The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Pete Buttigieg Addresses Mysterious Drone Sightings, Travel Inflation, Future Career Moves + More

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

The Breakfast Club Sits Down With Pete Buttigieg And He Addresses Mysterious Drone Sightings, Travel Inflation, Future Career Moves. Listen For More!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We want to speak out and we want this to stop. Wow, very powerful. I'm Ellie Flynn, an investigative journalist, and this is my journey deep into the adult entertainment industry. I really wanted to be a player boy, my doll. He was like, I'll take you to the top, I'll make you a star. To expose an alleged predator and the rotten industry he works in. It's honestly so much worse than I had anticipated.

We're an army in comparison to him. From Novel, listen to The Bunny Trap on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. It's John, also known as Dr. John Paul. And I'm Jordan, or Joe Ho. And we are the Black Fat Film Podcast.

A podcast where all the intersections of identity are celebrated. Ooh, chat. This year, we have had some of our favorite people on including Kid Fury, T.S. Madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey Show, Angelica Ross, and more. Make sure you listen to the Black Fat Fam podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts, girl. Ooh, I know that's right. Hey, y'all, Nymonee here.

I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip hop. Flash slam, another one gone. Bash bam, another one gone. The cracker, the bat, and another one gone. A tip, but a cap, cause another one gone. Each episode is about a different inspiring figure from history, like this one about Claudette Colvin,

a 15 year old girl in Alabama who refused to give up her seat on the city bus nine whole months before Rosa Parks did the same thing. Check it. And it began with me Did you know, did you know I wouldn't give up my seat Nine months before Rosa It was Claudette for my

Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Because in order to make history, you have to make some noise. Listen to historical records on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers.

So that's why we created the Big Take from Bloomberg podcasts to give you the context you need to make sense of it all. Every day in just 15 minutes, we dive into one global business story that matters. You'll hear from Bloomberg journalists like Matt Levine. A lot of this meme stock stuff is, I think, embarrassing to the SEC. Follow The Big Take podcast on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen.

Yo, what up? It's your girl Jess Hilarious, and I think it's time to acknowledge that I'm not just on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Come to me, your best friend acting shady. Come to me. Thought you was the father, but you not? Come to me. I can't promise I won't judge you, but I can guarantee that I will help you. Listen to Carefully Reckless on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything.

["Wake That Ass Up!" by The Breakfast Club plays.] Wake that ass up. Early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning everybody. It's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne the guy. We are The Breakfast Club. Angela Rye, of course, is checking in with us as always.

And we got a special guest in the building. Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg. Welcome back. Thanks. Good to be back. Good morning. How are you, man? Happy holidays, by the way. Same to you. You gonna dump right in?

Yeah, you know me. One goal, one business. Let's jump right in. Secretary, Pete, you are the Secretary of Transportation. What do you know about these manned SUV-sized drones flying over New Jersey? Scaring the hell out of us. John Kirby, the National Security Communications

Advisor, said they were manned yesterday. What do you think it is? So, I mean, we're helping law enforcement work through it all, mainly a homeland security issue. Our job is to make sure that any restricted airspace, nothing comes in there that shouldn't be there. That includes airspace over an airport. Sometimes another area could be restricted because it's sensitive. For example, that's close to the Trump golf club. There's temporary flight restrictions there. Bigger picture is we're going to have more and more drones.

Obviously if it's manned that's different, but we're gonna have more and more things entering the airspace. We got to work to make sure that's safe. This is not a world where anything flying is either an airplane or a helicopter. The drones are getting bigger. That look, it can be a good thing to have these resources to deliver, for example, you know, really hard to reach area, you make deliveries. But we're talking about potentially millions of these coming into the airspace,

and what we're trying to do, especially on the FAA side, is coordinate all of that, make sure it's safe. But we don't know what it is though. But John Kirby said they're manned. Like whose man is this? Like who are these people, and why is it okay, and why wouldn't they inform the public beforehand? Yeah, so they know more than I do Like who are these people? And why is it okay? And why wouldn't they inform the public beforehand?

Yeah, so they know more than I do on the law enforcement side about the identity of the aircraft. But it is true, sometimes you look up at something, you think it's one thing, turns out it's another. I think that's what they've been working through on the law enforcement side. One more quick, Donald Trump was on with Joe Rogan.

They had a whole conversation about aliens. Not the kind he wants to deport, actual extraterrestrials. Then Cliff High said 39 days after that interview, we were gonna start having an alien invasion. Around December 3rd, that's when all of these SUV sized drones, which I've even seen, started getting seen over Jersey. Is it an alien invasion?

I mean, no disrespect to New Jersey when I say that. I think it's very unlikely that an alien invasion would begin in New Jersey. Watch your mouth. We lived in here. I know, but... Damn. But no, no. Nobody wants to come to New Jersey. I love New Jersey. I'm just saying,

I don't think that's the kind of main point of entry that an extraterrestrial... Unless there's something we don't know about. You know, the aliens with the tan, they might go to the Jersey Shore or something like that. It's wintertime. Oh, you're right. American Dream, they might go skiing. I bet you did not think this how the interview was starting.

