Pod Save America - Pete Buttigieg on the Michigan Primary and Whether You Should Fly on a 737 Max (feat. Mehdi Hasan)

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

Jon Favreau and Mehdi Hasan break down Biden and Trump’s big victories in the Michigan primary, whether the President can get a ceasefire deal, and Biden's interview with Seth Meyers. Then, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg stops by to talk about safety issues at Boeing, the GOP's attack on IVF, and why it’s so hard to get the Frozen soundtrack out of your head. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. And I'm Mehdi Hassan. On today's show, Biden and Trump both win big victories in the Michigan primary, but Nikki Haley still isn't going away, and neither is the protest lodged against the president by voters who oppose his Gaza policy. We're also going to talk about Biden's new attempts to deal with his main political challenges, and later, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg stops by to help me figure out whether I'll ever fly in a Boeing plane again.

But before we jump in, Mehdi, we are so lucky to have you two Wednesdays in a row. Thank you for doing this again. Excited to talk to you about this very fun, chill election we have coming up. But first, will you tell people about your very exciting news? I'm so excited to share this news with you, John. We just launched, so I've launched a media company called Zeteo, which is the ancient Greek word for seeking out, seeking out the truth, which is what needs to be done right now. I think you would agree in our current climate of nonstop gaslighting, misinformation, bullshitting. And since I left MSNBC, I was

thinking long and hard about what I want to do next. And I want to do my own thing. And I was inspired partly by you guys, by you and Dan and Tommy and the rest of the crew, Crooked Media. I think you guys came up with the same idea of trying to have our own space, trying to get our voices out, not being restricted by ludicrous media conventions where you can't call a racist a racist, you can't call a fascist a fascist. We're going to be saying all those words. And I think it's time for people to speak some home truths. And what's it going to look like? We got podcasts, written video. What do you got? It's all singing, all dancing. It's a media company for a reason. It's a subscriber model.

It's paid subscriber model, which the left progressives haven't really kind of owned that space. The right has done a lot in that space. So we're going to try and kind of break that mold. But yes, there'll be weekly streaming shows, podcasts. It's not just me. It's not the Mehdi Hassan Network a la Tucker Carlson.

It is a group of pretty high profile contributors, which we're going to roll out in April. But right now, if you go to zeteonews.com, you can watch the trailer. You can see we're promising all sorts of things, including newsletters, essays, videos. So a lot of work to be done, but I'm delighted to be sharing with you all here

because, as I say, I'm a big fan of Pod Save and the crooked media empire that you guys have built. We are big fans of you, and everyone should go check it out. And look, if we can do it, if we can start a media company, anyone guys have built. We are big fans of you and everyone should go check it out. And look, if we can do it, if we can start a media company, anyone can do it. You're going to be way ahead of us. We had no idea what the hell we were doing when we started this thing. All right, let's start with Michigan. So big question in the Democratic primary wasn't whether Joe Biden would win. He did with 81% of the vote. But how many people would vote

uncommitted, which was the strategy encouraged by a group of activists who are deeply upset with the president's Gaza policy. Turns out the answer is about 100,000 people. It was about 13% of the vote. The organizers of the effort wanted to deny Biden delegates and get at least 10,000 votes. They achieved both of those things. Still, 13% voting uncommitted in Michigan is not unusual. 11% voted uncommitted the last time an incumbent Democratic president was on the ballot in 2012. And back then, there was no organized protest vote against Barack Obama.

But the bottom line is, 100,000 people in a must-win swing state lodged a protest vote against a guy who won that state by just 150,000 votes in 2020. Mehdi, I know you've been talking to a lot of people on the ground in Michigan over the last few weeks, including the mayor of Dearborn. How are people feeling about last night's result? I think they're super enthused. And I want to break that down for the listeners of this show. Because first of all, you mentioned 150,000 in 2020. John, let's not forget 2016, where Hillary lost by 11,000 votes, if I remember correctly. So that is a super tight state, whether you look at 2020 or 2016.

In recent years, the Democrats have obviously improved their advantages at state level with Whitmer and the legislature and the trifecta. But it's going to be a close election in Michigan. And I want to be clear, the people who are voting uncommitted, the mayor of Dearborn, you mentioned, a lot of other state Democrats, they're not voting that way because they want the Republicans to win or because they're pro-Trump. I mean, some of them are, I'm sure. But the majority are trying to send a message to Joe Biden. It's interesting you mentioned 2012, where there was a big uncommitted vote against Obama. And you mentioned, John, it wasn't an organized cause. That makes this much more significant because these people came together for a specific

cause and not just Muslims and Arabs, right? This is people of color. This is young people. Debbie Dingell made this point the other day. This is not just Arab Americans and Muslim Americans. It's young people. And I think, I hope that the White House and the president pay attention and listen. I don't know whether they will. Joe Biden's statement last night upon winning Michigan didn't acknowledge any of the concerns by people on the ground. People do want a ceasefire in Gaza. They are furious and heartbroken over the scenes that are coming out of Gaza, which are being paid for by American taxpayers. And so this is their democratic way of sending a message. I mean, even people like Beto O'Rourke got on board this campaign.

This is not some kind of pro-Trump, anti-democratic party message. This is a message that is trying to change one specific policy, which most Americans think should be changed. So I hope that them sending one or two delegates to the convention, this sheer numbers, I mean, over 100,000 people will send a message to the White House. I spoke to someone in the Democratic Party recently who said, we can win Michigan without these people. Do you really want to take that gamble when Donald Trump and democracy are on the ballot in November? I'd rather not. November? I'd rather not. Yeah. So my take on this is, first of all, I think that this campaign is the way debates are and differences are supposed to be had and resolved in the democratic

process, right? Like I think that the organizers of this effort, you know, some people are going to be lost to Joe Biden over Gaza for good, no matter what happens. But a lot of the organizers of this effort said, you know, we're giving Joe Biden a path to win here. We're showing him how important this is. And we want to be with him in November. But this primary is our chance to lodge a protest vote.

I think that's what you should do in a democracy. My take on the results for last night is that they were not great for anyone. I don't think the protest vote was big enough to really scare Biden into changing course on Gaza in the kind of significant way that you and I would like to see in a lot of the organizers. But I also think the protest vote wasn't small enough for the Biden campaign to dismiss it in November. And you look, there's, there's, you know, uh, stats on both sides of this. Like in 2020, there was an estimated 160,000 votes cast by Muslims in Michigan. Okay. And Hamtramck, the country's only Muslim majority city, which is in Michigan, Uncommitted won by nearly 30 points last night.

30 points. Some of these precincts in Dearborn, nearly 75% voted for Uncommitted. That was the heavy Arab American population in Dearborn. So that's tough. That's tough for Biden. On the other hand, I do think that some... I expected Ann Arbor to be worse for Biden. On the other hand, I do think that some, like I expected Ann Arbor to be worse for Biden because that's where the colleges are. And Ann Arbor, it was 76% Biden, 19% uncommitted. This is a county where the University of Michigan is that Biden lost to Bernie by five points in 2020. And so I kind of thought that the younger progressive vote would be more uncommitted there. But look, we are headed into an unprecedented rematch of an election that was decided by about 40,000 votes across three states.

