on board. We've gotta get them on board."

Pete Buttigieg 55:53 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 55:53 Obama, "No, no, no. I don't wanna do it myself. I gotta, I gotta wait for Mitch. Uh, Mitch has gotta come on board, you know, gotta get this thing." And it's like, well, why are you waiting?

Pete Buttigieg 56:00 Hm.

Trevor Noah 56:01 Then when Donald Trump comes in-

Pete Buttigieg 56:02 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 56:02 ... Donald Trump goes, "I'm not waiting for anybody."

Pete Buttigieg 56:04 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 56:05 Uh, uh, "I'm gonna shut down the border the way I said." Then they're like, "You're not allowed to." He's like, "Stop me. You try and stop me." And he goes and he does it. He goes, "I'm doing trade. I'm doing tariffs."

Pete Buttigieg 56:12 Hm.

Trevor Noah 56:12 "You can't do tar..." He's like, "Bring your courts. I'm gonna do the thing."

Pete Buttigieg 56:15 Hm.

Trevor Noah 56:16 And whether or not you support Donald Trump or not-

Pete Buttigieg 56:19 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 56:19 ... you can't deny that people see that and go, "Now-"

Pete Buttigieg 56:22 It is possible

Trevor Noah 56:23 ... he does the thing that he said he's gonna do, and it may not have the effect that people have promised, and he may not help the people he said he's gonna promise-

Pete Buttigieg 56:29 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 56:29 ... and your taxes are gonna, are gonna hurt

Pete Buttigieg 56:31 It creates the impression of being decisive and action.

Trevor Noah 56:33 That's exactly what I mean. And so I wonder if like the Democrats internally-

Pete Buttigieg 56:37 Yeah

Trevor Noah 56:37 ... are you guys having a conversation about how there is a perception-

Pete Buttigieg 56:42 Hm

Trevor Noah 56:42 ... that you just don't like do a thing?

Pete Buttigieg 56:45 Hm.

Trevor Noah 56:45 It, it feels like you guys are very good at like, you know, the homework side of it and what-

Pete Buttigieg 56:48 He made everyone look like a bureaucrat.

Trevor Noah 56:49 He did, actually. You're not wrong.

Pete Buttigieg 56:51 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 56:51 He did make everyone look like a bureaucrat.

Pete Buttigieg 56:52 Yeah. Yeah, I think we need to be able to demonstrate how your life gets different materially and rather quickly if we're in charge instead of them.

Trevor Noah 57:00 Right. Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 57:01 And part of that's standing up to what they're doing that's wrong. It's like you are gonna lose your healthcare or pay more in your premiums like now. People are paying more in their premiums now because turns out he doesn't care about you, and he's taking the money, and he's giving it to the wealthy. But it's not enough to just point out, poke holes in what they're doing.

Trevor Noah 57:17 Yeah. Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 57:17 We have to be able to say, "Look, if you put us in, and you

Pete Buttigieg 57:20 give us enough political room to implement this agenda, here's what we're gonna deliver for you." And I think it's a good list, like the list of things we wanna deliver, like higher wages, more housing, paid family leave. This is something every country has except us.

Trevor Noah 57:37 Wow. But let's po- let's pause on one, like a few, let's just pause on the housing one, for instance.

Pete Buttigieg 57:42 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 57:42 One of the criticisms that I think a lot of people correctly level at the Democrats is they go, "There are states where Democrats are ruling from top to bottom. Why do they have some of the worst housing crisis in America?"

Pete Buttigieg 57:55 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 57:55 Like, "Why do they have some of the highest house- homeless populations? Why do they..."

Pete Buttigieg 57:58 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 57:58 You know what I mean?

Pete Buttigieg 57:59 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 57:59 So it's like, I think that's the thing that a lot of people-

Pete Buttigieg 58:03 Struggling

Trevor Noah 58:03 ... butt up against-

Pete Buttigieg 58:04 Yeah

Trevor Noah 58:04 ... is they go, "I..." No one is against housing.

Pete Buttigieg 58:07 No.

Trevor Noah 58:07 No one will say, "I don't want housing for people." No one is against, but I think the question people will ask is they'll go, "Yes, beyond the promise, why does it seem like..." And again, this is why I'm-

Pete Buttigieg 58:16 Yeah

Trevor Noah 58:16 ... I'm not in all the states.

Pete Buttigieg 58:17 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 58:18 But some might ask you, they might go like, "But, but Pete Buttigieg, why does it seem like-

Pete Buttigieg 58:23 Yeah

Trevor Noah 58:23 ... the Democrats aren't able to do this thing in the state where they're running all of the-

Pete Buttigieg 58:27 Already

Trevor Noah 58:27 ... all the levers?"

Pete Buttigieg 58:28 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 58:28 "Why can't they get housing going? Why can't they get better schools going? Why, like-"

Pete Buttigieg 58:31 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 58:32 "What, what's your response to them in that situation?"

Pete Buttigieg 58:33 There's so many, there's so many different answers that are all true and that are important. One is that, yes, like sometimes we just get in our own way. I mean, I saw that with a kind of a, it's kind of a proceduralism, a kind of a fetish for, for process.

Trevor Noah 58:45 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 58:45 That all these processes that are there for good reason, but the result has been a federal government. I felt this when I was trying to build things around the country-

Trevor Noah 58:52 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 58:53 ... as a, as, as transportation secretary. The process is more set up to stop a project from going wrong-

Trevor Noah 59:00 Mm-hmm

Pete Buttigieg 59:01 ... than to make sure the project happens, period.

Trevor Noah 59:02 Mm. Oh, okay.

Pete Buttigieg 59:03 Right?

Trevor Noah 59:04 Okay.

Pete Buttigieg 59:04 And there's, so there's so many checks that by the end, it's taken so many years that it's doubled in cost, and you can't get it done.

Trevor Noah 59:09 Hm.

Pete Buttigieg 59:09 Now, sometimes we were able to get through that. Other times it was really tough. So that's real. Um, but another way to answer the question is to point to the places where we are getting results or did get results, either locally or nationally. And I think because we are doing a healthy process of questioning some of our own policies and, and, and, um, habits, sometimes missing the fact that we also need to vigorously defend the things that we got right, and that's true at the local level where you have, um, Denver, where there's Mayor Mike Johnson, who has gotten extraordinary results on housing-

Trevor Noah 59:41 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 59:42 ... in a way that mixes compassion for people experiencing homelessness with the need to make sure that it is safe and clean on the streets.

Trevor Noah 59:48 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 59:49 And expanding just the affordability and access to housing. Or-

Trevor Noah 59:53 DC had a great-

Pete Buttigieg 59:54 Um, I think real progress

Trevor Noah 59:55 ... like more houses per capita than Texas was building

Pete Buttigieg 59:57 Um, or on something like safety, you know, a place like Boston-

Trevor Noah 1:00:02 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:00:02 ... where they got the low... One of the reasons it didn't work when Republicans tried to bring in Michelle Wu to a committee and kind of beat her up on public safety was the lowest murder rate in 75 years. So she can explain, like, "Here's how we got that done." But there's also a, a third set of answers that's also true that has to do with all the ways that, uh, when Democrats came to power, they were still stopped by Republicans, right? And the question is, is the answer to that that you just blow through the way Trump is? Well, the, the truth is, no Democrat in my lifetime has amassed that kind of power. Um, and-

Trevor Noah 1:00:37 What do you mean, what do you mean by that?

Pete Buttigieg 1:00:39 Well, first of all, the total power over government, right? Because the courts and the Congress are unwilling to constrain him even when they know he's doing something wrong.

Trevor Noah 1:00:48 Okay. Got it.

Pete Buttigieg 1:00:49 Right?

Trevor Noah 1:00:50 So, so you're-

Pete Buttigieg 1:00:51 And that didn't just randomly happen

Trevor Noah 1:00:52 ... you're basically saying like Trump has everyone in line really.

Pete Buttigieg 1:00:54 Totally.

Trevor Noah 1:00:54 Not, not just amassing the power, but he has, he has the power in line with him.

Pete Buttigieg 1:00:57 Absolutely.

Trevor Noah 1:00:58 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:00:58 Right. The problem is you say that, and then it starts to sound attractive to some people. Like, great, all we need is to do that on our side. We just need to have somebody, uh, some Democrat who's willing to break all the laws and have total control over, you know, all government-

Trevor Noah 1:01:08 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:01:08 ... and then we'll do our stuff, and that's not the right answer. Because sometimes the rule of law is part of what we're trying to protect [chuckles] itself, in addition to the things that it, that it might shape or stop. But look, the appeal of the strongman is always, I'm gonna get results. I mean, Mussolini's, you know-

Trevor Noah 1:01:23 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:01:23 ... I'm gonna make the trains run on time. Which by the way, importantly, he didn't Uh, he did not succeed in making the trains run on time, but he built that reputation.