I would go for someplace in the Pacific where there's no inhabited space for a couple of hundred miles so that I could kind of get my bearings before I go anywhere anyone's going to see me, right? What is their intelligent life? Well, you still want to take your time, kind of set up shop a little bit. What if they've been watching us for years already?

Yeah, maybe, I don't know. You know something, Secretary Pete. He's making my anxiety. Secretary Pete knows something. Maybe they want to take out the giants. Secretary of Transportation, if there's SUV-sized anything flying in the sky you know about. There's like millions of things in the national airspace.

Right, so I do, actually we do have a big board at the USDOT, which has the dots kind of show you the tracking of commercial aircraft, but I don't necessarily know all that. Okay. Well, how are you feeling? I'm sorry to start like that. How are you feeling? How is everything?

You know, it's an interesting time. I mean, work-wise, what we're focused on is we have more grants we're working to get out the door, make sure we take the funding that's in the President's infrastructure package and assign it to projects that are going to make a difference. So we have more announcements coming on that. And then the things we've already announced, it can take years to go from a press release saying, you know, congratulations, we're gonna work on the, let's say the Hudson River Tunnel. And it actually happening. So we're trying to move that along. We're trying to finalize a lot of policies we set into motion. We just did one a few days ago

on airlines, again, how airlines treat people and what kind of compensation you ought to get. That was launching a policy. We're also finalizing some policies that we launched a while ago. So we're busy. We're going to stay busy for the next 38 days that we have in these jobs. And we got to talk about the election. How do you feel after the election? What do you think could have been done to make sure that we, the Democrats, would have got to win? Look, it's tough and I got to be careful how I talk about it because I'm here as a federal

official so I can't totally get into campaigns and parties. But I'll say this. I think all politics and all policy is about everyday life. And if people don't feel that that's what we're talking about, then they lose touch with what we have to say. And I think we have a responsibility. I try to do all of our policymaking in terms of everyday life,

whether we're doing a billion dollar project, how's it going to make your commute better, or whether we're doing a regulation, how's it going to make your life safer, or whether we're doing a regulation on how's it going to make your life safer. But we have to communicate about that too, and that gets harder and harder with the noise machine and the culture wars. And I think a lot of folks aren't following kind of mainstream media to get their news anyway.

It's just getting tougher and tougher to have that conversation. I still believe, at risk of sounding naive, I still believe that if you do the right thing in time you get credit for it. I saw that happen with the, with Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, where the first time I was running for office in 2010, we got destroyed over that issue. By 2018, it was a winning issue and even Donald Trump and a Republican Congress couldn't tear it down because the American people wanted, understood that it was helping them. I think there's a lot of things like that

that we're doing right now, but the simple truth is most of the stuff with infrastructure, most of the stuff we launched in the first half of this decade is going to deliver most of its benefits in the second half of this decade. That's when they cut the ribbon on the bridge that we fixed or open the airport terminal that we funded.

Or people realize that something like the refund policy we're doing on airlines is working for them. All these EV factories I've toured, many of which by the way are in red states, Indiana, Kentucky, Kansas. Most of those, when I've toured them, they've been construction sites, and they're already creating all these jobs

in the building trades to build them, but the manufacturing jobs in them, they're coming online in like 2025, 2026, 2027. So we're in this stage where you're not always getting credit for good work. I want to ask one question before you jump in, Angela. What is your thoughts on electric cars? A lot of people feel that the electric vehicles

are just as bad as the gas vehicles, with the batteries, with the things to just, you know, to get rid of them, dispose of them. A lot of people are not sold on them, and a lot of manufacturers, people are not necessarily wanting to buy them. They're on lots, can't sell them, there's huge discounts, and New Jersey now has taxes on them.

At first, that was a good thing that you didn't, if you bought an electric vehicle, you wouldn't be taxed, but now they're starting to tax it. So what are your thoughts on electric vehicles and the public's view on them? So I still think it's the future, and I would point out, even with ups and downs in the market, every year, more people in America choose to buy them

than the year before. So it is growing. But look, it's not for everybody. And we never said it would be for everybody right away. Our goal is, by the end of the decade, it's about half and half. If everybody got an electric vehicle tomorrow, America wouldn't be ready.

We don't have the chargers, we don't have the grid. Just trucks, yeah. Which is why we're trying to build it. Another thing that we launched in the first half of this decade that'll be coming online in the out years is all these chargers we're supporting. The first couple hundred are up now, but eventually thousands and thousands to join the, to get to that goal of half a million. Right now, nationally

we're 200,000. We're adding a bunch. Anyway, it's just not true environmentally that it's the same. Oh, it's not. Okay. Break that down. A lot of people feel like it's just the same or it's worse. The thing that's screwing us up day by day in this country is climate change. And that is happening because of carbon pollution. And EVs are one of the ways that we can cut that because they don't spit out carbon pollution. Are there issues with the materials that go in the batteries?