Yes, that's the key point, John. It's the margins, right? These margins are tiny. These margins are like, you know, I always make a joke about some of these margins. I'm from the brown community. You have more people than that at an Indian wedding than in some of these states where Joe Biden won by like, it's a tiny number of people, 10,000, 20,000. That's just the idea that you would take that gamble when we're being told rightly that democracy is on the ballot. And I think I said this last week with Tommy, but I'll say it again. Abdullah Hamoud, who is the mayor of Dearborn, made this point very eloquently in a New York Times op-ed and on CNN. He said, look, we get it. Democracy is at stake. We're not questioning the threat Donald Trump poses. The question is,

why is Joe Biden willing to risk American democracy by not listening to the American public, to his base, and sticking with Benjamin Netanyahu, a man who has screwed over every Democratic president of my lifetime? Yeah, no, I know. I mean, look, if I saw some, I think Nate Cohn pointed this out in the New York Times that if Biden, if in 2020, Biden had lost every single voter in Dearborn, Hamtramck and Dearborn Heights, the three places in Michigan where Arab Americans make up 30% of the population, he still would have won Michigan. Arab Americans make up 2% of the population in Michigan. That's probably a little less in terms of the population, he still would have won Michigan. Arab Americans make up 2% of the

population in Michigan. That's probably a little less in terms of the electorate, the people who actually vote. But again, every, I'll say this from now until November, a million times, every defection is going to matter between now and November. If you think it's just Muslims and Arab Americans, when I say you, not you, John, but if anyone thinks it's that, that's crazy. I mean, I'm meeting young people, people of color all the time. Look at the black pastors in Georgia who said, please, Mr. President, we cannot defend this war to our congregations. We saw that in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago. And by the way, it's only going to get worse. I just want to throw out a stat here, just a really important stat for your listeners.

The London School of Tropical Hygiene and Johns Hopkins here in the US did a study the other week in the New Yorker that if the war were to stop tomorrow there's a ceasefire tomorrow morning six and a half thousand Palestinians in Gaza will still die from disease and their health situation if the war continues as is over the next six months another 58,000 Palestinians will die and if it escalates as Netanyahu's threatening over Ramadan then 74,000 Palestinians will die. And if it escalates as Netanyahu's threatening over Ramadan, then 74,000 Palestinians will die in Gaza in the next six months. So the next six months is the six months running up to the election. The idea that we're going to have the war behind us, I wish that were true, but the war may not behind us. And certainly the deaths won't be behind us.

I just wanted to give that context. No, I think it's such a good point because I think we all do this. Sometimes the conversation about the domestic political impact of Biden's Gaza policy is conflated with what people think about the policy itself. And I actually don't know about the political impact at home, right? We could be right. It could be decisive or it could not. We could be right. It could be decisive or it could not. But I want him to change course because I don't love our tax dollars going to fund this just massive slaughter in Gaza of thousands and thousands of people that had absolutely nothing to do with Hamas or the October 7th attack, let alone the number of people who are going to be displaced and have already been displaced by this conflict. So I do think you can make an argument that Biden needs to change course on Gaza, even if you're not sure about the political impact. But on the political impact,

again, every defection matters. You mentioned Arab Americans, Muslims, progressives, young people, Black Americans, also Republicans, independents, Trump voters who switched to Biden last time. Like every defection matters equally. And Biden could end up losing Michigan and Pennsylvania and in some of these swing states with a combination of some young people, some Arab Americans, some independents, some disaffected Democrats who are like, you know, not everyone who voted uncommitted in Michigan is upset about Gaza, right? There's always uncommitted voters. So people could be lodging a protest against Biden about all kinds of things. So I think it's just, it's incumbent upon, and I think the campaign knows this. I think it's a question of, you know,

how their foreign policy intersects with their political strategy here. And they're going to figure that out. I also think, by the way, just before we, like, Biden doesn't just need the votes from the kinds of people he lost in Michigan. He needs them to volunteer and organize and help. Right. Enthusiasm. You can't win election without enthusiastic supporters and volunteers. Yeah. These are your door knockers. Right. So I did find it at least somewhat notable that Congressman Dean Phillips, an actual human Democratic challenger to Joe Biden, Congressman Dean Phillips, an actual human Democratic challenger to Joe Biden, finished last with just 2.7% of the vote, losing to both Uncommitted and Marianne Williamson, who had dropped out of the race until this morning when her surprising third place finish led her to unsuspend her campaign.

By the way, I love it's such an Americanism. I'm from the UK, as you know know like this idea of suspending your campaign no one ever ends it because of all the financial implications i know there's some campaign finance legal issues but i love the idea you just suspend it it's suspended it's unsuspended suspended again like it's such flexibility as you run for president i don't know if i've ever seen an unsuspension before no this may be the first you have to go back i'm sure pod save listeners will uh will volunteer that info yeah on dean phillips though call you know pull one out for bill ackman oh my god i'm so glad you brought that up his guy dean phillips was gonna

win michigan he did he said he he literally said in an interview he thought that dean phillips had a chance to win he came in dead last but i the reason I bring this up is because it is interesting to me that for all the concerns about Joe Biden's age or Joe Biden's strength as a general election candidate or his ability to beat Trump again, why do you think no Democrat was willing or able to mount a real primary challenge to Joe Biden? The simple issue is people tend not to challenge incumbents. We know that historically. Incumbent presidents tend to be re-elected, first of all. And if they are challenged in primaries, they tend not to be re-elected. People understand this. If you challenge an incumbent president, it hurts their chances in general. So most Democrats are

loyal and want to win. Put all the other issues to one side, Gaza, et cetera. You want the Democrats to win. You don't challenge the sitting Democratic president, no matter what your concerns are. I would say number two, people forget this. And I say this to, you know, people say very glibly, well, Biden's lost now. He's lost. Trump's won. You're a lot of liberals, leftists saying that. I just have to remind people that Joe Biden beat Donald Trump, right? He's done it. If the only person in the country who's ever beaten Donald Trump in a presidential election, at least under the terms of the system, Hillary beat be with the popular vote, is Joe Biden, right? So if you're going to look around the field and say, who can beat Donald Trump?