Trevor Noah 1:01:31 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:01:32 Right? Um.

Trevor Noah 1:01:32 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:01:33 And so the other thing we have to do is really talk in terms of concrete results and show that they're related. If you have a corrupt, uh, government.

Trevor Noah 1:01:40 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:01:40 If you have a corrupt president-

Trevor Noah 1:01:41 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:01:42 ... who's making money on crypto or accepting jumbo jets from emirs or whatever it is, that actually winds up being related to the fact that your healthcare premium just went up. 'Cause it means he's not accountable to anybody, and he can just do things that make that happen.

Trevor Noah 1:01:57 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:01:57 It's related to the fact you're under 65, and you're going in for a COVID shot, and you can't get one. Like, I actually think that's related. You know, obviously, in the, in the immediate sense that's 'cause RFK, uh, did that, uh, change the eligibility for, for, for people. But in a way that's related to an administration that doesn't think it has to answer to anybody.

Trevor Noah 1:02:14 Sure.

Pete Buttigieg 1:02:14 And an administration that doesn't have to answer to anybody is also going to leave us weak and unprepared in the face of the things that we're actually, uh, that are gonna change everything. This is where I think about AI all the time.

Trevor Noah 1:02:26 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:02:27 Like, we have an education secretary who has given speeches referring to what she calls A1, which means she's unaware that the acronym is AI.

Trevor Noah 1:02:39 Oh, no.

Pete Buttigieg 1:02:39 That's, she's, she-

Trevor Noah 1:02:40 No, I think she's reading a speech and says like-

Pete Buttigieg 1:02:42 A1

Trevor Noah 1:02:42 ... "When A1 comes into our lives."

Pete Buttigieg 1:02:44 "We gotta make sure that we're dealing with, like, the implications of A1 in our schools." Something like that.

Trevor Noah 1:02:48 Ugh.

1:02:49 Secretary-

Pete Buttigieg 1:02:49 Which means she doesn't-

Trevor Noah 1:02:50 ... of Education

Pete Buttigieg 1:02:51 ... know what, that it's AI, which means she doesn't know that it stands for artificial intelligence.

Trevor Noah 1:02:55 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:02:55 Which means she's unaware of the most important development affecting US education since the invention of the pencil.

Trevor Noah 1:03:01 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:03:01 And I think that's related to the corruption, uh, of the president because in a system of healthy checks and balances, uh, y- the moment that happened, the president would be shamed into replacing that person.

Trevor Noah 1:03:11 Ah, they would be.

Pete Buttigieg 1:03:12 Right?

Trevor Noah 1:03:13 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:03:14 So these things are related. The challenge for my party is to talk about them at the same time.

Trevor Noah 1:03:20 It seems like an, not a, not a, not an unscalable mountain, but it, you know, it's, it's, it's so interesting to hear these things. Here's what's, here's what's always got me is, when I look at South Africa and its issues and many small, smaller countries in terms of, like, their GDP and, and what they actually have going, I go, "Man, I understand why this developing nation is experiencing what they're experiencing."

Pete Buttigieg 1:03:46 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:03:47 What always shocks me is how America will have third-world problems with a First-world budget.

Pete Buttigieg 1:03:52 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:03:53 That always blows my mind. Like, I'm shocked that the issues Americans have are the same issues that South Africans have-

Pete Buttigieg 1:03:59 Hmm

Trevor Noah 1:03:59 ... with the budget that America has.

Pete Buttigieg 1:04:02 I think there's one word that explains most of it, if

Pete Buttigieg 1:04:05 not all of it, and the word is inequality.

Trevor Noah 1:04:08 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:04:08 So there's so much research that shows even if you take two countries that have the same average GDP.

Trevor Noah 1:04:15 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:04:16 The same general level of development. The one that has a higher level of inequality will have more, will have worse outcomes-

Trevor Noah 1:04:24 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:04:24 ... on everything from violence to public health, even on average.

Trevor Noah 1:04:27 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:04:28 And you mentioned Robert Putnam, uh, famously wrote Bowling Alone. Uh, he wrote another book, co-wrote another book that's less famous called The Upswing, which basically the whole book is written around, uh, a chart that is the, the level

Pete Buttigieg 1:04:44 of inequality in this country. And you can see all of these, they kind of, if you start the clock in the '40s or even in the '60s, you see a comparatively more equal society, and then you see it go more and more unequal-

Trevor Noah 1:04:58 Hmm

Pete Buttigieg 1:04:58 ... until you have this explosion of inequality that we're living with now. And you can correlate all these other developing world problems that we seem to have here around social instability-

Trevor Noah 1:05:08 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:05:09 ... and violence and health. All of them get worse pretty much on the same trajectory-

Trevor Noah 1:05:15 Mm-hmm

Pete Buttigieg 1:05:15 ... as the inequality gets worse.

Trevor Noah 1:05:16 Right.

Pete Buttigieg 1:05:18 And then, of course, it becomes self-reinforcing because y- the more you have the, that economic inequality, the more you start to have inequality in power.

Trevor Noah 1:05:24 Yep.

Pete Buttigieg 1:05:25 And that can be used to reinforce the conditions that lead to the economic inequality.

Trevor Noah 1:05:29 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:05:30 And this is yet another reason why I think we're not paying enough attention to AI. Everybody's paying attention to AI as, as tech.

Trevor Noah 1:05:35 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:05:36 But I think we need to pay more attention to AI as a question of political economy because it can do one of two things. It can either create so much wealth that there is enough to go around, and all of us could have a four-day workweek and more money in our pocket, and it could alleviate inequality.

Trevor Noah 1:05:54 Right.

Pete Buttigieg 1:05:55 Both by finding the right way to share the, the dollars and cents wealth that it creates, and by taking the, the benefits of it in terms of, like, a level of tutoring that-

Trevor Noah 1:06:06 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:06:07 ... up until now has only been available to a wealthy kid.

Trevor Noah 1:06:09 Yeah, yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:06:09 And now you just get it from a-

Trevor Noah 1:06:10 That's, that's the dream, right?

1:06:10 Yeah.

1:06:11 That's the dream.

1:06:11 That's it.

Pete Buttigieg 1:06:11 That's one way things could unfold. The other way things could unfold is it makes these inequalities

Pete Buttigieg 1:06:19 of wealth and power even more extreme. It concentrates the wealth into the hands of the people who have the means, not just to start these tech companies, but to own the physical plant, you know, the computers and the, and the, and the land and the energy that goes into them.

Trevor Noah 1:06:32 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:06:33 And they're making all the money. Uh, and, you know, more, uh, wealthy and established and powerful players have more control over the AI, and it unfolds that way. Like, one of those two things is gonna happen, and the decision over which of those two things happen, in my opinion, is mostly not a technology decision. It's a political decision.

Trevor Noah 1:06:52 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:06:53 Set of policy decisions about what we do next.

Trevor Noah 1:06:56 Yeah. It's, uh, it's similar to what they discussed a while ago in, it was either in Sweden or it was in Finland, one of the two, and they basically discussed taxing robots in a factory.

Pete Buttigieg 1:07:10 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:07:10 And people at the time, you know, especially outside of those countries, were like, "That's crazy. How can you tax a robot? How can you..." And they went, "No, no, no, nothing is crazy here." Because remember, we have to go down to the fundamental principle of what tax is trying to do and how it's trying to do it.

Pete Buttigieg 1:07:24 Yes.

Trevor Noah 1:07:24 Right? And when you start thinking of laws through that lens, you start to realize That every law is crazy until it's a law.

Pete Buttigieg 1:07:31 Yes.

Trevor Noah 1:07:32 Mm-hmm. Do you know what I mean?

Pete Buttigieg 1:07:33 It's a wild idea.

Trevor Noah 1:07:33 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:07:34 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:07:34 Like, even the idea of weekends wasn't a thing.

Pete Buttigieg 1:07:36 Mm-hmm. Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:07:37 You used to work every single day of the week.

Pete Buttigieg 1:07:38 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:07:38 And then at some point, unions

Trevor Noah 1:07:40 fought and were like, "Man, we gotta take days off." Now-

Pete Buttigieg 1:07:42 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:07:42 ... the idea that you wouldn't work, that you would work seven days a week is now the crazy idea.

Pete Buttigieg 1:07:46 Right.