Absolutely. But one really important thing to remember is that that material can be reused. You can recycle the batteries, which will become more and more relevant as you have more old cars. Right now there's not a lot of end of life EVs, right? But there will be. And then the next generation of EVs, those batteries can be made with them. There's, I mean, any manufactured product,

there's environmental issues associated with manufacturing them. I don't mean to wave that away. But handling that compared to handling a climate situation that is almost certainly part of why things like Hurricane Helene and Milton are worse than before, why are getting heat waves in the Pacific Northwest that aren't even supposed to be statistically possible, why one of our big projects is dealing with the damage of Superstorm Sandy here. That is happening now.

That is not theoretical. That is real. And babies aren't the answer to all of it, but they're helping helping and the thing I care about just as much as that is the job growth I was back in South Bend where I grew up where I served as mayor about a week ago when I was mayor they were telling us that manufacturing was done we're gonna make things in this country anymore definitely if you were in a union like the electrical workers they told you you, you might as well give up. Few people a year get into an apprenticeship program.

I was there now. They're going to have 500 people working on an EV battery factory that is multi-billion dollars in St. Joe County that is bigger than anything that happened in the auto industry, any investment in the auto industry, since the Kennedy years, since before I was born, it's happening right now. So the other exciting thing was like,

let's make sure these EVs are made in America. And I gotta say, I'm not gonna guess what the next administration will do, but I wonder when they're really confronted with the decision of whether to make through on their threats and wreck this EV industry that is employing people in places like where I grew up, whether we're talking about auto workers or whether we're talking about electrical

workers, a lot of other people, are they really going to pull the rug out from under those workers, many of whom are in red states? I guess we're about to find out. You know, I am not going to have you violate the Hatch Act, but I think one of the things that has been up for discussion is what's gonna happen with the Democratic Party, you're of course a part of the Democratic administration, and recently I was asked who would be a good DNC chair,

and you might not like this, but I thought of you. There are a lot of people who are jockeying for this position, who the country's never heard of, but you had a really phenomenal moment during this campaign cycle debating undecided voters. The video went viral. You were able to communicate in tough places. You come here, you go on Fox,

you're able to communicate the messages in ways that I think a lot of the Democratic Party avoids. Can you talk about whether or not that's something that you would be interested in, and if not, who you think would be good? Not in your official capacity, in your personal capacity, who you think would be the type of chair

they need to see to preserve, frankly, whatever they've built in that party. Yeah, so, well, it's not gonna be me. I care about that a lot, but it's just not, it's not what I'm gonna be doing right now. I'm following it a lot. I can't get into party stuff too much this time, but what I'll say is, whether you're talking about

what goes on in the party, campaigns, or the policy side, and even though we're about to be out of the administration, we've got leaders in obviously communities, we've got governors, and we've got people on Capitol Hill who are going to, I think, show what leadership from my side of the aisle looks like. And I think a lot of it will be, you know, you're mentioning an experience I did

on a channel called Jubilee, which I got a ton of feedback about that was great because there's different people than the folks who were watching what I might have to say on CNN or Fox News or MSNBC. How many people was it? It was like a 21, right? It was a lot.

24, like millions of people. Oh, the experience, yeah, it was like a room with 25 people. And what it reminded me of was what it was like being mayor, where, you know, I didn't, somebody stops you in the parking lot of the grocery store because they want to know why you changed the trash pick up from the front of the house to the back of the house and they're mad at you.

You got to explain it and you can't go to talking points, right? And I think a lot of the best voices we have are people who are having to have those kinds of conversations in their communities. Absolutely. And not the stuff that's dominating the attention of a place like Capitol Hill.

Back when I was running, I talked a lot about needing to have perspectives from outside of Washington. When I got to Washington, I noticed two things. One, in all humility, that town is full of a lot of really good people, public servants who come to work every day trying to do the right thing and who care about this country. But also, it is a very self-absorbed place, even more than any other kind of scene that I've seen, more than any city, more than Hollywood. It is scene that I've seen more than any city more than Hollywood Like it is a place where like everybody wants to talk about what this senator had for breakfast

You know what I chastened I got there. We start reading like write-ups the next day online about like you know where we're having dinner and stuff like it's just very like Inward looking sometimes. We've gotta get out of that. And that's part of why I will be out of Washington, well, not that I'm invited for the next four years, but I think it'll be helpful to be out of Washington for the next few years for me.

Well, you know, you're a very cerebral person. Everybody knows that, Secretary Pete. So I know that you've thought about your future. Sure. What is the future for Secretary Pete? I don't know. That's just like, no, no, it's true. I mean, obviously there's a lot of different things I might do.