The only guaranteed person you know who can is the one who's done it before. So to be fair to Joe Biden, he does have that under his belt. He did beat Donald Trump. And I was someone who was very skeptical of Biden in 2020. I was a Bernie guy, and I was worried that Joe Biden wouldn't be able to beat Trump. So I have to be humble and say I was unnecessarily negative about Biden in 2020. Obviously, it's a different election, but give the guy a chance in that sense to beat Trump. I think the other issue is because he never came in and said, I'll be a one-term president, as many people wanted him to do, you never got that Democratic bench, those runners and riders, to be able to kind of show off their wares and be ambitious and be in a place where they could challenge him so everyone

else i guess the whitmers and the newsoms and the shapiros and the buddha judges are waiting for 28 i guess my problem with that is if biden loses now do we even get an election in 2018. That's a very good point. I do wonder, you know, there's clearly space to Biden's left on Gaza. I don't know that there's a ton of space to Biden's left on a lot of other issues just because of the way he's governed, because of the way until Gaza. Joe Biden. Right. And so I do think then you're down to, you know, Democratic politicians like Dean Phillips, who's running just saying, like, I'm exactly like Joe Biden, except I'm younger. And there's like nothing else to say. Or if you have used our own ice cream company, Joe eats ice cream. Right. That's it. That's it. Or if you're a Democratic politician who who does oppose Biden's Gaza policy, politician who who does oppose biden's gaza policy how many of those democratic politicians are as broadly appealing to biden in not only just a general election but even in a democratic

primary you know and i think that that's the reality is where it's this point now and i know the ezra klein piece about the convention and all that got people excited the reality is if joe by the later it gets in the day the more likely it is that the person who runs instead of Joe Biden is Kamala Harris. And with respect to the vice president, she has certain political skills, but most people do not think she has a better chance of beating Donald Trump than Joe Biden. And she may, but we just don't know. Again, we just don't know. We leave the polls on Biden being bad against Trump. She's worse against Trump.

us against Trump. So a senior Biden campaign official told Politico that, quote, the president shares the goal of many of the folks who voted uncommitted, which is an end to the violence and a just and lasting peace. We will earn their votes between now and November. I think the question is, how much of that uncommitted vote do you think Biden can win back by November? And how can he do it? It's very hard to say, because as you said earlier, some of the uncommitted are not motivated by Gaza. And those people who are motivated by Gaza are split into two groups. And I don't know the size of those groups,

but the two groups I come across are the group who say, we're done with Biden. We can't, it's too late. 30,000 people are dead. It doesn't matter if he gets a ceasefire tomorrow morning, tonight. We can't forgive him.

We can't. These are people, by the way, in places like Dearborn who've lost not one, not two, not three, but dozens of family members in Gaza, right? So just to put that in context. Then there's another group of people who genuinely are trying to apply pressure. And the whole point of applying pressure is if it succeeds, then you need to change your behavior. Otherwise, no one will ever take your pressure seriously again.

So if Joe Biden does get a ceasefire and you can take credit for it as organizers, then, then of course you then want to kind of shift your pitch and say, all right, you got part of what we wanted, maybe a little later than we wanted, much later in fact. We need to shift course a little bit. So that is the big question. Can he get a ceasefire? And even a ceasefire, for many people, a ceasefire is not enough. Where's the accountability? Where's the change of relationship with a far-right fascistic Israeli government that has just behaved in this outrageous way? Not just in Gaza, by the way, John, but in the occupied West Bank where they've killed 100 kids since October the 7th. No Hamas running the West Bank, no hostages in the West Bank, just for context. Let's talk about the latest developments in Gaza.

On Monday, President Biden went on a late night with Seth Meyers and said that Israel had agreed to a 40-day ceasefire during the month of Ramadan and was close to a deal with Hamas that would free around 40 hostages in return for around 400 Palestinian detainees. After the taping, Biden and Myers went to get ice cream, as one does, and the president took a shouted question from a reporter about when the deal might get done. Here's what he said. Can you give us a sense of when you think that ceasefire will start, sir? Well, I hope by the beginning of the weekend, I mean, the end of the weekend.

At least my national security advisor tells me that we're close. We're close. We're not done yet. And my hope is by next Monday, we'll have a ceasefire. Sure. Jake Sullivan loved that. So no one should get too excited before Biden's ice cream could even melt. Both the Israelis and Hamas said the two sides aren't as close to a deal

as the president suggested. What do you think happened there, Mehdi? Well, first off, I love ice cream as much as an expert, and I've eaten ice cream live on air at MSNBC on my show for a while. So I'm all for ice cream in public places, but when you're talking about a ceasefire and kids being killed, John, you worked for President of the United States. If you had been in the vicinity of Barack Obama while he was talking about syrian dead kids while eating ice cream would you have shuffled over and maybe quietly removed the ice cream from the president's hand while he aren't breaststroke see i will say have i i get the optics there having having been in those situations i can see what happened and why i want to separate out the actual answer

itself and him raising expectations from the visuals and the situation. So like the guy's advised to be out in public more, advised to answer more questions from reporters. So he's out in public. This happens all the time with campaigns. You go like, we're going to do an OTR, right? They call it off the record. They don't advise the press about this until it actually happens for security reasons.

So then the president jumps in, you know, they go into a store. They meet some people. They go into a school, like all kinds of last minute stuff. So he does that. That's fine. They go to the ice cream place. And then he gets a shouted question. Now he could ignore the reporter's shouted question, which people would criticize him for because he's not answering enough questions.

So he decides to answer the question. And I'm trying to imagine, like someone someone lunging while all the cameras are on and grabbing the ice cream away i don't think that would have been great but it couldn't have been worse than him literally holding an ice cream on the evening news clips or on social media or tiktok while he's talking about you know where 12 and a half thousand kids have died but let's talk about the substance of it are we gonna be as far i suspect not. And I think there's been far too much mixed messaging from this administration. Tommy and I discussed this at length last week. The United States has a lot of leverage here. It has refused to use that leverage. Joe Biden has refused to

use that leverage. The Pentagon has refused to use that leverage. Obviously, we know Congress will never use its leverage. And that means that Israeli ministers can say, why do we care what Joe Biden says with or without an ice cream in his hand? We can do whatever the hell we want because the money tap's not being turned off. The arms keep coming. The Biden administration bypassed Congress not once, twice, to make sure arms get to the Israelis as they kill thousands of people in what the ICJ has called plausibly, could plausibly be a genocide. So I think that's the problem where, you know, we hear these leaked stories that the White House is very upset with Netanyahu. Biden wants a ceasefire. We see him saying, I hope to get a ceasefire in certain days. At the National Prayer Breakfast recently, he was very eloquent about the pain

that Palestinians have gone through and how he wants to help Palestinians. But do the actions match the words? Is he willing to do what needs to be done? And so far, still no. I wrote a Guardian piece recently saying, the American president has the power to pick up the phone, call the Israeli prime minister and say, it's done. Stop. Ronald Reagan did it. Joe Biden did it in 2021 when Netanyahu was killing people then. He could do it now. And for the life of me, I don't understand why he's not, as I say, not just for moral reasons, but for his own domestic political reasons. And I think just on the ceasefire very quickly, John, just so your listeners are aware, this isn't about pro-Israel,

anti-Israel. People in Israel are upset with Netanyahu for not doing a ceasefire and getting hostages out. Families of the hostages have protested outside the prime minister's office, parliament. In fact, a hostage who was released was assaulted by police at a demonstration recently while calling for the hostages who are still behind in Gaza to get released as part of a deal. So the Israeli government made clear that hostages are not their priority. They are using the hostages as a way to do what they've always wanted to do, which is wipe out Hamas, if that's even possible, and take back Gaza. Well, and if you even compare the number of hostages that have been released and the Hamas leadership that has been wiped out with, and you put that next to the number of civilians and especially children who have been killed, it doesn't, even if you're a staunch supporter of Israel, you still haven't gotten the hostages back. Even if you're a staunch supporter of Israel, you still haven't gotten the hostages back.

