The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Pete Buttigieg On Full-time Fatherhood, Airport Regulations, Epstein Files, Presidential Polls +More

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

Today on The Breakfast Club, Pete Buttigieg On Full-time Fatherhood, Airport Regulations, Epstein Files, Presidential Polls. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Get ready for a celebration of play like no other at the all-new LEGO Summer of Play event at LEGOLAND Discovery Center Toronto, now through August 3rd. I'm master model builder Noel inviting you to discover your play mode with awesome build activities, experiences, and even some fresh new dance moves. Enjoy the ultimate indoor LEGO playground with rides, a 4D theater, and millions of Lego bricks at Legoland Discovery Center. Build the best day ever with your family by getting tickets online now at legolanddiscoverycenter.com slash Toronto.

Join iHeartRadio and Sarah Spain in celebrating the one year anniversary of iHeart Women's Sports. With powerful interviews and insider analysis, our shows have connected fans with the heart of women's sports. In just one year, the network has launched 15 shows and built a community united by passion. Podcasts that amplify the voices of women in sports.

Thank you for supporting iHeart Women's Sports and our founding sponsors, Elf Beauty, Capital One and Novartis. Just open the free iHeart app and search iHeart Women's Sports to listen now. The Girlfriends is back with a new season, and this time I'm telling you the story of Kelly Harnett. Kelly spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit. As she fought for her freedom, she taught herself the law. He goes, oh God, Harnett, jailhouse lawyer. And became a beacon of hope for the women locked up alongside her.

You're supposed to have faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her. I think I was put here to save souls by getting people out of prison. The Girlfriends, Jailhouse Lawyer. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Ian Faff, the creator and host of the Uncle Chris podcast.

My Uncle Chris was a real character, a garbage truck driver from South Carolina, who is now buried in Panama City alongside the founding families of Panama. He also happens to be responsible for the craziest night of my life. Wild stories about adventure, romance, crime, history, and war intertwine as I share the tall tales and hard truths that have helped me understand Uncle Chris. Listen now to Uncle Chris on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Hold up. Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up. The Breakfast Club. You want to finish or you're all done? Morning everybody, it's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Shalameen Nagai, we are The Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building. Yes indeed. He's back, Pete Buttigieg.

Welcome back. Morning. Now you got out the White House and got a bed immediately, or did you have that bed last time? No, you know, there were very few days that I didn't have to shave the whole time that I was in office. And then suddenly I didn't have to worry about that. So I started out just not shaving every day.

And then we went on a vacation. I came back with a beard. I thought, I'm going to keep this for a while. Chastain's very, very pro. My daughter doesn't like it. She keeps telling me to shave it because she says it's too scratchy when I kiss her good night But but her brother hasn't weighed in yet. So he might be the swing vote in the household He's a swing vote. Now do they make you do they tell you look clean when you work for?

the White House Because you're on television. They say that I don't think they have to you just you know, just I don't think I was ever told to shave Not since I was in the military anyway, then it was a thing. In fact, I remember when the, when there was the first Trump government shutdown, I saw all the guys in my reserve unit

a few weeks later, a football game, and everybody had beards all of a sudden, because we could, because we didn't have to shave for that. But no, it's interesting, right? I think in the 19th century, to be in politics, you had to have a beard. It was a thing. Oh, yeah. Right?

And then almost nobody did. Anyway, it's not something I thought about that much. You ditched the tie though. But what's that? I haven't seen you wear a tie since you were a kid. That was just a tie. When I got home from work, first thing I did was, even when I got in the car

on the way out from the office, the tie had to go. I was like, I don't know, I just wanted to breathe a little more. So I'm happy to not have to wear a tie as much. You know, I saw you on the Flaker podcast with my guy Andrew Schultz. I didn't know that you had mixed-race kids. I don't know why I didn't know that.

Yeah, you know, we don't put a lot of pictures of them on the internet or, you know, there's a lot of privacy obviously goes into that. But yeah, they're about to turn four. They keep at like every day. They ask me, is it my birthday? They've just transformed our lives in so many ways. It's been amazing.

And I saw you say, you know, you ask yourself constantly, how can I be a good dad for kids who have a different racial identity than I do? How can I help them navigate that? And for whatever reason, there was a little bit of backlash to those comments and I don't know why. It's crazy.

I thought those were great questions to ask yourself. I mean, you know, I was just talking about how I feel about it. And yeah, I think anytime you talk about something that sensitive, somebody's ready to pounce. Somebody's ready to pick it apart and tear you up over it. But yeah, obviously, you know, we're white. Our kids are mixed race.