People are putting all kinds of ideas in my head. But, you know, I got 38 days to do this job, and I got to stay really focused on that. And then I'm not going to just jump into something just so I can do it or just try to have an office just so I can have it. I know what I care about. I care about how places like where I grew up in Indiana and where I live now in northern, Michigan

How places like that can grow How we can replicate the story of the city that I served in that started out that decade being told we were dying and ended Like growing and creating jobs and now it's happening in a whole new way, largely because of what happened in the Biden administration. I care about that. I care about big picture democratic reforms and how we change all of the things that make us not that democratic. And I'm not just talking about the whole

kind of question of authoritarianism that I think all of us are rightly worried about. I'm talking about stuff that happens out in the open in terms of of authoritarianism that I think all of us are rightly worried about. I'm talking about stuff that happens out in the open in terms of how our districts are drawn and how our campaigns are paid for. And stuff I talk about a lot, I care about that. I care about making sure that our generation comes out ahead

because if you were born when my parents were born, there's a 90% chance you were gonna come out economically ahead of your parents. If you were born when I was born in, there's a 90% chance you were gonna come out economically ahead of your parents. If you were born when I was born, in the 80s, it's a coin flip. So, you know, I care about stuff like that. I care about the information environment, kind of what, Angela, you and I were just talking about

about the different spaces we go into. But how I do that, whether that's as an elected official or something more political or something a little more out of that space, that's something I will have time to figure out after January 20th. Is it about the money or the service? Because you can get to the bag. Like you're Secretary Pete now.

So you can write a book, you can start a podcast. There's a lot of things you can do to actually get money. You got kids, man. You're married with kids. Yeah, I mean, I need a paycheck. That's right. I didn't, you know, I'm not, it's not like I'm a millionaire, you know,

but I'll figure that out, like that'll be okay. Chastain has also reminded me that, you know, we need to, you know, to obviously, you know, have a living and take care of our kids. And also, you know, Chastain, you know, we're like any working couple, like he, you know, talked to him on the way to the studio here. Like he is solo, wrangling two, three year olds, getting them to school in the way to the studio here. He is solo, wrangling two three-year-olds,

getting them to school in the middle of a snowstorm and I just have some catching up to do there in terms of doing my part. Like, get your ass back, I need some help. Well, yeah, which is totally fair, right? And he's been great. So I'm gonna be a little more focused on that. Plus, our kids, our twins, our boy and girl are twins.

They're three. They're old enough to, not just to notice, but to care when I'm gone. So I'm looking forward to some period of time when I'm closer to home, able to think, but before we do any of that, we got 38 days of real work to do, because every day we're here,

we're gonna wish we had it back later on to get more done, to get more dollars out the door, to get more good policies done. So we're pushing hard. I do have to ask about congestion pricing. I mean, you talked about New York and the tunnel that they're building. But they're saying this congestion pricing in New York City

could be the guinea pig for the country, for different cities of people driving it. A lot of people are against it, right? It's, with groceries expensive, gas expensive, everything expensive, right? Everything is high. This is just gonna be another thing that, gas expensive, everything expensive, right? Everything is high. This is just gonna be another thing that, you know, citizens, Americans have to pay.

What's your thoughts on that? Because it's gonna hurt a lot of people. So, the bottom line is I've got a, this sounds like a cop out, but it's only because federally, it's very important to respect that this is a local decision. So from a federal perspective,

they've done everything they need to do. We went through a process of, I think, more than 20,000 pages of verification to evaluate whether it's met its legal requirements, and it has. Now it's still up to the city, the state, the region to decide if they wanna do something, but from a Department of Transportation perspective,

they've demonstrated that to the satisfaction of our department. I know that sounds like a bureaucratic answer, but part of why I'm answering it that way is because I respect the fact that that's a local decision. What I will say is there's a handful of places that have done it, but mostly in other places around the world, London, Singapore, Stockholm.

The usual pattern has been that people, there's a lot of controversy about it beforehand. People in the end have preferred to have it after the fact once they're used to it, but every city is different. I had some questions around, just thinking of legacy and how things are being left. There's a lot of folks who have come in as Secretary of Department of Transportation, and one thing that has remained pretty stagnant is the utilization of DBE,

so Disadvantaged Business Enterprise. I'm from Washington State, and there was a disparity study done this year looking at all of these numbers, and I think the one time you met my dad, like he ran up on you was like, Hey, Secretary Pete, I have, and he had questions about this. He's dedicated his life to this.

So it's something that we're really passionate about. But when you look at how the federal highway administration funds contracts, only one percent of those contracts are going to black owned firms. The federal transit authority, it's one point zero. And then state funded contracts is point two percent. And this is it doesn't matter if it's a Democratic governor or a Republican governor. This is something that's remained pretty stagnant. I'm eager to know, you know, what you all have done, what you all plan to do.

I know that there's a civil rights lead on this, but this has not changed much. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and my latest interview is with Wiz Khalifa. The craziest part of my life, I can go from performing in front of 40,000 people to either being in a dress room, being in a plane, or being back in a bed all by myself. He is a multi-planetary selling recording artist,

mini mogul, and an actor. Which among the ones, the only. Wins Collegue! Did you feel like a big break was coming? I didn't know what that big break looked or felt like, but I knew that what I was doing was working. The gang banging and the drug selling, that's not really for me.

But the looking cool, the having girls, the making music, I'm like, I like that part of it. How was that experience for you? Losing someone so close to you that you love. I am grateful that I was able to have the last moments that I had, and to be able to prepare for it. It's something that I'm still dealing with.

Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We want to speak out, we want to raise awareness, and we want this to stop. Wow, very powerful. I'm Ellie Flynn, and I'm an investigative journalist. When a group of models from the UK wanted my help,

I went on a journey deep into the heart of the adult entertainment industry. I really wanted to be a playboy, my doll. Lingerie, topless. I said, yes, please. Because at the center of this murky world is an alleged predator. You know who he is because of his pattern of behavior. He's just spinning the web for you to get trapped in it.