Hamas leadership is still out there. And meanwhile, the death of thousands and thousands of civilians is, you know, at the result of what your government is doing. And you mentioned staunch supporters of Israel. My question to staunch supporters of Israel, forget Palestinians for a moment, just as a supporter of Israel and Israeli people and Israeli hostages, what does it say that the Netanyahu government and the Israeli military, this is an unknowable fact, John, have killed more Israeli hostages than they've rescued? That's pretty stark five months into this war. They have killed, wittingly, unwittingly, whatever argument you want to have, they've killed

more Israeli hostages than they've rescued. That tells you that even from the perspective of let's fight this war to save the hostages, this war is a disaster. Put aside the whole moral calculation of killing 30,000 Palestinians to get back 150 hostages. Yeah. I listened to you and Tommy last week and like, I'm skeptical that if Biden called Bibi tomorrow and said, end this thing, this is, or did a big public break that Bibi wouldn't just say, fuck off. I'm going to do what I want anyway. Maybe it would definitely, you know, it would definitely put a lot more pressure on him where I do think Biden can obviously exert leverage and have an impact is on the aid, is on the military aid. And to me, like if there's an aid package that passes,

and I know that this is like sort of wrapped up in Ukraine and everything else, but if there's an aid package that passes with military aid to Israel where there are no conditions, like I just, I don't know. That to me, for people who are upset with Biden's Gaza policy, seems like it would be like a point of no return at that, you know? And so I just, I don't understand. Children, right? It's something you teach children, like conditions, restrictions, strings attached. You don't get what you want for nothing. Like basic stuff that understand children right it's something you teach children like conditions restrictions strings attached you don't get what you want for nothing like basic stuff that we've abandoned in our geopolitics and our foreign policy we're going to give you all the weapons you want with no

conditions then we're going to say do stuff and you're going to say no of course you're going to say no i mean when when when this two-bit fascist and when i say fascist the guy calls himself a fascist bizarre little smotrich the israeli finance minister who is a far right calls himself a fascist. Bizarrel Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister, who is a far right, calls himself a proud fascist, a proud homophobe. When he says, I'm not going to allow flour to go into Gaza, and the American government says, you really should allow it. And he says, no. What does that do for America standing in the world?

This two-bit fascist in Israel can tell the United States of America to F off with no consequences. No, I mean, I think you've got to condition the aid. And I also think like you got to you got to come up with or find a ceasefire resolution at the UN that the United States can support. Right. I mean, I just and then, you know, Biden can certainly make a public break with Bibi. But, you know, you can hear him on Seth on during the interview with Seth. He sort of gets into the details of what he's hoping happens, right? There's a temporary ceasefire and he's already gotten assurances from BB that they won't

invade Rafa without making sure that they evacuate civilians there and all that kind of stuff. And so, you know, it's always this hope that if there's a pause in violence and we can get them to do this and they're still listening to me, then it can buy us more time and there can be a and like i i get where that thought was coming from maybe even at the beginning of this conflict but at this point with the number of times that the netanyahu has basically just given biden the finger i i don't know how much more you can hold out hope that this guy is going to uh do what you want him to do to quote bill clinton i quoted him last week i'm going to quote him again. I've never quoted Bill Clinton this often in my life.

Coming out of a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu back in the day when Netanyahu was prime minister. Netanyahu was very old. Clinton comes out of the room and says, who the fuck is the superpower here?

Yeah, no, that is, it's a good quote. So Biden didn't just talk about Gaza with Seth Meyers. He appeared with Meyers and Amy Poehler as part of Late Night's 10th anniversary show.

He was also asked about everything from dark Brandon memes to concerns about his age. Here's what he said. You mentioned some classified materials, some documents recently leaked, some classified documents. And this isn't a gotcha show, but I do want to ask about it. That says you are currently 81 years old. Who the hell told you that? Yeah. That's classified yeah that's classified that's classified all jokes aside according to recent polling this is a real concern for american voters how do you address that concern going forward as you come up to the 2024 election well a couple things number one you gotta take a look at the other guy he's about as old as i am

but he can't remember his wife's name yeah and uh. Number two. It's about how old your ideas are. Look, I mean, this is a guy who wants to take us back. He wants to take us back on Roe v. Wade. He wants to take us back on a whole range of issues that are 50, 60 years. They've been solid American positions. So whether the Biden folks planned it like this or not, the president's appearance coincided with a lot of Democrats advising him to get out there more and mix it up. How do you think it went? I think that was a good answer, what we just heard. I think when he has some of those good digs at Trump on Trump's criminality or age or whatever it is, they work because let's be honest, it's not that hard to make fun of Donald Trump. I wish more Democrats

would do it and do it more often. I mean, Seth Meyers, it's kind of predictable, late night liberal comedy show. I did slightly cringe. I did Seth Meyers once and you do that walkout. It's a very long walk to your seat. You're kind of nervous. The audience are looking at you. And he did look a little frail if we're going to get into the whole age debate. The problem with Joe Biden is he looks older. That's just a reality. Donald Trump is far unhealthier, far more mentally incompetent, far more ignorant, far more forgetful, far more incoherent. But Joe Biden looks to the normie average voter who's not following this up as a little bit more frail. I think he should address the age thing head on. I've said that for a while. Ronald Reagan did it with humor. Famously in the

80s, Biden has a good sense of humor. I actually think they could do stuff outside of the humor realm, right? For me, the moment when Joe Biden really pushed back against critics who said he's too old to do the job, he's too frail, he's too weak, was when he gets on that train and goes to Ukraine. I can't remember when it was, last year, year before, I've already lost track of what month it was. But he gets on the train, he goes to ukraine he goes in secret this epic journey and he gets to ukraine and he wanders around with zelensky and i didn't know this at the time and i i bet a lot of americans still don't know he's the first president of our lifetimes to go into

an active war zone without the u.s military he just had a secret service detail and there were remember there were sirens going off and like Republican conspiracy theories, like they put those sirens on on purpose to make them, because the Democrat, the DNC controls Vladimir Putin's airstrike plan. But that for me was quite powerful. And I remember at the time people were like,

they should cut an ad. Well, like the problem with our politics, John, as you know, is it's very ephemeral. We've all moved on. Everyone's forgotten about that. And I'm sitting here in 2024 saying, where's that ad? Why aren't we seeing more of that? Why doesn't he just go to Kiev next week? Do the stuff that shows you are a dynamic leader. For me, the best domestic moment of Biden's presidency in terms of rhetoric is when he's given the State of the Union and the

Republicans are heckling him. And he heckles back. And you see the poll numbers go up. The populist Biden, the Biden who's willing to mix it up, the Biden who's willing to call out people, that Biden domestically, put aside my issues, very strong issues with his Gaza policy, that Biden works. When was he most popular in his presidency? When he's doing the American Rescue Plan in his first few months, when he's super popular. And I can't remember who sent this on Twitter the other day, John. If you read Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, they know he's populist. They're really pissed at his policies about drug pricing and everything else. It's weirdly swing voters, parts of his own base, et cetera, who are not quite getting it.