Trevor Noah 1:07:46 And so I think, I think that's, that's the question is, like, what are we able to do that seems crazy now?

Pete Buttigieg 1:07:52 Yes.

Trevor Noah 1:07:52 That could define the new normal tomorrow. And that sort of makes me think of all the, the, the, the people running for office in some way, shape, or form who are Democrats, who are very progressive, and are doing really well, right?

Pete Buttigieg 1:08:05 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:08:05 New York City right now, Zohran Mamdani. Like, you can say what you want about the feasibility or not-

Pete Buttigieg 1:08:13 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:08:13 ... of his plans and ideas, 'cause everyone can poke holes in everyone's-

Pete Buttigieg 1:08:16 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:08:16 ... feasibilities, right? But the, the movement behind him.

Pete Buttigieg 1:08:20 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:08:21 People on the ground, Black, white, young, old, you name it, saying, well, not rich. But everyone else going-

Pete Buttigieg 1:08:28 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:08:28 ... "This guy?"

Pete Buttigieg 1:08:29 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:08:29 "I like what he's trying to do."

Pete Buttigieg 1:08:31 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:08:32 And, and you see them mobilize behind him, you know? You, you see the Democratic Party having, having some of its lowest approval ratings in years, despite not being in power, which is rare in America.

Pete Buttigieg 1:08:42 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:08:42 But Bernie Sanders bringing out some of the biggest crowds he's ever brought out.

Pete Buttigieg 1:08:46 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:08:46 You know? And, and we, we, we talked to him about it on the podcast.

Pete Buttigieg 1:08:48 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:08:48 And I, I was wondering, like, from your perspective, as somebody who's been in an administration, has been very close to, like, the upper workings of the, of the Democratic Party, is there an internal reckoning with where the establishment Democrats sits?

Pete Buttigieg 1:09:03 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:09:04 And where it seems like the voters of the Democrats sit, because it seems like there's a big disconnect there.

Pete Buttigieg 1:09:08 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:09:08 Like Andrew Cuomo, for me, is the worst example of it. You say, "I'm a Democrat." You're a Democrat. Okay, let's go into a primary-

Pete Buttigieg 1:09:17 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:09:17 ... to see who the voters want.

Pete Buttigieg 1:09:18 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:09:18 The voters say, "We want Zohran Mamdani."

Pete Buttigieg 1:09:21 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:09:21 You then go, "All right. I guess I'm gonna run independently."

Pete Buttigieg 1:09:25 Independently. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:09:25 But it's like, wait, wait, what do you mean indep... That creates a-

Pete Buttigieg 1:09:28 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:09:28 ... distrust in a system as well, 'cause it's like-

Pete Buttigieg 1:09:30 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:09:30 ... but you said you were a Democrat. No, no, no.

Pete Buttigieg 1:09:32 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:09:32 I only said that when I thought you'd vote for me. Now I'm an independent.

Pete Buttigieg 1:09:35 Right.

Trevor Noah 1:09:35 So now you're an independent supported by Trump. Were you ever a Democrat then?

Pete Buttigieg 1:09:39 Mm. Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:09:40 Like, like, w- what-

Pete Buttigieg 1:09:40 Right

Trevor Noah 1:09:41 ... when you, when you're working, you know, internally when, when you're having these conversations, is there a reckoning with where the Democratic Party is and where its voters are?

Pete Buttigieg 1:09:49 Yeah, I think so. I mean, look, to be clear, there, there's not some, like, official meeting of all the Democrats that like-

Trevor Noah 1:09:55 There's not?

Pete Buttigieg 1:09:55 Or if there is, I'm not invited. But, um-

Trevor Noah 1:09:56 [laughs]

Pete Buttigieg 1:09:57 Uh, so I think these, these things happen in, like, a more diffuse way. But yeah, I think that conversation has to happen, and I think it's, it's playing out right now, because there's a lot of kind of muscle memory in the Democratic Party about, like, well, this happened, so we gotta do that, and here's what we're used to. But I think what you're describing, of going back to first principles and saying, "Okay, it doesn't have to be this way. What if we-"

Trevor Noah 1:10:21 Right

Pete Buttigieg 1:10:21 ... "start from scratch?" And I think the appeal of Mamdani, and I agree with some of the stuff, and I disagree with some of the stuff, but the point is he, he, he has aroused a sense of hope by saying we can solve these problems-

Trevor Noah 1:10:32 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:10:32 ... with big

Pete Buttigieg 1:10:33 ideas. And I s- the best leaders I see in the party, many of whom are on the left, but many of whom are, are more moderate. It's not about, it's not only about how left you are.

Trevor Noah 1:10:40 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:10:41 Yeah. But they have a level of imagination about what needs to happen that gets back to the first principles. See, the, the left likes to think that we're the intellectual ones, but I actually believe the right, over the last, like, 50 years, has been much more systematic-

Trevor Noah 1:10:59 Definitely

Pete Buttigieg 1:11:00 ... about connecting, like, big ideas, bold ideas, sometimes crazy ideas, through this process that gets them into the mainstream, finds politicians willing to, to, uh, give 'em a try. Pushes, pushes the Overton Window-

Trevor Noah 1:11:12 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:11:12 ... pushes the political system, until eventually that happens, and that's why they're able to sometimes ... I mean, demolishing the right to choose in this country, that was a 50-year project-

Trevor Noah 1:11:22 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:11:22 ... on their part, right? The stuff in Project 2025, it wasn't just a laundry list of crazy policy proposals. It was the result of a whole kind of apparatus doing very big, deep thinking-

Trevor Noah 1:11:34 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:11:34 ... most of which, of course, I, I think is horribly wrong. But they were really thinking about these things in a very basic way.

Trevor Noah 1:11:40 It feels like they have a room.

Pete Buttigieg 1:11:41 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:11:41 And then the Democrats don't.

Pete Buttigieg 1:11:43 Yeah, I mean, I think they are more-

Trevor Noah 1:11:44 Like, in a weird way, you just said-

Pete Buttigieg 1:11:45 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:11:45 ... there's not one room where all the Democrats meet in-

Pete Buttigieg 1:11:47 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:11:47 ... but it seems like the Republicans were like, "Hey, let's meet in a room-

Pete Buttigieg 1:11:49 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:11:49 ... and have, like, this collective idea that moves us." But, uh, but, but, but before we, we move on from that, give me an idea of, like, what you agree with on Zohran and what you don't agree with. I'd love to know, 'cause you were a mayor.

Pete Buttigieg 1:11:58 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:11:58 You know?

Pete Buttigieg 1:11:58 Right.

Trevor Noah 1:11:58 So you actually ran a city. So, like, give me something where you go like, "Oh, I agree with that."

Pete Buttigieg 1:12:02 Yeah, so I think, uh, I, I mean, first of all, just the, the focus on affordability.

Trevor Noah 1:12:06 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:12:06 Like, we have to prioritize that and make sure that, that you can afford to live in this city. Makes a ton of sense. I think the stuff he's talked about, uh, getting, uh, mental health resources out to crisis situations.

Trevor Noah 1:12:17 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:12:17 I don't think that means you get rid of the police. I think it means that you understand that the police are not the best, uh ... Uh, it's not even fair to the police to expect them to be the, the-

Trevor Noah 1:12:26 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:12:27 ... kind of first resort responder to a mental health-

Trevor Noah 1:12:29 Same reason police don't fight fires.

Pete Buttigieg 1:12:30 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:12:30 It's like, yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:12:31 Right, right.

Trevor Noah 1:12:31 It's just like, it's different.

Pete Buttigieg 1:12:32 And you-

Trevor Noah 1:12:32 Mental health crime is a different thing.

Pete Buttigieg 1:12:34 Completely.

Trevor Noah 1:12:34 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:12:34 And I think he's shown an understanding of that, right?

Trevor Noah 1:12:36 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:12:36 Other

Pete Buttigieg 1:12:37 things, I'm kind of skeptical of the, like, government grocery store concept. Um-

Trevor Noah 1:12:40 What, what, so you see, this is what I'm intrigued with. What is it about that? I'd love to know.

Pete Buttigieg 1:12:43 Because there are sets of things that should be done by government. Um, and then there are things that I think should be done by the private sector.

Trevor Noah 1:12:52 Okay.

Pete Buttigieg 1:12:52 And, uh, running a grocery store is a good example. I, I think the government needs to come in where there are these big collective action problems-

Trevor Noah 1:13:00 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:13:00 ... or founda- like, like basic research. Good example. So my favorite example of this is, is, is the iPhone, to talk about the deliver- the, the division of labor.