He's everywhere and has been everywhere. It's so much worse and so much more widespread than I had anticipated. Together, we're going to expose him and the rotten industry he works in. It's not just me. We're an army in comparison to him. Listen to The Bunny Trap on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sup, y'all, this is Questlove, and I'm here to tell you about a new podcast you get your podcasts. one you can listen to and enjoy with your kids starting on September 27th. I'm going to toss it over to the host of Historical Records, Nimini, to tell you all about it. Make sure you check it out. Hey, y'all. Nimini here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Historical Records brings history to life through hip hop.

-♪ Flash slam, another one gone Flash, slam, another one gone. Bash, bam, another one gone. The cracker, the bat, and another one gone. A tip, but a cap, cause another one gone. Each episode is about a different inspiring figure from history, like this one about Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl in Alabama who refused to give up her seat on the city bus nine whole months before Rosa Parks did the same thing.

Check it. And it began with me. Did you know, did you know? I wouldn't give up my seat. Nine months before Rosa, it was Claudette Goldman. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records, because in order to make history,

you have to make some noise. Listen to historical records on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone, it's Jon, also known as Dr. John Paul, and I'm Jordan or Joe Ho. And we are the Black Fat Film Podcast. A podcast where all the intersections of identity are celebrated. Oh chat, this year we have had some of our favorite people on including Kid Fury, T.S. Madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey Show, Angelica Ross and more.

Make sure you listen to the Black Fat Film Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, have a podcast or whatever you get your podcast girl. Ooh, I know that's right. The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers. So that's why we created the Big Take from Bloomberg podcasts, to give you the context you need to make sense of it all. Every day in just 15 minutes, we dive into one global business story that matters.

You'll hear from Bloomberg journalists like Matt Levine. A lot of this boomstock stuff is I think embarrassing to the SEC. Amanda Moll, who writes our Business Week buying power column. Very few companies who go viral are like totally prepared for what that means. And Zoe Tillman, senior legal reporter. Courts are not supposed to decide elections. Courts are not really supposed to play a big role in choosing our elected leaders.

That's for the voters to decide. Follow The Big Take podcast on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen. And it's tragic. I'm terrified about what's going to happen because as soon as Donald Trump was elected, Walmart, Starbucks, everybody's saying, you know, to hell with DEI, we can't afford to do that or be in those positions as black folks. Yeah. Right.

No, this is really important. If you look at, for example, the black middle class in Atlanta, part of how that was built was because the mayor at the time that the airport was going up insisted the black owned businesses had a shot at the work that was going on, and they did, and whole companies grew out of that. I've been there, talked to second generation people who are now leading those construction companies and working on new work at the airport

where their parents had worked on the original round. So I've seen the opportunity to congregate. Here's what we've done. We've boosted our goal for the dollars that directly are contracted by our department. We had a over 20% goal on STB, small disadvantaged businesses, and we beat it. So we've been able to generate, I think we're now in the billions in terms of doing better than before. But a lot of those statistics that you've found show how when the federal dollars go out to the states or they go out to the communities,

those states and communities may not have the same level of commitment to making sure that there's that DBE participation. We have been able to do a lot of things to encourage that, including updating the entire rule, the whole regulatory framework for DBEs. We immediately got sued. And right now there's an injunction that's affecting, in certain jurisdictions, how much

we can pursue that work. By the way, they've done this for other departments too. They went after the Small Business Administration's program. They went after the MBDA, which is part of commerce. We think that we know that we're on good legal ground, but we're going to have to fight for it. And we're going to stay committed. But to some of the numbers you're mentioning, a lot of this does happen closer to home. And so we've got to set a tone that says, wait a minute, it's important to create these opportunities locally. By the way, there's the business

side, but also the labor side. I've seen a lot of, I've seen some labor unions and locals that are doing it right. And you see people who just would not have had a chance to get these good paying jobs in the building trades. And there are things that can be done to help make sure they get a shot, including making sure there's more apprenticeships so you can earn while you learn, so you don't have to have money to take time off to be in the apprenticeship program. For a lot of working women, I mean working parents in general, but definitely for working women it's important to have child care set up. In Pittsburgh they set up a child care center at the construction site of the airport terminal that they're doing, and it means that more people who just would never have had a

chance to be part of that are part of that. So we're being intentional about it, but look, the next administration has not shown any signs of being enthusiastic about this. We're still defending what we've done in court, and I would say we've done a lot, but we got a long way to go. And what that means, what that says to me is there is gonna have to be a lot at the state and local level to keep the momentum up.

Yeah. You know, somebody in the upcoming administration is gonna take credit be a lot at the state and local level to keep the momentum up. Yeah. You know, somebody in the upcoming administration is gonna take credit for something you implemented. So what is it we will see from them that's actually you? So there's 66,000 projects we got started. If I went to three projects a day for the rest of my life, I would not live long enough to see them all. Thousands of them are complete, but most of them aren't.