I couldn't agree more with everything you said. I liked the answer on age because, you know, he was asked about people being concerned about his age. He didn't get defensive. He didn't deny that it was true. You remember after the her report, when he did that impromptu press conference and a reporter asked him about, you know, voters age concerns, he said, they don't have those concerns. That's just you. He was completely different with Seth, right? He was he just he was he he owned it. He made a joke about it. And then he he immediately pivoted to that great line about Trump's ideas being old, which is a version of a line AOC used when she was supporting Ed Markey in that Massachusetts Senate race. And a line that David Axelrod has been suggesting, even though, you know, everyone thinks that he's now persona non grata in the in the White House. Maybe us, too. But but it But I was so happy with that.

I was so happy. And the appearance was not perfect, right? He still trailed off at times. He interrupts himself once in a while. But if you're someone who's wondering whether he's sharp enough for the job or knows his shit, more appearances like that should give you more confidence. Though I totally agree, like he is at his best when he is populist, when he's mixing it up with Republicans, like at the State of the Union. And exactly like you said about Ukraine, of course, they did make an ad about that. That was one of the first ads of the campaign. But then,

you know, we memory hole everything because there's so much news that part of the campaigns are just going to be reminding everyone constantly about both all the bad things that Donald Trump has done and will do and what Joe Biden has done and will do. And you're so right to remind me of the ad. And I'm going to do a pitch for my book. Now, I've pitched my company, Win Every Argument, which is out in paperback this week. And I quote a line in there. Peter Mandelson, John, you may remember, a very famous British politician, one of Tony Blair's top communications advisors. He used to have a phrase.

He said, you have to keep repeating everything. And when you start getting bored of saying the same thing again and again, you're only halfway towards getting your message to the electorate, who still aren't paying attention. So you're so right to point out repetition, just banging that home. And one thing I would say about age and mental, I mean, I think there should be a full-on assault on Donald Trump's mental fitness for office, right? We all know the guy is mentally unfit for office. It is the great open secret of American politics, but we don't say it often enough. We don't call him out often enough. The man, person, camera, crazy guy should not be president of the United States. If I'm Biden, and he's also super ignorant, right? The guy doesn't know anything. So, you know, here's a random thought

that I've literally had right now while you were talking. Trump loves to go challenge people to things, right? I challenge Rex Tillis. Joe Biden should come out and say, I challenge Donald Trump right now. We sit down together and we'll pick a neutral moderator who just quizzes us on things that are happening in the world, just general knowledge. No, just general knowledge, just literally. Capital cities, world leaders history trump's obsessive rating record ratings do it i was thinking about this when um trump over the weekend uh at cpac was like i am a dissident i am a political dissident i'm like i just someone ask him what it doesn't mean just someone ask him what is my answer when he was president i i think i said on twitter i was offering money to a white house correspondent who would ask trump at a press conference, sir, when will you be visiting Wakanda?

He'll definitely, yeah. We're going to get it on the calendar. It's going to be great. People there love me. We love it. We love Wakanda. Don't we love it? All right.

Before we go, we got to talk about the results from the Republican primary in Michigan. Going into the race, 538 polling average had Trump at 79% and Haley at 22%. But as he did in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, Trump once again underperformed the polls. He beat Haley 68 to 27%, with nearly 300,000 people turning out to vote against him. We talked about Joe Biden getting 100,000 protest votes in a state he won by 150,000 votes. Isn't there a good argument to be made that Trump losing 300,000 votes to Haley in a state he already lost by 150,000 votes is an even bigger challenge for him? Yeah, although the New York Times reported, I don't know if you saw the headline that was getting dissed on social media was,

was it Biden faces challenge from uncommitted, Trump handily beats his opponent or something like that? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What? The numbers are not the same. Anyways, look, I would draw two lessons or two messages from that Republican primary. Number one, it's a reminder that within the Republican Party,

Trump owns the Republican Party. Let's have no debate about who owns the Republican Party. He's the first non-incumbent Republican president to sweep every primary, right? Never happened before. He's doing it. And a year or two ago, people would have said, oh, Ron DeSantis is going to do it. And some of us said, no, he's not. And here's Trump doing it. He owns the Republican Party. It's his party. Let's just be clear on that. He's the candidate. Having said that, as you point out with the numbers and with the Nikki Haley supporters who say, I may not vote for him, he's much weaker in general than people make him out to be. Right now, there's this weird

momentum from left and right that Trump's unstoppable. We're definitely going to get another Trump presidency. That's just not true. He's eminently beatable. The guy's never won the popular vote against a Democrat, right? Let's just be clear about that as well. Just remind everyone. So he's eminently beatable. It could go either way. I don't do predictions anymore because they're for crazy people. And therefore, there should be some hope taken from the fact that a lot of Republicans are telling pollsters, I'm not going to vote for this guy if he's the candidate. Now, do we believe them? We know it's a very cultish, very loyal party. They're united in their hatred for the Democrats and owning the libs. A lot of them will go home

to Trump no matter what they tell exit pollsters right now. That's why it will be so close. But he's eminently beatable. And the worst thing anyone could do is just assume he's won. I'm not saying pod save listeners are of the group, but there's a lot of people I meet and just go, it's going to be Trump. No, that's not true. It could be either of them. It's literally 50-50. Yeah. And again, I think the main benefit of Haley staying in the race through Super Tuesday is Democrats and the Biden campaign are now going to have some pretty good data on where the potential anti-Trump Republican vote is going to be. And they can look at the map in Michigan and they can look at where Trump didn't do well and Haley did do well. And again, are you going to get all of those Haley voters to vote Democrat or stay home? You know, probably not. But you can target them for persuasion,

right? I mean, the fact that Trump only got 59% in Grand Rapids, 62% in Oakland County, like those are bad numbers for Trump in those counties. They are affluent, college-educated counties. And again, you know, we talk a lot about sort of Biden defections, but, you know, Biden sort of replaced a lot of working class defections, though he got some back after 2016 that Hillary lost some. But he replaced a lot of those voters with sort of college educated voters in the suburbs. And I do think there's still room to grow with some of those voters, right? Like, he can you remind them who Donald Trump is to go back to what we just said, his mental unfitness and the point you made about repetition and memory holding. Like, just remind, oh, Joe Biden got CeCe's name wrong. Okay, but Donald Trump said put disinfectant in your veins.