Trevor Noah 1:13:10 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:13:11 You know, like, I don't think the federal government could ever, like, design and sell a smartphone that you and I would wanna buy.

Trevor Noah 1:13:20 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:13:20 Like, I think only a company could do that.

Trevor Noah 1:13:23 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:13:23 To drive that level of innovation and use the competitive pressures of capitalism to fashion a product, uh, in that way that eventually becomes affordable for people, that's just, that's what companies do well.

Trevor Noah 1:13:37 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:13:38 If the federal government hadn't literally invented the internet, which no company or even consortium of companies could have done, like, that took f- taxpayer-funded public research to do

Trevor Noah 1:13:50 To create. Mm-hmm

Pete Buttigieg 1:13:50 ... if there's no internet, there's no smartphone. So w- the areas where I believe government le- needs to lean in more are areas where there's some, there's some reason to think that it, it will only work if government leans in.

Trevor Noah 1:14:06 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:14:06 I think that's true to a point in health insurance. Um, I'm not somebody who believes we should abolish any private health insurance, but I do think there needs to be a, a public opport- a public option, a public, we call it Medicare for all who want it

Trevor Noah 1:14:19 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:14:19 ... like, not Medicare whether you want it or not. But, like, especially if people are gonna keep changing jobs, like, you need benefits that, that aren't just dependent on your company that you work for, right? Um, but I'm not somebody who believes, like, every hospital and every health insurance system should be somebody who works for the government. Other situations, um, and this is why I was an aggressive regulator of airlines, I don't think we should have a government-run airline. Some countries do. I don't think that works. Um, but I also don't think the market for airlines is exactly, like, a healthy, normal, competitive market. Um, it's got huge barriers to entry. It's got, uh, all these things that help to explain why you only have a handful of airlines.

Trevor Noah 1:14:58 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:14:59 So the answer to me was, okay, this should be done by private companies, but the government should very energetically lean in and regulate those companies so that they-

Trevor Noah 1:15:07 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:15:07 ... can't abuse their customers.

Trevor Noah 1:15:09 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:15:09 And my sense is that when it gets to groceries, which is a highly competitive and very, very low profit margin business-

Trevor Noah 1:15:20 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:15:22 ... you're not gonna find some, like, market inefficiency because, like, grocers are, uh, have these, like, monopoly ri- especially in the city context.

Trevor Noah 1:15:30 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:15:30 Right?

Trevor Noah 1:15:30 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:15:30 Where there are so many different, um, so many different competitors. What I do believe in is, is, is making sure you have the right kind of subsidy structure so people can afford school.

Trevor Noah 1:15:39 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:15:39 You know, can af- can afford food. I just don't know that I would route that through the plumbing of a government-owned and operated store. But look, he wins. He gets the opportunity to, like, demonstrate ... Again, what I loved about being mayor was some ideas were popular in my city, some of them were unpopular in my city. I was willing to attach myself to certain ideas and live and die by whether they worked.

Trevor Noah 1:15:57 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:15:57 And the great thing is you actually get a chance in local government to show versus tell-

Trevor Noah 1:16:02 Put your money where your mouth is

Pete Buttigieg 1:16:03 ... that this is gonna work. And, and he can humble his critics if he's right and do these things.

Trevor Noah 1:16:07 [upbeat music] Don't press anything. We've got more What Now after this. [upbeat music] It's funny, I, I, I think there's a part of me that agrees with you, and then there's a part of me that disagrees with you in terms of the government and its ability.

Pete Buttigieg 1:16:31 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:16:32 I think of it through the lens of, I don't know, let, let's start with some of the bigger utilities. You look at the United Kingdom.

Pete Buttigieg 1:16:40 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:16:40 Like, the railway.

Pete Buttigieg 1:16:41 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:16:44 I don't think I'm crazy when I say that the UK's railway system has become more expensive-

Pete Buttigieg 1:16:51 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:16:51 ... less affordable, less predictable, less ... You know what I mean?

Pete Buttigieg 1:16:54 Mm. Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:16:55 When it became privatized.

Pete Buttigieg 1:16:56 Yeah. I agree.

Trevor Noah 1:16:58 And ag- I'm not an economics major, but from everything I've read, fundamentally, if you look at what economics tells you,

Trevor Noah 1:17:05 you know, you're trying to make as much money as possible. You're trying to get the profits that you can. The argument is at some point it gets down to zero, and I mean, you, like, really, you're a brain in this world. I've, uh, you know, I've seen your, your resume and everything you've studied. But it feels like corporations and the way they exist is sort of at odds with the public good. So let's go back to the iPhone.

Pete Buttigieg 1:17:27 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:17:27 Right? I don't believe that a government couldn't make an iPhone. I actually don't believe that.

Pete Buttigieg 1:17:32 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:17:32 I think governments and the way we see them now-

Pete Buttigieg 1:17:34 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:17:34 ... could not make an iPhone-

Pete Buttigieg 1:17:36 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:17:36 ... because to your point and what we said earlier, they've become bloated.

Pete Buttigieg 1:17:39 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:17:39 They've become slow. They've become corrupt, et cetera. But I don't think ... To me, I go, like, I don't think that means a government could not make an iPhone. I just think it means that the way some of the governments around the world operate now, they would not.

Pete Buttigieg 1:17:51 Shouldn't be able.

Trevor Noah 1:17:51 Right?

Pete Buttigieg 1:17:51 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:17:52 So here's an example. Let's look at Brazil right now. And this could change. That's why I say I'm not an expert, but this could change. Brazil right now on a government level-

Pete Buttigieg 1:18:01 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:18:02 ... has rolled out a digital payment, um, system-

Pete Buttigieg 1:18:06 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:18:07 ... that works in the country.

Pete Buttigieg 1:18:08 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:18:08 Right? And basically what they've done is they've made it so that everybody in the country can have a bank account just having a phone.

Pete Buttigieg 1:18:14 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:18:14 We've got similar products in, in South Africa- ... and in, in Southern Africa.

Pete Buttigieg 1:18:18 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:18:19 Uh, M-PESA in Nigeria and those places. Ukuru.

Pete Buttigieg 1:18:21 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:18:22 But this is not run by a company. It's the government. And what they did is they said, "We are going to be your bank-

Pete Buttigieg 1:18:29 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:18:30 ... and your banker. We're gonna make sure that you have access to banking," which is one of the worst things you can do to persons, when they're not banked.

Pete Buttigieg 1:18:36 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:18:36 They're just kicked out of a system.

Pete Buttigieg 1:18:37 Correct. Right.

Trevor Noah 1:18:38 Right? They said, "We're gonna make sure that doesn't happen to you. You sell things on the beach. You have a little ... You know, you sell food. Whatever it is, you now have a bank. You now can build credit. You now have something that you can work towards. But we will manage that as a government." And the most impressive thing that they've done is they've basically made it that almost every single transaction is free.

Pete Buttigieg 1:18:58 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:18:59 You pay me, I pay you, that doesn't cost you anything.

Pete Buttigieg 1:19:02 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:19:02 Because they've come to realize, and we should all know this, the costs that a lot of banks tell us about are basically false.

Pete Buttigieg 1:19:08 Made up.

Trevor Noah 1:19:09 You know what I mean?

Pete Buttigieg 1:19:09 Yeah. That's right.

Trevor Noah 1:19:10 Now, I'm not saying they were always false.

Pete Buttigieg 1:19:11 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:19:11 There was a time when it cost a lot of money-

Pete Buttigieg 1:19:13 That's right

Trevor Noah 1:19:13 ... to send money to somebody else about, about ...

Pete Buttigieg 1:19:14 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:19:14 But we've got systems now that can do these things for you, right? But now because of what Brazil has done, they've created a whole new market. And now the legacy players who are companies-

Pete Buttigieg 1:19:24 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:19:24 ... they have a choice to make.

Pete Buttigieg 1:19:25 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:19:26 They either get in line and offer a competitive deal, or they're just not gonna have customers.

Pete Buttigieg 1:19:32 Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:19:34 When I look at what companies have done, look at, look at South Africa and most parts of Africa, right? We pay some of the highest data rates in the world. And we've seen time and time again, with every study that's done, whether it's, you know, the World Trade Organization or the UN, people who do not have access to the internet-

Pete Buttigieg 1:19:50 Yeah. Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:19:51 ... have exponentially less upward mobility, 'cause it's the, it's the world we live in now. But then who sets the price of the data? Who chooses how much you pay to connect to the internet? It's a private company. And the government can say, "Oh, it should be within, it should be within."