They're gonna be, as they grow older, there's gonna be dimensions of their lives that I will do everything I can as a father, as a loving father, to make sure that they succeed, but there will be parts of their lives that I can't really draw on personal experience to help guide them through. And so it's a lot of making sure that they have mentors and role models, other examples in their lives to help them navigate through. And so it's a lot of making sure that they have mentors

and role models, other examples in their lives to help them navigate all of that. But it's just been such a blessing and it's a new challenge every day, but it's the best, hardest thing in my life. Who are some of those people? Who are the black friends you call? Oh, you wouldn't believe.

So the advice that came in from like the first moment, I had a Navy buddy who saw a couple of pictures of them from a thing we were at the White House on and said, we got to talk about hair. And immediately we wanted to make sure that, because you, I mean, just hair products alone. And by the way, being a girl dad was intimidating to begin with, right? And then there's everything that comes with that, finding the right products for Gus, our little guy, for Penelope, our daughter, just learning all of that. Nobody in my immediate family of white relatives knows a lot about that, but lots of friends do.

You don't know how to braid? I got it. I gotta figure it out. Can't do olive oil, shea moisture, and then get the white tooth comb. Don't get the small teeth comb, because that's gonna pull the hair out. Yes. Because we got thicker hair.

Yeah, we learned that the hard way. Yeah, can't do, and then we got the Young King for him. It looks like a three-step sequence. It's the leave-in conditioner, then you got the oils. Yes, leave-in is good. And then there's the essential oil, and then there's the curling cream. Although by step three, now he's a little older

but he was really fighting us on the third step. He's like, this is it. You learnin' though, you learnin' Pete. So Pete. Now we gotta get Pete some money. I do not want you or your husband playing in him churnin' hair. So Pete.

Okay, no. Pete, so you do her hair every day? Yeah, well, Chastain does it more often than I do. Let me be honest. Because I know I can't do my daughter's hair and I know Charlamagne can't do his daughter's hair. Can you, Charlamagne?

Hell no. I don't know if Justin can. I need to see the hair before I leave. He can give a round of applause. I don't know what the hell it look like yet. You're right. You're right. Jesus.

I was going to say before you walked in, it's funny. Jess was like, so what is Pete doing now? And I was like, that is a good question. What is Pete doing now that you're out the way house besides being a dad and a husband? So what are Pete doing now? And I was like, that is a good question. What is Pete doing now that you're out the way? Besides being a dad and a husband. So what are you doing now? So being a dad and husband is number one. And it's the first time in a while

that I've been able to put the kind of time in it that I want to. This is the first time in 15 years that I haven't either been in office or on the ballot. And I'm making the most of that. But this is obviously not a time in the life of our country where you can just sit still or kind of hang out and not be involved.

So I'm speaking out, continuing to go on podcasts, go on TV, write. I've got a sub stack where I'm writing thoughts on some of the issues that are coming up, thinking about doing a book. So keeping busy, but I have to say at a personal level, it's been good not to be on that treadmill. Washington just has a way-

You don't miss it at all? I'm not saying I don't. I miss the impact we were able to have. I miss getting up in the morning and knowing that I could make a decision that could make a whole city better off through a transportation project we were doing or something like that. I miss that. But I don't miss the negativity. I don't miss the way that Washington is so inward looking.

It was always about, you know, what did this Senator have for breakfast? What are you gonna do to keep these people happy that most people have never even heard of? But, you know, that kind of thing, I don't miss. What made you not seek the Senate seat in Michigan? Well, for one thing, it was thinking about the family, like being at home for the first time in a long time.

And I remember one day that was really kind of the decision day in a way when I'd kind of set for myself, like what are we going to do? I was talking about it with Chast and then it was bedtime. And the way story time works in our house is we get into one of their twin beds and daughter's on my right, Gus, our son, is on my left. And I was reading, I don't know, Cat in the Hat or something.

And he just started curling up, fell asleep on my chest, and I thought that that's a vote. Like, he's telling me something about where I'm needed most. And I also thought the message I want to get out there, I don't have to be in the United States Senate to do that. Obviously, I care about who the next senator is. I'm going to be very active in supporting a good candidate for Senate because so much

for our state and our country depends on us having a good senator to replace Debbie Stabb now who's, oh sorry, Gary Peters who's retiring, but I just didn't think that had to be me. Why do you think it was so much backlash for you going on the Flay Grant podcast? Well in a way it's reliving what it was like a few years ago when I started to go on Fox News a lot.

So a lot of people in my party said, you can't do that. You're participating in this right-wing media system that's not giving people good information. And my response was always, I can't blame somebody for not agreeing with my positions if they've never heard them. So of course I got go on right wing media. Now you fast forward a few years to these podcasts and flagrant, by the way I don't consider flagrant to be right wing media.