That's fake. Right? Like, this is not hard. There's a whole litany of stuff you can throw at them. By the way, on Nikki Haley, John, how long do you think until she endorses him? This could just be a fantasy I don't think she's ever going to endorse Joe Biden or anything like that but but I don't think that's going to happen that sportsman's bet no money I bet she endorsed him but I think that there's a

small chance that she just is like I'm out I've dropped out I think Joe Biden's awful I don't trust Trump and I'm just gonna i'm just gonna go away i think i would put it at like 20 i'm at 20 john if she comes second right she's in a very prime position to be a favorite in 28 she's not going to piss off the republican base by not endorsing the candidate so she kind of has to in some ways yeah but then play that out right so if trump wins the election she's not the favorite in 28 because they're all going to remember that she was a traitor and disloyal and like she's done. If Trump loses, then she is better off saying, I told you so. I told you he was a fucking loser.

And that's why I didn't. That's why I didn't endorse him. That's why I stayed up. We should keep saying every time we say if Trump wins, then we should just put a question mark around 28. I just keep saying that, by the way. Are you right? No, we could all be in the gulag. So, all right.

Before we go to break, two quick notes. Next Thursday, March 7th, is the State of the Union. We're going to be doing a group thread as we watch. Then right after the speech, Dan and I are going to stay up late and record the Friday pod. You can watch with us on the Pod Save America YouTube channel or our Friends of the Pod Discord, where you'll be able to submit questions for us in the main chat. Head to crooked.com slash friends to learn more and sign up. Also, exciting news. Crooked's daily news podcast, What A Day, just added a new weekend

series called How We Got Here every Saturday. In the latest episode, you'll learn all about how Christian nationalists took over the GOP. Give it a listen. It's Max Fisher, Aaron Ryan. Fantastic. Let us know what you think and subscribe to What A Day wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Joining us now, America's Secretary of transportation pete budaj uh welcome back to the pod pete hey thanks for having me back on good to be with you again so i'm not sure if you know this about me but i am a very nervous flyer i think there is not enough xanax in all of los angeles to get me on a boeing 737 max right now now. And that's saying something because

there's a lot of Xanax in this town. This week's FAA report that faulted Boeing for its inadequate and confusing safety culture didn't make me feel much better. There was, of course, as you know, the Alaska Airlines plane where the door blew off in the middle of the flight. How confident are you that the 737 MAX and all Boeing planes are just as safe as every other plane in the skies right now? Look, anything that the FAA allows to fly, the FAA believes is safe. Anytime I step on a plane, including a Boeing 737 MAX 9, which I did a few days ago, I know that I'm safe because of all of the people from the

flight crew and the flight attendants and pilots to the maintenance folks to the FAA who make sure that's the case. Having said that, we believe that there is a culture problem at Boeing when it comes to safety. So the FAA administrator has given Boeing 90 days to put together a plan comprehensively demonstrating how they're going to shift that. That includes very specific tactical things that emerged when we deployed FAA personnel to the factories to assess what's going on, and more broad, big picture things around putting safety first and the culture and the prioritization that happens there. But as a nervous flyer, I should tell you that the urgency around this is starting with the context that aviation is the safest way to travel in America and keeping it that way. So this is all

about us not taking for granted that traveling on a commercial airliner is by far the safest way to get somewhere. What we also need to do is frankly push the culture on safety in other modes of travel, notably freight rail and cars and roadways closer to that territory, because there's a lot of work we've got to do on that front too. But on the aviation front, you're going to see Boeing continue to be under a microscope and they won't be allowed to return to the production numbers that they have advertised until FAA is satisfied that they've got a handle on all of these issues. Yeah, so I read that report. What tools do you guys have to ensure that the safety issues are addressed to the government satisfaction after that 90 days

passes? A lot. I mean, part of it is the audit, like the audit that's underway right now. Part of it is measures like the unprecedented measure that the FAA took to meter the number of planes they can produce in a month and hold that to 38 until they can prove that it is safe to increase it. The basic division of labor here is that the FAA creates a safety standard, and then Boeing is responsible for demonstrating that they've met that standard. But another thing that's going on with our new administrator, Mike Whitaker, in office is assessing that entire framework to say, do we have the tools that we need to be a thousand percent confident that every aircraft not only is

designed in a way that's safe, but every time each specimen rolls off the line, that it actually conforms to that safe design. One more question about air safety and we can move on. New York Times reported over the summer that according to FAA records, the number of close calls involving commercial airlines have been happening on average multiple times a week, have doubled over the last decade. What is your assessment of why that's happening? Is this like an air traffic control staffing issue? That's definitely part of it. We just have not enough air traffic controllers in this country. They do a phenomenal job. I was just in a tower a few days ago with them. When you go up into one of these towers, what's really striking is this deceptive sense of calm because it's quiet, it's measured,

but they are working at an extraordinary pace. If you go to, for example, the tower at DCA, close to where I'm sitting here at DOT headquarters, they handle about a flight a minute, about 1,000 operations a day. And through that unrelenting pace, their expertise, their training serves them well, but they're being asked to come in for more shifts than we should ask people to come into. Don't get me wrong. If there's a concern that would actually rise to a level that doesn't meet the standards for fatigue or safety, then the FAA would rather allow that to mean fewer flights go than allow that to become any kind of knowable safety issue. But bottom line, we don't want either one of those things to happen, which is why we need to hire more.

Now, for the last 30 years, the number of air traffic controllers has been declining. We have finally reversed that. It's finally growing. We are finally hiring more than the number who leave. But importantly, among the many, many, many reasons why it is absurd for us to be yet again at the cusp of a potential shutdown is that on day one of a shutdown, our Air Traffic Controller Academy in Oklahoma shuts down. And just the way the training works out there, if it's closed even for a couple of days, that could set us back by weeks in terms of the pipeline for getting these folks trained up. So I know there's a million reasons not to have a shutdown. One of the ones I'm watching most closely is the last thing we want to do right now is allow the hiring and training of air

traffic controllers to slow down and get stopped. From where you're sitting at the Department of Transportation, what other effects would Americans notice from a shutdown? Which, you know, I just heard Schumer and Mike Johnson and everyone saying they're hopeful that they're going to reach a deal. But if they don't and there's a shutdown, what would people experience? Well, again, the thing I'm probably watching most closely is what that would do to air traffic control hiring.

Also, the air traffic controllers who do come in, so the training shuts down. Obviously, the towers don't shut down. That's a function that has to continue 24 by 7 by 365. But one thing that will happen is they stop getting paid and they don't get paid until after the shutdown is resolved. Again, if you just think about what it's like in those towers and what those men and women are doing every day, the last thing I want them worried about is being able to pay rent this month or how they're going to move money, cash around because they're not getting a paycheck. So that's an important example.