Pete Buttigieg 1:20:05 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:20:06 But we've seen what companies can do. You've seen what airlines can do yourself. You, you, you know what I mean? And so I don't think that governments can't do it, and I think governments should be in the business of doing it and doing it properly.

Pete Buttigieg 1:20:17 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:20:18 Because New York, for me, as an example, I, I try and ask these questions to random people just to see what they'll tell me. But one of the most interesting answers a grocery store owner gave me in New York was, he said, "I don't think Zoran Mamdani's local grocers are gonna do well as a business in any way," but he said, "But I do like that if the government becomes the owner of grocery stores-"

Pete Buttigieg 1:20:39 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:20:40 "... they can step into the fray of grocery stores and pricing and monopolies in terms of, like, um, the suppliers."

Pete Buttigieg 1:20:47 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:20:48 And they said, "They can fight an outsized fight that we can't as grocery store owners."

Pete Buttigieg 1:20:52 They can take them on, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:20:53 You as Eugene own a grocery store. You as Mayor Pete own a grocery store. You can't really do much.

Pete Buttigieg 1:20:58 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:20:58 But if the government owns a grocery store, the same way if the government owns-

Pete Buttigieg 1:21:02 The purchasing power

Trevor Noah 1:21:03 ... the purchasing power, but also the power power.

Pete Buttigieg 1:21:05 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:21:05 Good luck screwing over a government and getting away with it in that way.

Pete Buttigieg 1:21:09 As a, yeah

Trevor Noah 1:21:09 You know what I mean? If the government says, "We're gonna buy drugs from pharmaceutical companies," they can't come in with the same, like, "Oh, your insulin costs..." No, the government goes like, "What are you doing?"

Pete Buttigieg 1:21:18 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:21:19 And, and that's, that's what I mean by, like, the feasibility. I think sometimes we might think of it as can the government run a business or not run a business well. I don't care if a government can run a business for profits.

Pete Buttigieg 1:21:30 Yeah, I mean-

Trevor Noah 1:21:30 But I do like the government being involved in an industry so that the industry can't just run off and go crazy. You know what I mean?

Pete Buttigieg 1:21:36 I, I think to me, a lot of it has to do with the kind of business or the kind of industry.

Trevor Noah 1:21:39 Oh, yeah, completely.

Pete Buttigieg 1:21:40 Right?

Trevor Noah 1:21:40 Don't get me wrong.

Pete Buttigieg 1:21:41 So, and maybe I think you and I might read the grocery case differently, 'cause I'm just thinking about so much of the business is about engaging, like, all of these different suppliers to get all of these different things on the shelf.

Trevor Noah 1:21:49 Yes.

Pete Buttigieg 1:21:49 And the, the way supply chains work and the way retail works, and then the margins being as tiny as they are.

Trevor Noah 1:21:54 Yes.

Pete Buttigieg 1:21:55 But to your point, I mean, an example that's not unlike what you're describing, uh, with, with the payment system is something I've seen cities do that, that I do think makes sense, which is creating a municipal competitor to internet service providers.

Trevor Noah 1:22:09 Yes. Yeah. This is exactly what I mean.

Pete Buttigieg 1:22:10 I think Chattanooga was the first place to do it.

Trevor Noah 1:22:11 Yeah, yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:22:12 And it turns out even just the existing ISPs-

Trevor Noah 1:22:15 Mm

Pete Buttigieg 1:22:15 ... their prices magically come down-

Trevor Noah 1:22:17 That's

Trevor Noah 1:22:18 what I'm talking about

Pete Buttigieg 1:22:18 ... the moment that they threat, they, they, they face some kind of competition.

Trevor Noah 1:22:21 Okay. All right.

Pete Buttigieg 1:22:22 Right? But that's because there's that local monopoly.

Trevor Noah 1:22:24 No, no, no. Then we are ... No, no, then I think we are closer, yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:22:26 So yeah, I'm not saying that, like, government can't do well in a tech context.

Trevor Noah 1:22:28 Okay, okay, okay.

Pete Buttigieg 1:22:28 I'm, I'm just looking for the things that are more like networks or platforms or utilities or something where-

Trevor Noah 1:22:33 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:22:33 ... you really just cannot expect market forces to do much good.

Trevor Noah 1:22:37 Right.

Pete Buttigieg 1:22:37 Versus the ones where you s- we have more experience with, like, competition driving prices down and, and-

Trevor Noah 1:22:42 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:22:42 ... you know, um.

Trevor Noah 1:22:43 Like, I found it wild that during COVID, the government couldn't pay people in America into their bank accounts.

Pete Buttigieg 1:22:49 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:22:49 That was, that was just wild to discover about America. I was like, "Wait, what?"

Pete Buttigieg 1:22:52 Yeah, and look, sometimes the answer to these things is also related to corporate power. So another thing that the Trump administration has killed is direct file. You know, the last administration was where it was kind of a pilot.

Trevor Noah 1:23:01 Yes.

Pete Buttigieg 1:23:02 Some people had it, some people didn't, but it was growing, where you could just file your own taxes.

Trevor Noah 1:23:05 Yes.

Pete Buttigieg 1:23:05 Seems like a pretty basic thing. Most people in most developed countries can do this. You go and file your taxes.

Trevor Noah 1:23:09 Even in developing. South Africa, you can file your own taxes.

Pete Buttigieg 1:23:12 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:23:12 Developing even.

Pete Buttigieg 1:23:13 And here you can't. Is that because we, the American people, couldn't figure out a way to make that possible? No. [laughs] It's because there are companies that make a lot of money as the middleman-

Trevor Noah 1:23:22 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:23:22 ... who figured out how to block getting that done, right?

Trevor Noah 1:23:25 It's wild.

Pete Buttigieg 1:23:25 And they're, they're having their way in this administration. So yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm not gonna be the person to say that, like, innovation only happens if you let the private sector do anything it wants.

Trevor Noah 1:23:34 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:23:35 I just, I think I draw the line on that balance a little bit differently.

Trevor Noah 1:23:37 No, no, no, I understand what you're saying. I, I think you clarified it. Let's talk a little bit about, um, the world, the geopolitics. And as, as we wrap this up, I wanna, I wanna know where you see yourself moving in the future.

Pete Buttigieg 1:23:48 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:23:48 As, you know, Pete looks at the future of America, and America looks at itself in the world.

Pete Buttigieg 1:23:52 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:23:53 There's no denying that Donald Trump has completely upended how America sees the world and how the world sees America.

Pete Buttigieg 1:24:00 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:24:00 You know? Allies are no longer, like, ally allies.

Pete Buttigieg 1:24:03 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:24:03 You know? Countries like India are on, like, a blacklist.

Pete Buttigieg 1:24:06 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:24:06 Brazil's on a blacklist because they are prosecuting somebody who tried to stage a coup. Canada is always, you know, in an adversarial relationship or a moment with the ... It, it, it just feels like America isn't the, you know, that rock that it once proclaimed itself to be and w- I think how many countries saw it. When you look at the geopolitical landscape right now, what do you think

Trevor Noah 1:24:35 the future of America is if this carries on for the next, like, four years? Like, if, if it just keeps going the way it's going, what do you think it does to America that Americans don't realize?

Pete Buttigieg 1:24:47 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:24:47 And what do you think it af- like, how, how do you think it affects the world in a way that the world hasn't yet thought of?

Pete Buttigieg 1:24:53 I mean, I think it's gonna take a lifetime to, even in a best case scenario, it will take a lifetime to es- establish some of the trust that has been blown up, uh, between other countries and this country by the Trump administration. And, and I also, I think we have to face the fact that the, the whole world system that we have all inherited has been showing its age for some time.

Trevor Noah 1:25:17 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:25:18 Like, this emerged out of the, the power dynamics and the values that were most, uh, prominent or, or, or, um, had their greatest moment of privacy immedi- uh, primacy immediately after World War II.

Trevor Noah 1:25:31 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:25:31 Right?

Trevor Noah 1:25:32 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:25:32 And, like, the last of the people who experienced World War II as adults are, are passing out of, uh, uh, out of this world right now.

Trevor Noah 1:25:40 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:25:40 Like, we're just in a very ... Different

Trevor Noah 1:25:43 World

Pete Buttigieg 1:25:43 ... world.

Trevor Noah 1:25:44 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:25:45 And so it's another example of a realm where I don't think we're saying, like, "Let's just try to get Trump out, come in, and stitch back together all of these systems and alliances and international institutions the way they used to work, and hope that'll get us through another 80 years."