These things take years. So, you know, when you look at, I mean, there's these big signature projects. You know, the Hudson River Tunnel. That might be the biggest project east of the Mississippi in our lifetimes. There's- How long is that gonna take?

Very long time. And how much money will this guy cost? We're 16 billion into it. Jesus Christ. So it won't even be this, you money will this guy cost? We're 16 billion into it. Jesus Christ. So it won't even be this, you won't even see that in this administration. No, no. But some things will be underway,

are underway now, will be done sooner. The Portal North Bridge, which is another key bridge. It all comes back to New Jersey. See? Yeah. Okay. Give me the drone. Now you're gonna spiral them again on the drones.

Oh, God. I think, you know, you can go on down the list. Big thing, the high-speed rail. You know, I broke ground on a high-speed rail project from Las Vegas to Southern California. They're aiming to be done by 2028. That's an aggressive timeline, but that's what they think they can do.

So all of that, yeah, somebody else is gonna cut the ribbon on that. But look, we've already seen people who voted against the Biden infrastructure package show up and try to take credit at these things. We're about to see that at a whole new level. And I'm going to be there to remind folks that some people were with us, even some Republicans were with us and a lot of people were against us when we were trying to get this money out the door. Is that transatlantic tunnel shit real?

The New York, the London that can get you between the cities in an hour? And they're saying it's gonna cost 19 trillion to build? I call that more of a concept of a plan. Okay. Okay. It'd be pretty amazing. But yeah, some of this hyperlutinism,

I mean it's very exciting to think about, but the things you have to do, the pressurization, the tunneling, I mean, you know, kind of hard to, on today's technology, hard to see how that happens. Gotcha. Well speaking of concepts of the plan, you are saying that's what you have for your future,

but you did move to Michigan in 2020. There is a term limited governor. Big rich. Yes. Gretchen Whitmer, who is, of course, not running. And then there is a mayor of Detroit who's declared his gubernatorial run, but as an independent. Yeah. So. Democrats want you to run for governor of Michigan. No, but have you thought about running for governor?

I mean, I'm just- I was gonna say, don't get a lot of last words now. It's the first time he didn't say anything. The first time he was lost to words. I'm out here to make news on my future. I honestly haven't ruled anything in a row. So we're taking that as a maybe? Like I said, people are putting ideas in my head.

I've never heard him do this. They say you met about it this week. You met with people, Democrats in Michigan about it. I meet Democrats in Michigan all the time because I'm a Democrat and I live in Michigan. Like, you know, look, we moved there because of family. We moved there, we bought a place there four years ago. Our, having our kids close to our grandparents

has been huge. But yeah, look, I really care about the state. I just can't, I can't get into campaign stuff or anything like that. Is it something you're even interested in? You just gonna keep asking those 18 year old boys. Not saying you would do it, but all right, has it crossed your mind like,

hey, being governor of Michigan would be cool. Look, I care about the place a lot. And I told you earlier, some of the other things I care about. There's a lot of ways to work on that. You can work on that in office, You can work on that out of office It's I'm not trying to be cagey I just I don't know and I want to know I want to have a lot more of my mind made up before I go around

Talking about stuff like that on the radio the man So you need a job if you thought about it and I think I think the most important thing is if you just in case you Missed it you're a very public servant-ish. And so even though you're like, oh, I could do this thing politically and other, you're good at this. This is something that you're good at. Absolutely.

Well, my friend Garland is also thinking about a run. Gilchrist, who's fantastic, but there's the one that I think strikes a chord for me is Mike Duggan saying he's going to run as an independent There are a lot of folks who are upset about that because that could throw the race potentially which we've seen in Larger elections than just gubernatorials in the past. Yeah And look, he's a he's also a phenomenal mayor We've worked a lot on a lot of things benefiting Detroit where we've teamed up

But I just you gotta you gotta keep me out of hashtag jail here. I can't do politics and election stuff. All right, OK, we don't want to be in hashtag jail, even though it was in the state. But we'll leave that alone. I'll let you let that fly. I'll pretend like I'm not a lawyer for that one. Secretary Pete, but I will ask you,

so you talked about 38 days left. It's not just 38 days left for you. There's also 38 days left for President Biden. Are there things that you have before the president that you really want to have happen for transportation? Are there other things that you think this administration really needs to get done before Armageddon? Yeah, he just asked me for an update.

We've been writing up some of the latest on what we think we can get out the door. There are a number of grant programs and projects we think we can make happen, potentially still hundreds of projects we can announce before January 20th. And anything we can do, we have to do it right. We can't do it half-assed just to get out the door. So we have to make sure we're picking the right projects, we're being responsible with the money. But yeah, I think we can do a lot more.