All kinds of other functions, some of which affect some of the airport physical improvements that we're doing. And that's just out of the aviation sector. And as you know, the convoluted math of how our budgets are put together actually means that parts of this department will be up and running and parts of them will not be. Even just the effort of computing all of that is taking huge amounts of attention and time in a totally unnecessary way because all the people here in this building who are working on that ought to be working on transportation and all the other things we came here to do. Yeah. Republicans in Congress are also threatening to block Senator Tammy Duckworth's bill to protect access to IVF in the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court's decision, even though most of them say they support IVF.

They also promote adoption as an alternative to abortion, even though they've tried to make it so that adoption agencies can refuse to work with gay couples. Some have even come after you and Chastin personally for adopting your beautiful twins. What do you make of their inconsistency here? Is it hypocrisy, ignorance, politics, extremism? It's all of the above. And what it is is ugly because you've got politicians who claim to be pro-family. And then it turns out they're incredibly selective about who counts as a family and whose families deserve to be protected. Whether it's a couple like me and Chasten who have provided a loving home and have expanded our family through adoption of our incredible twins, our son and our

daughter, or whether it's so many people who are counting on IVF as a way to expand their family. Now, I think they know how rotten their own position is. You can tell because they won't own up to it. But still, this isn't theoretical, right? Starting with Alabama, and Alabama will not be the last place where families, would-be parents, women lose the right to IVF. That is the direct result of decisions that congressional Republicans, President Trump, and of course the court that they created have made. They can't have it both ways. And again, a really good sign that somebody's position is terrible is when they pretend that it's not true. Yeah. You tweeted yesterday about voting for Joe Biden in the Michigan Democratic primary. About 13 percent of the people there voted uncommitted after an organized effort to protest the president's policy in Gaza.

You had protesters show up at an event you held a few months ago at Michigan State University. What have you said to friends or neighbors or young people who who told you, you know, I'm upset with the president over the war in Gaza? So first of all, I get it. And nobody can look at what is happening there and feel good. The other thing I'll say is that right now, negotiations are underway to make sure that two things happen, an end to the killing and the return of the hostages. Obviously, I'm not in the middle of that. That's not what I work on. But I know that that's underway. And I know that the president's leadership is a very important part of all of that unfolding. And look, there's a very clear commitment here to make sure that the future doesn't look like the past. And that's the other

really important thing, I think, to think about for Palestinians and Israelis living safely, each with a state, an actual state where their rights and their freedoms are protected and their security is looked after. That is obviously not the reality that we inherited. It was not true before October 7th. It has not been true since. And until it is, there's going to be more pain. Four years ago on the night before the Michigan primary, Joe Biden said that he viewed himself only as a bridge to the next generation of leaders. As someone who ran for president on the need for generational change in Washington, I feel like you are uniquely qualified to make the case for President Biden to younger people

who may have their doubts about him right now. What would you say as someone who has now worked closely with the president over the last three years? I guess the biggest thing I would say is that we have a president who is focused on the future, who actually cares about what our future will be like. Not just our future as a country, but our future speaking for at least by Washington standards, a relatively younger generation and our future in terms of, you know, my kids, which is a whole new way of thinking about this. You know, the difference between our current administration that is taking the most aggressive action to confront climate

change by any country ever versus the prior one that really erased even the word climate from being something they would discuss. This is just one example of how we do things differently and how we will continue to do things differently. And this matters. I mean, the other thing I think is really important to get across right now is that the gains that we have made on something like climate, there's obviously a long way to go, but none of these gains are secure. I mean, right now there are debates going on. I know, you know, certainly on our side of the aisle about how to go further, what else there are debates going on. I know, you know, certainly on our side of the aisle about how to go further, what else is possible. But last time I was testifying in

front of the House of Representatives, I was still debating people who don't believe climate change is real, or at least claim not to believe that climate change is real, and legislate accordingly. And they are in charge of one of the chambers of the United States Congress. So right now, so much depends on our ability to advance these policies. And whether it's something like that, whether it is the work that's been done on student loans, whether it is the work that's being done to reinforce the democracy in this country, it is being done with a view to the future. That's part of what makes me proud to work here. And obviously, that's especially true on the part I get to work on the most, which is the infrastructure work. Remember, the last president said he was going to deliver an infrastructure

bill. I will admit this is the one time that the last president had me fooled. I thought they were going to do it. Why wouldn't you do it, right? He said he was a big builder, he was a bipartisan priority with good politics. Why wouldn't you do it? And said he was a big builder, he was a bipartisan priority with good politics. Why wouldn't you do it? And yet even there, completely failed to deliver. President Biden arrived. And by the way, in a way that specifically vindicates his theory of government, which is that you can at least some of the time get people to cross the aisle and do something together. That's how we did this. Bipartisan, mind you, far more Democrats than Republicans, but a number of Republicans crossed the aisle to work with President Biden, work with Democrats, work with me, work with others in the administration to get this done. And now we have a trillion

dollar infrastructure bill, which is itself also a climate bill, by the way, in the sense that we're doing more for transit, we're doing more for electric vehicles, we're electrifying our ports, which, by the way, not just less carbon emissions. That means cleaner air for communities, including largely disproportionately communities of color whose kids are more likely to get asthma because they live next to ports and the particulate matter that comes out of those operations. So many things happening around the country. Anyway, my point is, look, obviously, I am from a different generation than the president. I also know that my generation and my kids' generation are so much better off because the president of the United States gets up every day thinking about how to make sure our future is better. You mentioned Biden's governing theory.

He's framed this strategy in the past as trying to prove that democracy can deliver. And basically the idea is, you know, if you can pass legislation and enact policies that tangibly improve people's lives, people will have more faith in the system and be more likely to prefer our democratic system over the appeal of a strongman. And you guys have made like huge progress on passing that agenda and improving people's lives. But, you know, you hear this from the White House itself that they're frustrated the media hasn't focused enough on that progress. That progress hasn't broken through to people enough, even though it's real and it's there. You've had a front row seat to that when you go to ribbon cutting ceremonies. Um, how do you get around that problem or at least that challenge where I think the theory is sound about democracy delivering, but yet we're still stuck in this closely divided country where a Trump presidency is, is possible again.