Trevor Noah 1:26:01 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:26:02 Um, [clears throat] I think the future is one where we reconnect with the importance of values-

Trevor Noah 1:26:10 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:26:10 ... as well as interests in American policy. And that's part of what I think is at stake for the rest of the world. So my view is leadership matters, leadership by people, but also leadership by countries. And somebody will be leading the way things unfold for the next five, 10, 20 years in the world. And I really want that not to be people like Putin or people like Xi Jinping.

Trevor Noah 1:26:35 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:26:36 I want that to develop on terms ... It's not that I want the world to look like and think like America, but I think there are the val- the American values that are most worth defending are most worth defending because they also express universal values, and I think it was the most credible thing about what we did do when we set up the institutions we did, like the UN, um, in, in that, that period.

Pete Buttigieg 1:27:01 Um, so what does it actually look like? I mean, we can't be ... We, we have this America First mantra, but it's really kind of like an America alone.

Trevor Noah 1:27:11 Yeah.

1:27:12 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:27:12 I would like to see a vision that's about America in first place, meaning America strives to compete and outdo every other country.

Trevor Noah 1:27:19 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:27:19 And c- Which means we care about what the other countries are doing, and when they're ahead of us on something, we try to learn from them, catch up, and get back in first place. Um, but it's not by having our ... It, it's not by stepping on people's faces as we go, because that really does amount to America alone, and in ways that we can't even guess sitting here in 2025.

Trevor Noah 1:27:41 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:27:41 Like, that will make every American less safe, I think.

Trevor Noah 1:27:46 Let's say you were president, and you're stepping into the White House. It's post-Trump. There's been another election.

Pete Buttigieg 1:27:57 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:27:57 Things have gone well. Let's say you're president, and, and you look at this world that lies out there. I won't ask you, like, sort of what you would do. I know there's policy and things change and whatever.

Pete Buttigieg 1:28:07 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:28:07 What I'm, what I'm ... What I found myself, myself most interested in is does America and do American leaders ever think about how to grapple with the world that they have created that they're now fou- fighting against?

Pete Buttigieg 1:28:25 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:28:26 And the reason I ask it is like this, like, Putin is a great example. You can't talk about Vladimir Putin without talking about how Putin becomes Putin, and you can't talk about how Putin becomes Putin without looking at how Russia the way we know it becomes Russia.

Pete Buttigieg 1:28:40 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:28:40 You can't talk about how Russia becomes Russia the way it does without talking about how America worked towards Russia. Now, I'm not excusing Putin in any way, shape, or form.

Pete Buttigieg 1:28:49 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:28:49 But I'm going, man, when you look at the Cold War and how America played it, a lot of it was, like, bullying-

Pete Buttigieg 1:28:55 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:28:56 ... in a way that didn't bring Russia along.

Pete Buttigieg 1:28:57 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:28:58 And then you look at, like, you know, the G20, and you look at all of these decisions that America made, and you're like, "Ooh, doesn't seem like America made a lot of the best decisions to bring Russia along," right?

Pete Buttigieg 1:29:07 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:29:07 'Cause America at the time was so paranoid about communism.

Pete Buttigieg 1:29:10 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:29:11 It, it-

Pete Buttigieg 1:29:11 No question

Trevor Noah 1:29:12 ... it cast aside all of its values.

Pete Buttigieg 1:29:14 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:29:14 You know, America was like, "We'll give anyone money anywhere in the world if they're gonna help us fight communism."

Pete Buttigieg 1:29:19 Sure.

Trevor Noah 1:29:20 "We'll prop up dictators. We will overthrow leaders w- as long as it stops communism."

Pete Buttigieg 1:29:25 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:29:25 And it's like, ah, well, if you're gonna give up your values when it suits you, then are they your values? And, and, and so, like, that's one example, you know? Um, another one I think of in the world is I go, you know, we, we talk about, like, issues now. I was thinking the other day, I was like, America doesn't have a particularly good track record of sort of, like, helping the, the movements that society would agree are the movements that are worth helping.

Pete Buttigieg 1:29:50 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:29:50 Like, apartheid was a good example.

Pete Buttigieg 1:29:51 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:29:52 I'm not saying you were there, by the way. I'm not pointing at you like you did it. Um, [laughs] no, but, like, I was thinking the other day, I was like, America didn't do a good job during apartheid.

Pete Buttigieg 1:30:00 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:30:00 Yeah.

1:30:00 It's not like America was like, "We're gonna help you s-" No. When, when apartheid was fully in f- like, in full force-

Pete Buttigieg 1:30:06 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:30:07 ... America was like, "Yep, seems pretty good to us." They welcomed South African leaders.

Pete Buttigieg 1:30:11 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:30:12 None of their visas were blocked.

Pete Buttigieg 1:30:13 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:30:13 None of them were restricted.

1:30:15 No sanctions.

1:30:16 No sanctions.

Pete Buttigieg 1:30:16 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:30:16 America was one of the last to even, like, entertain the idea of sanctions, right?

Pete Buttigieg 1:30:21 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:30:21 And then when apartheid ended, the Clinton administration, just so we're clear, this is not, like, a Trump or anything, the Clinton administration gave out thousands of visas-

Pete Buttigieg 1:30:30 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:30:31 ... to white South Africans.

1:30:32 Only.

1:30:33 Only.

1:30:33 Mm-hmm.

1:30:34 To help them escape, I guess, because they were like-

1:30:37 Mm

1:30:37 ... "What's gonna happen to them?" But it's like, wait, wait, wait. You were rescuing the oppressors?

1:30:42 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:30:43 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:30:43 That's a weird one. You, like, you ...

Pete Buttigieg 1:30:44 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:30:45 The Titanic is sinking, and you fly in and you rescue the iceberg? Like, wait, what just happened here? Do you-

1:30:52 Oh, that was good.

1:30:54 [laughs]

1:30:55 That was so, so, so ... The iceberg, 'cause it's [laughs]

Pete Buttigieg 1:31:00 See what you did there.

Trevor Noah 1:31:01 So ... No, but I mean, like ...

Pete Buttigieg 1:31:04 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:31:04 I, I, I think, I think of it in, in all of these instances.

1:31:06 Mm.

1:31:06 I, I go, like, even now with, like, Israel-Palestine.

Pete Buttigieg 1:31:09 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:31:09 I'm like, man, you know, week one after October 7th, people are going, "Well, you know, Israel, I mean, they've got to defen-" Uh, week 10, well, week 100, and then people are like, "Man, w- at what point?" And then, like, most recently, we see a strike that happens in Qatar, and we don't know the inner workings of things, so I'm not gonna assume anything.

Pete Buttigieg 1:31:28 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:31:28 But I, but I wonder if there's, like, a misalignment there between how America portrays itself-

Pete Buttigieg 1:31:37 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:31:37 ... and how Ameri- how America acts in, in the world. You know, like, even World War II is an example.

Pete Buttigieg 1:31:42 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:31:42 America for a long time was like, "Ah, man, that's none of our business."

Pete Buttigieg 1:31:44 Right.

Trevor Noah 1:31:45 That's none of our business.

Pete Buttigieg 1:31:46 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:31:46 People were like, "Yeah, but these, the Jews are being persecuted." America's like, "Yeah, but that's none of our business."

Pete Buttigieg 1:31:52 Hm.

Trevor Noah 1:31:52 And then when Paul- Pearl Harbor happens, America goes like, "All right, now it's our business."

Pete Buttigieg 1:31:55 Right.

Trevor Noah 1:31:57 And now again, please don't get me wrong, I'm not diminishing America's contribution in the fights-

Pete Buttigieg 1:32:01 Right

Trevor Noah 1:32:01 ... for democracies time and time again. But I wonder if, as a president, let's say, you would step in, and would you be able to grapple with the-

Pete Buttigieg 1:32:10 Hm

Trevor Noah 1:32:10 ... inconsistency in how America applies its values in and around the world in fighting for freedom or not fighting for it?

Pete Buttigieg 1:32:18 I think not because we're Americans, but because we're a people.

Trevor Noah 1:32:21 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:32:21 We are inconsistent in our affinities and our, the stories we tell ourselves, and the commitments we come to. I also think that we can be imperfect in our fidelity to our ideas at home or abroad, and those ideas are still the right ideas, and they're still the ones that ought to guide us. And I think that's true at home as we question, like, how much is our democracy even a democracy right now?

Trevor Noah 1:32:46 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:32:47 It doesn't mean we're on the wrong track trying to be one, it just means we're further away from one than we wish. And I think that's true for America's conduct around the world. All of that is definitely the experience of America and the countries that have had to deal, or the peoples who have had to deal with America.

Trevor Noah 1:33:03 Right.