And again, there's some policies we can still finalize, just as we have been doing on everything from worker protection. And it's amazing how long it takes to get a federal regulation finalized. And I understand why. A lot of it is that everybody has to have their say. There's procedural requirements that you have to go through. And a human being has to read every comment,

even when there's thousands of comments. So we have to do it right but we're working on things to keep up the record we've had of protecting consumers, protecting workers. But what I already know even though we're not done, we will leave America's transportation systems better than we found them. Fewer people are dying on our roads, long way to go, Fewer people are dying on our roads. Long way to go, but fewer people are dying on our roads. I think we've made a lot of important advances on aviation safety. We've made major advances on passenger protection,

your ability to get a refund or get your hotel covered or something else if you get stuck. Airlines are suing over that, by the way, too. We have to play some defense here, but we've done that. Rail workers, when we came in, something like less than 10% of railroad workers could even get sick leave. And now that guarantee is available to over 90% of railroad workers. Supply chains, you remember the first year, they said Christmas was canceled, all the

ships were backed up. We came in and encountered the biggest set of transportation problems to hit the country at once since 9-11, from airlines about to go out of business to supply chains, you couldn't get toilet paper, all that stuff. Trains. Trains. And every one of those has got better. I can't say any one of them is 100% fixed, but every one of them is better.

And just as importantly, the trajectory is better. It used to be when we talked about our roads, our bridges, the condition of our infrastructure, we knew that every year it was going to get worse because the backlog was growing faster than we could do the projects. That was the whole idea of the infrastructure. I call it the big deal. That was the whole idea of the big deal was we're not just going to keep playing catch up. We're actually going to change the trajectory. But the nature of my, I mean, the satisfying part about our work is that. But the nature of, I mean the satisfying part about our work is that for the next few years,

I'll be able to look at things still being built and improved because of what we did and because of what President Biden did. But the unsatisfying part about it is the same, the other side of the same coin. It's gonna take a while. Well I have one since you used, you're talking generics around the grants.

Is there any way that we can talk to the airlines about these ticket prices? Because they're surging. And I thought. Yeah, that's crazy, they're crazy. Yeah. Atlanta used to be $200, $300, now it's $600, $700 to fly to Atlanta?

I'm gonna throw one out that might get y'all in trouble, I don't know if they're a sponsor, American. Like American Airlines tickets are like $1,000 more than everybody else is right now. What were you trying to what what route you talking about? I'm gonna say because it does depend like it does as a category. It's actually one of the few areas where Uh prices went down a little bit instead of up with all the inflation But that's an average right if you're talking about a certain airline or certain route

And the biggest thing that we can do about that is competition, right? I mean, just that's how it's supposed to work. And the truth is, even though the airline industry lobby will say, you know, there's lots of, there's all these flights, there's all these airlines, all these routes, a lot of times for a particular route, there's maybe two airlines actually serving those particular, that particular combination, right? So it turns into a duopoly.

And, you know, one of the big problems we've had in the aviation sector is we've gone from dozens of airlines to a dozen airlines to now basically a big four. And the low cost airlines, which everybody's mad at because of the passenger experience, but also it's really hard for them to compete. It's why we intervened on the merger that was proposed,

which I blew because having even fewer airlines means you have even fewer choices. And it means it's less likely that you're gonna get a good airfare. Well, the one that I'm thinking about, based in Seattle, the one that I'm thinking about mostly is Seattle to JFK. And American has a partnership with Alaska Airlines, Alaska Airlines,

that same flight will be $1,000 less than American. I don't understand that. It's very weird, so something to look at between these 38 days. But it's to your point, it's New York to Atlanta, it's LA to Atlanta. It's very expensive. Yeah, Florida flights, almost $3,000.

Yeah. I saw you say Trump can't get rid of the new airline refund rules though. You said it's the law of the land. Right, that's right. It got put into the FAA bill. So it would take an act of Congress to get ready to try to get rid of the automatic refunds.

And I would love to be there if anybody in Congress tries to get rid of that. Because that's really important. And the whole idea there was that not just that you can get a refund but you can get a refund without having to ask. Because what was happening was it was on the books that you could get a refund, cancellation or some of these situations.

We had to ask for it, you had to fight for it. Sometimes an airline would say, well we'll give you 5,000 miles and that sounds pretty good but if you actually do the math, that's worth like maybe 50 bucks and you're entitled to hundreds. So just saying, but if you actually do the math, that's worth like maybe 50 bucks, and you're entitled to hundreds. So just saying, okay, if you want something different, like if you tell the airline, don't give me the money back,

I'd rather take a rebooking, or don't give me the money back, I'd rather take your miles. Fine, great, but you have to choose, it's opt out rather than opt in, and if you don't say anything, you just get your money. I think it's common sense, I think it's good policy, and I'm really glad that Congress backed us up on that.

And that, some of the other things they could undo, but that they couldn't undo unless Congress went along with it. I know you gotta go. Secretary P. Haskell, I don't know if you have one more question. I do got one more question. You know, one thing I always give you credit for

is you are not afraid to show up to speak to people who you may not agree with. And you always come speak to people, you know, regardless of whether it's campaign season or not. So we always appreciate that. But to me, that's something you can't teach. Like that has to people, you know, regardless of whether it's campaign season or not. So we always appreciate that. But to me, that's something you can't teach. Like, that has to be in you.