Look, I think it's true. I'm definitely frustrated that president Biden doesn't get more credit for the things that he's delivered. Part of that has to do with the nature of infrastructure work, how long some of it takes, how indirect some of it is. I mean, the vast majority of our, for example, the funding that goes to roads and bridges, goes through the states. Some of those governors are inclined to credit the president with giving him the funding to get this done. Some of them, obviously, less likely to do that. There are even a few cases, they've been pretty rare, but there are a couple cases, notably in Florida, where a state sent back infrastructure

money because they didn't want to get caught cooperating with President Biden. So obviously very frustrating to watch those very, very political dynamics play out. At the same time, we know that when we get out there and draw attention to this work, people want to see more of that. You can tell because so many of the congressional Republicans who voted against these projects getting funded still want to be there to celebrate the projects. So you can tell that it's good politics and good policy if they want to be there. And you know what? If they're there to say, you know, I was wrong to oppose this and I'm glad it's coming and I'm thankful to President Biden, then welcome aboard. Otherwise, I think we feel an obligation to point this out. But bottom line, I think it shows that it does matter to be seen getting good projects out there

and getting good projects done. And, you know, that's going to continue to be our focus. And if that requires going there, going out to projects is one of the best parts of my job anyway. And, you know, that's going to continue to be our focus. And if that requires going there, going out to projects is one of the best parts of my job anyway. And I think you'll see the president out there a lot, too, both, you know, elevating the importance of the projects and helping to make sure that they get delivered. I've lost count of how many people have said to be, you know, Secretary Pete's one of the best messengers in the party. Why can't we get him out there more? I know you've got a day job that keeps you plenty busy. Do you plan to campaign for Joe Biden in your personal capacity during this race? I expect that I will. I can't really get into that while I'm sitting in this chair because I'm here as secretary and we actually care about the Hatch Act in this

administration. That's not standard practice maybe for our predecessors. But yeah, of course, I'm going to do everything I can out there within the limits of the fact that I have a pretty demanding job here at the DOT, which I'm proud to be doing. And look, we also believe that good policy is good politics. And if we keep delivering in a real way, look, I'm not naive. You don't instantly get credit for doing good things, especially things that take a while. But I also think that one of the best things that I can do on any account is just to have my head down and get this work done. You and I got into politics around the same time. Did you ever imagine 20 years ago that someday you'd have the honor of serving as a cabinet secretary who had to issue a warning to some

morons who'd gone viral for wearing their Apple Vision Pros while driving a Cybertruck. The future is now, right? I mean, and I got to tell you, I mean, I don't know what was going on in that video. I don't even know if it was real. I just know that anytime I see something like that, I just feel the need to remind everybody, there is no car that you can go buy today that doesn't require you to have your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel. There's some really fancy stuff. There's some cool tech. It's great. It is designed to supplement the driver, not replace the driver. For God's sake, watch the road. Don't check your email. Don't do whatever that guy was doing in that video. Just keep your eye on the road. It's that simple. It doesn't seem like it's a hard warning. All right, last question. So Emily and I have a toddler who's three.

We now have a two-month-old as well. Congratulations. Thank you. I no longer know what it's like to not feel tired. You guys have twins. I cannot imagine handling two at once the entire time while one of you is transportation secretary. How has that been?

So it's a challenge. I mean, yeah, we became parents to twins on about 24 hours notice. That's tough too. I don't know if every adoptive parent has had this experience, but the advice we got from our agency was actually not to set everything up and have the room ready to go and everything like that because of just the emotions around the false starts. And we definitely had false starts, as many adoptive parents do. So everything changed literally overnight for us. As you know, it's the best and hardest thing in the world. And as I'm sure you also know, you really learn just how much you count on your spouse.

And, you know, Chaston's traveling a lot too. You know, he's been in demand as a speaker, he's booked it very well. And so, in fact, today I happen to be on solo dad duty while he's traveling. Pretty soon, you know, I'll be looking at a bridge or a tunnel somewhere and the reverse will be true. And, you. And you figure it out. But yeah, you really, the two, look, we don't know it any other way, right? We only know what it's like to have twins. But I get the sense that it is more than 2X as demanding as one because you got the one interfering with the other one while you're trying to do your thing, especially around bath time.

But again, it's the best thing ever. Bath time is tough. In the solo parenting, when you have to do that,, especially around bath time. But again, it's the best thing ever. And the solo parenting when you have to do that, that's really tough. Yeah, because you only have like 10 seconds, right, to get the diaper on the one kid while they're on their way out of the tub before you got the other kid that you got to take care of.

It is 3D chess out there. You had a recent post that connected with me in the most visceral way. You asked, just how deeply can the Frozen soundtrack get ingrained in your brain's subroutines before it's permanently displacing essential knowledge? And is there anything you can do about this? I want to know if you've figured that out yet

because Charlie was screaming and singing Let It Go in his crib at 5.30 a.m. yesterday while I was trying to prepare for this interview. It is. I mean, at least the music that they're getting toddlers addicted to now is better music, I think objectively better music than what was going around when we were little for the most part. So we got that going for us. I mean, that's the real thing. I'm driving along, I have to play Let It Go for the 19th time. And I'm like, there's actually a lot of depth to this song, right? But yeah, of course, it's also harder because they know what song they want to hear,

but they don't know how to explain it to me. So like if they just say play Snowman, I know which song to go for. But if they say play Castle, as they demanded that I do this morning in the van, I don't know which song on the Frozen soundtrack Castle means. There's a castle involved in I think most of the, I don't know. As far as what knowledge it displaces, I used't know which song on the Frozen soundtrack, castle means. There's a castle involved in I think most of the, I don't know. As far as what knowledge it displaces, I used to know something about chemistry, not a lot, but like in high school,

like I learned chemistry, that's gone. And I'm pretty sure that that's coming out of the same pocket of my brain that has now been permanently invaded by the Frozen soundtrack, which now also you will find, even when your kids are not around, will be playing in your mind

at the most unexpected and inappropriate times when you're trying to concentrate on something else constantly constantly and the other day we were driving to school and and charlie was i was like oh we're gonna play another hot wheels song now the cars soundtrack again and he was like dad can we have peace and quiet and just chat and i was like okay great but then careful what you wish for because then there was about 40 questions on the way to school. Hey, I'll take it. Yeah, you'll get into that, and then you get to explain all kinds of things. That's true.

Oh, I'm already out of my depth on heavy equipment. Like, what's that? I think it's an excavator. What's that? I don't know. Another excavator? What's that? I don't know, man.

But you know what? You're the Secretary of Transportation. You can tell your kids you're in charge of all the excavators. I did, and they are not impressed. That's good to know. That's good to know. Keeps you humble. Secretary Pete Buttigieg, thank you for stopping by Pod Save America and come back soon. Appreciate you. Thanks. Same here. Thanks to Pete for joining us. And Mehdi, thank you for joining us.

Congrats again on the new media venture. Everyone go check it out and come back and talk to us soon. I would love to come back and talk to you soon. Till then, I'll be talking else where I'm shameless plug alert. Zeteonews.com. Z-E-T-E-O-N-E-W-S.com. Thank you, John. Thanks to Tommy last week.

It's been a pleasure. Thanks, Mehdi. If you want to get ad free episodes, exclusive content, and more consider joining our friends of the pod subscription community at crooked.com slash friends. And if you're already doom scrolling, don't forget to follow us at pod,

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Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Kira Wakeem is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis.

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