Pete Buttigieg 1:33:04 As, at best, a very flawed, uh, bearer of the flag of, of, of liberty and, uh, and freedom around the world. And at the same time,

Pete Buttigieg 1:33:16 I think that our belief in that, however imperfect, however we haven't always been true to it at home and abroad, is the most important fact about us. And so I think leadership in America has to do the, the work of trying to center us in that while we're being buffeted by all these other things. So there were a lot of folks who were queasy about various countries, uh, in, in the course of the Cold War that we supported.

Trevor Noah 1:33:44 Hm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:33:44 But really believed it was still somehow the right thing to do for reasons of hard security. I think a lot of that was wrong, but, um, that balance, nobody can claim that that's ever gonna be easy. But what we no longer have is the excuse of not knowing how it can go wrong.

Trevor Noah 1:34:00 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's true.

Pete Buttigieg 1:34:02 So the next president, or just the next generation of American leadership, arrives with the benefit of a lot of hindsight. And I say this-

Trevor Noah 1:34:09 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:34:09 ... belonging to the generation that was really shaped by 9/11 and also by the Iraq War. I mean, that definitely shaped my understanding of politics.

Trevor Noah 1:34:18 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:34:18 It also shaped my life 'cause I wound up serving in, in the Afghanistan War. Um, a- and honestly, that was another example, right, where for 9/11, it was the first time for a lot of people that a chain of events that happened somewhere else actually was visited upon us-

Trevor Noah 1:34:32 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:34:32 ... concretely, and shook everybody out of this idea that that was just, you know, that, that we weren't gonna be pulled into the consequences of what was happening abroad, some of which we had had a hand in-

Trevor Noah 1:34:44 Right

Pete Buttigieg 1:34:44 ... getting to be the way it was.

Trevor Noah 1:34:45 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:34:45 'Cause it's a world that we made. I would like to believe, if we get it right, if we have the right fidelity to the values that actually matter, we do this next time around, if people are still returning our calls, as a country, with more of a partnership, with more of an actual partnership with other states and peoples that are sincerely committed to those same values. And that around that we can build an architecture of values, but also of security-

Trevor Noah 1:35:12 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:35:12 ... that, that actually works. But that's r- gonna be really, really hard, and it's gonna be that much harder because the level of trust people have for America has been laid so low-

Trevor Noah 1:35:24 Hm

Pete Buttigieg 1:35:25 ... by what people are seeing from both our conduct toward other countries and just

Pete Buttigieg 1:35:29 the way things are going at home right now.

Trevor Noah 1:35:30 Yeah, because when I w- let's say when I look at a situation like e- exactly what you're saying, looking at the relationship with others, other countries, their representatives and their people. Again, I don't know the inner workings.

Pete Buttigieg 1:35:43 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:35:43 So I'm only saying what I've read and what I've seen. You have a delegation of host- of negotiators who are in Qatar, right? They're there to negotiate whatever it is, but they negotiate. Israel kills them, bam, and says, "Yeah, we killed them." This is not even like a I'm saying. They said, "No, we killed them."

Pete Buttigieg 1:36:04 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:36:05 I found myself going, just on a basic level, and maybe I'm a very stupid, simple person.

Pete Buttigieg 1:36:09 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:36:09 It's possible. I went, "If you kill negotiators, isn't that the opposite of wanting to negotiate?" Like, you know what I mean? That's-

Pete Buttigieg 1:36:17 Right

Trevor Noah 1:36:18 ... like this is, that's kicking the guy in the pit in Sparta. It's like, yeah, that's the guy who's come to deliver the message, and you won't get peace without...

Pete Buttigieg 1:36:26 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:36:27 And so I, I was thinking to myself, I was going like, "Okay, so if, if you, if you are in power, if you're a leader in, in that type of situation, at what point does an ally stop being an ally, or how do you define the allyship of another country?"

Pete Buttigieg 1:36:39 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:36:40 Is it when their interests are completely aligned with yours?

Pete Buttigieg 1:36:43 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:36:44 Or is it when their actions are completely unaligned with yours?

Pete Buttigieg 1:36:47 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:36:47 You know?

Pete Buttigieg 1:36:47 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:36:48 Like, how far would Israel have to go-

Pete Buttigieg 1:36:50 Right

Trevor Noah 1:36:50 ... for you as a president to say, "I can't say that you're our ally anymore"?

Pete Buttigieg 1:36:53 Hm. But I think what happens in, you know, that, uh, happened as we're taping, like I think that's, that's just hidden in the news.

Trevor Noah 1:37:00 Yeah, no, please, love talking about that. Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:37:00 So I don't know, uh, all of the, uh, we're still learning what happened in that strike, but, uh, everything you just said makes sense to me about what it means to blow up negotiators, and it feels like every few days or every day there's another example of this.

Trevor Noah 1:37:15 Right.

Pete Buttigieg 1:37:17 So I think the job of leadership is to say, "Okay, if this is our ally," or whatever you wanna call it, we are the most important country to that country.

Trevor Noah 1:37:26 Yes.

Pete Buttigieg 1:37:26 We are the most important country to Israel.

Trevor Noah 1:37:28 Right.

Pete Buttigieg 1:37:28 Right? What does it actually look like to draw a line between saying we have a foundational commitment-

Trevor Noah 1:37:34 Mm

Pete Buttigieg 1:37:35 ... to this country being able to defend itself from people who are committed to its annihilation, which I, I think is the bedrock of the US relationship with Israel, to have fidelity to that, and also say When you do certain things, we're not gonna sponsor you to do that. And to say, as your most important ally, friend, sponsor, whatever you wanna call it, there's gonna be more than pretty please.

Trevor Noah 1:38:01 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:38:01 Like, we are going to find ways to shape your behavior. I think that's what leadership needs to do, and I don't know what, I don't know who the next leader in the US will be, or for that matter, the next leader of, of Israel, or what kind of leadership the Palestinians or the Arab states will have. And I actually think the further this goes, the more important the ultimate role of Arab states will be in whether there is any form of a two-state solution that's even possible, or whatever is about to happen next. But I do think that is an example where there are certain things that we still bear fidelity to, because there are reasons, not just tactical, strategic reasons, but moral reasons why the United States has decided from the beginning to be there to make sure that a country whose neighbors want it annihilated is not annihilated. And of course, that is born out of the circumstances that were present in the world at the time that the Jews sought that homeland.

Trevor Noah 1:38:58 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:39:00 And at the same time, say, just because that is true, and however unshakable that is, this is not a, we're not on board with this.

Trevor Noah 1:39:06 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:39:06 And we're gonna think of more than just, uh, uh, saying, "This is unfortunate," but actually do something to change it.

Trevor Noah 1:39:14 It, it's so difficult. A- a- and you know why it's so difficult is because humans bear the brunt, like civilians bear the brunt-

Pete Buttigieg 1:39:22 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:39:23 ... of the decisions of a few men, just generally speaking. As I've been, you know, watching what's happening in the now, I, I'd like to go back and try and read different times-

Pete Buttigieg 1:39:34 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:39:34 ... to see if there's any correlations or any- anything that gives me a certain insight. Because when things are happening now, they're happening now. You, you have to react to them.

Pete Buttigieg 1:39:42 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:39:42 You don't have perspective, you don't have hindsight. And sometimes when you go back, you read something and it's, it's a lot more clear. You never know what fully happened, but you have a better idea. I found it particularly interesting that a lot of the language the US uses now with Israel is similar to the language it used with South Africa during apartheid.

Pete Buttigieg 1:39:59 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:39:59 It would say, h- I mean, we, we have to let these people defend themselves, and we have to assure ourselves that the Afrikaner is safe and, do, do you know what I mean?

Pete Buttigieg 1:40:08 Mm-hmm. Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:40:08 It's interesting how defending the implied threat-

Pete Buttigieg 1:40:13 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:40:14 ... w- against these oppressors-

Pete Buttigieg 1:40:15 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:40:16 ... was more important than defending the actual threat that was happening to the people at the time.

Pete Buttigieg 1:40:20 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:40:20 And I, that's something that I think, and that's where, funny enough, I think when we come back to voters and people.

Pete Buttigieg 1:40:25 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:40:25 When you look at, like, the Democratic base-

Pete Buttigieg 1:40:27 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:40:28 ... I'm not saying Kamala Harris lost or didn't lose because of one specific thing.

Pete Buttigieg 1:40:31 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:40:32 But there's no

Trevor Noah 1:40:33 denying there was a huge swath of the voting population, Democratic voters, especially young people who said, "Yo, man, we don't want our country, we don't want to be aiming in this direction. This is not what we're aiming, this is not what we see America doing."