So where does that come from? Why aren't you afraid to show up in spaces a lot of Democrats don't? I think it comes from growing up in a place where lots of people, including people I really like, don't agree with me. But we're friends, and we just talk about it and I think you get you get

Advised and counseled not to take any risks when you get into a job like like mine for very understandable reasons, right? Because anything you say gets picked apart But if you pay too much attention to that Nothing you say you don't say anything interesting You're not talking like you're talking to some of you actually know and people to that, nothing you say, you don't say anything interesting. You're not talking like you're talking to someone you actually know. People feel that, they smell that. I think younger people especially feel that and smell that. I think it's probably just because of how it came up. Any last ones? You good?

I'm good. I asked about my plane tickets. I'm like, if I can't get anything else out of the 38 days, I mean, I want a pardon for Marilyn Mosby as well. We'd love to have your support on that. But yeah, I just would like for things to feel fair. Okay. Especially now since Donald Trump said, oh, it's gonna be hard to increase the price of groceries. Imagine that.

Let's find out. You did say something, the planet's safest, I think, for politicians. Do you think that? Yeah, I mean, it doesn't mean you jump on a political landmine every time you see one. Do those exist anymore? Yeah, I think so.

I mean, you still get in big trouble for saying this or that, or I don't know. But to me, it's OK as long as you're if you're in a controversy because of something you actually did or said or believed and it's controversial. Versus like you put a foot wrong or you phrase something the wrong way or somebody twisted what you had to say. I always wanted to be held accountable based on results.

This is part of why I got especially fired up during the hurricane Helene about the misinformation that was going on because it's one thing to have a back and forth over something that's actually happening. And it's another if people aren't even looking at the same reality. So in terms of what risks people take in politics, look, you also tend to take more risks when you're out of power. And so I think you might see more creativity from the team that just got beat.

That's just kind of the nature of things. But yeah, I mean, for my time, it's always better to just say what you think, explain yourself, and then if people don't like it, at least they're mad at you over something real instead of some misunderstanding. Do you feel like Democrats are? Well, we know they are, but when did the Democrats

get so out of touch with the needs of the American people? That'd be a whole other hour. I think that's only half fair. So I think we are still the ones who are more connected. If I just think about the policies of our administration, they have been all about making people's lives better. Everything down to making it easier to get a hearing aid. $2,000 cap on Medicare.

Insulin, $35 insulin. We did that for seniors. We could have done that for everybody if congressional Republicans hadn't blocked us. I think we were right on the things that affect everyday life. But the half where I do agree with you is I think we got sucked into this kind of vocabulary and this like swirl over what matters online and what matters in Washington that meant a lot of the folks that we get up in the morning trying to help

can't even hear us, can't even make sense of what we're saying sometimes. And if we can't fix that, then it won't matter what our policies are because nobody will even know. That's right. I always say the language of politics is dead. That's why there's only a few people I feel in the Democratic Party who are able to message

what you're talking about. Like yes, y'all might have better policies, but you don't know how to message them. You don't know how to promote them. You don't know how to market them. I think you're one of them. So I'm working on it. Your future's bright, Secretary Pete. Thanks.

Thanks for having me. Well, we have the Secretary of Transportation. We appreciate you for joining us. We're going to call you in a couple of weeks if them drones keep going, man. We need answers. It's Pete Buttigieg. It's The Breakfast Club. Good morning.

Wake that ass up. Early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. We want to speak out and we want this to stop. Wow, very powerful. I'm Ellie Flynn, an investigative journalist, and this is the Daily News. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist.

I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. We want to speak out and we want this to stop. Wow, very powerful. I'm Ellie Flynn, an investigative journalist, and this is my journey deep into the adult entertainment industry. I really wanted to be a player boy, my doll. He was like, I'll take you to the top, I'll make you a star. To expose an alleged predator and the rotten industry he works in.

It's honestly so much worse than I had anticipated. We're an army in comparison to him. From Novel, listen to the bunny trap on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's Jon, also known as Dr. John Paul. And I'm Jordan or Joe Ho. And we are the BlackFatFilm Podcast. A podcast where all the intersections of identity

are celebrated. Oh chat, this year we have had some of our favorite people on including Kid Fury, T.S. Madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey Show, Angelica Ross and more. Make sure you listen to the BlackFatFilm Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, have a podcast, or whatever you get your podcast, girl. Ooh, I know that's right. Hey, y'all. Nimini here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove,

The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip hop. Flash slam, another one gone. Bash bam, another one gone. The cracker, the bat, and another one gone. A tip, but a cap, because another one gone. Each episode is about a different inspiring figure from history, like this one about Claudette Colvin,

a 15-year-old girl in Alabama who refused to give up her seat on the city bus nine whole months before Rosa Parks did the same thing. Check it! Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Because in order to make history, you have to make some noise. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers. So that's why we created The Big Take from Bloomberg Podcasts, to give you the context

you need to make sense of it all. Every day in just 15 minutes, we dive into one global business story that matters. You'll hear from Bloomberg journalists like Matt Levine. A lot of this BIMstock stuff is I think embarrassing to the SEC. Follow The Big Take podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Hey everyone, this is Courtney Thorne-Smith, Laura Leighton, and Daphne Zuniga. On July 8th, 1992, apartment buildings with pools were never quite the same as Melrose Place was introduced to the world. We are going to be reliving every hookup, every scandal, and every single wig removal together.

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