Pete Buttigieg 1:40:47 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:40:47 And it was interesting that the Democratic leadership didn't seem to come on board with that. It sa- it felt like that was the 70/30 split, but just within a Democratic party-

Pete Buttigieg 1:40:55 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:40:55 ... where they were like, "No, we're not on board with this completely." How do you maybe bridge the divide is the wrong, the wrong phrase, but how do you, how do you make sense of that disconnect?

Pete Buttigieg 1:41:09 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:41:09 You know, where, d- is it because young voters or voters in the Democratic Party don't know as much as the people, the leaders do, or is it because you see the situation differently? And not y- I'm saying you the collective of you.

Pete Buttigieg 1:41:21 Yeah. Well, look, I think part of it is what, what was going on during the time that your understanding of these events was formed, right?

Trevor Noah 1:41:27 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:41:28 So if you're our age or younger, definitely if you're the, the, the Gen Z people who are watching this, including by the way, many Jews, young Jews, who are, uh, watching this saying, "I want no part of-

Trevor Noah 1:41:40 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:41:41 ... of that," you have only experienced Israel as the dominant regional hegemon. Uh, and especially in the last two years where they have decapitated or neutered those entities that are most threatening to them right now.

Trevor Noah 1:41:59 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:41:59 Whether we're talking about Iran, whether we're talking about, uh, Hamas' military capabilities, whether we're talking about Hezbollah, right? So you see this extremely powerful country where there, I think, is a generation of Democratic leaders who only knew or largely knew Israel as the underdog.

Trevor Noah 1:42:18 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:42:19 Uh, where this wasn't just some, like, off-stage thing that was invoked as why, and by the way, Netanyahu skillfully does this, invoke these off-stage threats as something that legitimize anything, including things like starvation that absolutely nothing can legitimize. Um, but back then, that was a real, this was not, like, a theoretical thing. Now, I'd say even today it's not a theoretical thing, but it's obviously more off-stage because of the power that Israel has exerted to not only defend itself-

Trevor Noah 1:42:48 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:42:49 ... but to do things that I think most observers, including people who care about Israel's future, would say are not helping you defend yourself. It's not helping the hostages. And it's not only incredibly destructive of life when you have starvation or these, these bombings that, that we're seeing or so many of the other things that are going on. Uh, but it's also destructive of a moral fiber-

Trevor Noah 1:43:10 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:43:11 ... that has connected these two countries.

Trevor Noah 1:43:15 Mm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:43:15 That really is as important as the strategic relationship, and that could be the most lethal thing of all.

Trevor Noah 1:43:22 Right.

Pete Buttigieg 1:43:23 Because it turns the relationship into a partisan cause or something that there's a generational split, and, uh, and that is un- just catastrophically bad, I think. But to get to where your question began, I think the next round of American leadership will just be about what will it take to make things get better. That's, that's the thing. S- so many, and this is the ultimate example of it. But so many things, international relations and here at home, are freighted with layer upon layer that if I mention this, you say, "Okay, but what about that?" And if it's that, "Well, what about that?"

Trevor Noah 1:43:56 Hmm. That's true.

Pete Buttigieg 1:43:57 All of which is true.

Trevor Noah 1:43:58 Yeah.

Pete Buttigieg 1:43:58 And in this case, it goes back not just to 1947, it goes back thousands of years, right? And it's all true. And no one moment, no one generation, uh, least of all, like a, a, a child or a family living in Gaza, or for that matter, living in Israel, can or should have to bear the weight of all of those layers. All we can do is say, "Okay,

Pete Buttigieg 1:44:20 what can we do that would make it better?" And I think a new generation of American leadership will be willing to do things to shape the choices of an Israeli government in ways that neither an older generation of Democrats nor Republicans were willing to do. But across all of this, I still come back to the idea that, uh, the, the real challenge is to, to have fidelity to the values that, that even if we're not that good at living up to them-

Trevor Noah 1:44:46 Yeah

Pete Buttigieg 1:44:46 ... much of the time, the values are still there, and they're still worth it, and our attachment to those is everything.

Trevor Noah 1:44:52 So let me ask you this finally before we let you go. Um, I won't ask you if you're gonna run for president, 'cause I've learned in America, you'll always say no, or you'll give me, like, a vague answer.

Pete Buttigieg 1:45:01 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:45:01 Not you. Politicians just do that here. They go like, "Well, I think right now I'm focused on, uh, w- w-"

Pete Buttigieg 1:45:06 Dropping my kids off at school.

Trevor Noah 1:45:07 Yeah, and my life and, and I think what we need to look at right now is the midterms and building a world where we can... I know how this goes. I know how this goes. So I won't ask you that. What I would ask you instead is this: Pete Buttigieg, the mayor, Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, and then we meet Pete Buttigieg now. What do you think you've seen in the world, in America, and in your communities that has changed how or what you would run on if you were to run again? You know, so when you look at yourself back, I mean, now what, what has it been, 10 years, maybe more?

Pete Buttigieg 1:45:47 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:45:47 And then you look at it now. Is, is there anything that's shifted you? Is there anything that's changed your perspective slightly, and, and what would that thing be, and, and how would it change the path that you would pursue? 'Cause we all change.

Pete Buttigieg 1:45:58 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:45:58 Something changes us along the way.

Pete Buttigieg 1:46:00 Yeah, of course.

Trevor Noah 1:46:01 I'd love to know, you know. Now you've been in an administration, for instance.

Pete Buttigieg 1:46:03 Yeah. Um, I mean, I could point to any number of, like, tactical or policy questions where I think about it differently, or I'm more attuned to why things are harder than they look, or, or I think we should just blow something up instead of trying to keep working with it in our bureaucracy or something like that, but, but I think the biggest thing that's changed is that things that we used to talk about as a matter of rhetoric are here now.

Trevor Noah 1:46:28 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:46:29 And so it's not enough. You know, words like authoritarianism or fascism.

Trevor Noah 1:46:34 Mm-hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:46:35 I think when I was first, definitely when I was first running for president, those words are out there as kind of the end of a conversation. Like, "Look at this stuff that's going

Pete Buttigieg 1:46:45 on, like that could, I mean, that, that might be authoritarian."

Trevor Noah 1:46:48 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:46:49 And then it started happening, and now we're in a moment where we have to be much more clear-eyed about what it means to deal with that. In other words, if, if we just say, "That's, that's authoritarian," or, "That's fascist," like we, you know, um, everybody's, like, paralyzed by that, where actually I think the project increasingly is to, like, find out who's really good at dealing with fascism and, and learn from them [laughs] on, on how to beat it.

Trevor Noah 1:47:13 Hmm.

Pete Buttigieg 1:47:13 Right? And that's just, like, a different project than the one I thought I was part of even five years ago. Um, I think that the other thing I would say is I, I still thought as recently as five years ago that there was more we could do within the structures that we inherited, within the kind of policy frameworks that we inherited. And now I just think all of that's g- being blown wide open, either because you have whole departments being burned down, like the Department of Education, or because, like the financial picture, which is not as, like, sexy to talk about fiscal policy, but I think sooner or later will require us to completely redesign our tax code as a country. Which is not a bad thing, actually, because that, that could be a chance to have, uh, a, a, a system of taxation where we actually get more trust that our government is actually doing good things with the money that we pay into it. There's a sense of more fairness. Um, but I guess w- what I'm getting at more than saying, like, oh, I, I, you know, think this, like, border policy, you know, I disagree with what I used to think five years ago. It's more that, that I think the framework we're in needs to be replaced in a way that I think, you know, Trump has, has clearly, um, exposed, but I think Democrats need to come to terms with, and we're just into a new world in terms of what that means for what leaders need to do.

Trevor Noah 1:48:39 [upbeat music] Well, as always, man, I enjoy having a conversation with you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for being so candid.

Pete Buttigieg 1:48:45 Thank you.

Trevor Noah 1:48:45 And, uh, yeah, man. Thanks for sharing your beard. I appreciate it.

Trevor Noah 1:48:52 Thank you very much, for real.

Pete Buttigieg 1:48:53 Thanks for having me.

Trevor Noah 1:48:55 Thank you so much for watching the episode. If you enjoyed it, pass it on to a friend. If you didn't enjoy it, pass it on to your friend still. Let them suffer for a change. And don't forget to engage with us in the comments. Uh, if you wanna suggest a guest, maybe there's questions you want, maybe there's ideas that you have, you can chat to us. We will read through the comments, and we'll get into it. Either way, I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you for hanging out with us on What Now? And remember, we do this for you, so we would like to hear from you. Till next time. Thank you. [upbeat music]