But that's the whole point, right? A lot of these podcasts, a lot of these shows, they're not for people who are looking to get politics in their face all the time, but they are where a lot of people get their information or get exposed to people with political ideas. And I thought okay, if President Trump was going on this show to reach listeners and viewers, why wouldn't we be putting forward a different set of ideas?

Especially because when I got there and I was talking to these guys, many of whom voted a different way than I did, we agreed a lot on what was happening next on the problem with tilting the tax code to favor the rich. And that was before the bill passed. Now the bill passed and we know it and we've seen it. Problems with cutting services, making it harder to get your phone call answered on social security, all of these things, right?

So we can just have a conversation. And yeah, I think some people still, you know, I remember a few people saying like, why are you platforming these guys who have said something offensive? And I'm just thinking like, they're platforming me, it's their show. It's the stupidest thing when people say how you platform, they already have a huge platform.

So why not go on there and, you know, let people hear what it is you have to say, give people another, you know, option. Right, yeah, especially because fewer and fewer people are getting their news from traditional sources. I spent part of the spring teaching at the University of Chicago. There's an institute of politics there that David Axelrod set up. He asked me to spend time with the students there.

I think I came right after you. Oh, were you there? I think I came right after you, they said. Did you have a good time? Oh, I loved it. I think it's a great experience and you learn so much talking to these students. One of the things I would often do is to kind of show hands, just where do you get your information?

The number of students who said television news was zero. Like literally zero out of those students said they just like sat the way I was when I was growing up or still do sometimes, like turn on a TV show and watch it, right? They might see something from TV, go into their feed, get clipped, but in terms of where people are getting our information,

we gotta find people where they are. Absolutely. What is it to ask, go back, about your previous duties, the airports. It seemed like the airports got a lot worse. Why do you think that is, or are we just hearing about it more, and these are the problems that have been having

for the last 10, 20 years? Well, I read an article yesterday, they blamed it on you, Pete. Of course they did. They said that, Of course they did. I said, under you, the Department of Transportation allocated over $80 billion for DEI grants.

Okay. Instead of putting money into Yeah, so the actual airlines. Yeah. The airports. Airports. Obviously I think that's bullshit.

Let's break it down. First of all, quote unquote, DEI grants. We're talking about transportation funding that they're now getting rid of. So Milwaukee, Sixth Street, we funded a project, $34 million, to help make a set of improvements to a very dangerous street where there have been

a lot of crashes, and that has divided the community. We provided funding. They're also gonna improve the sewer while they're at it. I mean, this is bread and butter stuff that's gonna make the city better off. Trump administration killed that grant because the application talked about equity. It talked about one of the reasons for funding this project being that that neighborhood

had been under-invested in. There was a project in Missoula, Montana, connecting East Missoula across Highway 200. By the way, the Republican senator from Montana supported that project and wrote me a letter saying we ought to fund it and we did. This administration killed it just because it was part of a program that mentions equity. So when they talk about quote unquote DEI grants, often they're talking about fixing roads and bridges that happen to go into a black neighborhood or a low income area. Meanwhile, we'll talk about aviation.

I'm pretty sure on the first Secretary of transportation in 30 years or more to have the air traffic control workforce growing instead of shrinking on his watch. And that was hard because we've been losing air traffic controllers. They've been retiring. It's just been hard to get as many to come in as we're going out. I don't know whether that number is still going up now. I know that from the beginning, they all got an email saying you should think about taking a buyout and quit your job. Then

they were told that email was never for them. So I don't know exactly what's going on over there now. What I know is that we left the air traffic control system better than we found it, but it's still got a lot of problems. And so the answer to your question is really it's both. There are new problems that we're seeing, that I'm seeing just as a now regular member of the traveling public. But there are some issues that have been in the making for 10, 20, 30 years.

We did what we could to improve it, but honestly, my successor, who I obviously disagree with on lots of things, I want them to succeed on this. I mean, for one thing, I fly a lot, but also for the sake of the country, I want them to succeed on this. I mean, for one thing, I fly a lot, but also for the sake of the country. I want them to succeed in improving that. Well, it seems like a lot of the problems that we've been having, especially when we see these floods and these storms, are problems that we keep seeing, right? You look at areas in Texas,

or even New Jersey, they flood the same every time. So it's just like, why can't we fix those problems? It's not like it's a new problem. These are problems that are reoccurring. So what we did was we set up funding to do things like take a road that's getting washed out every year and instead of putting it back the exact same every time and putting a bunch of money into that, move it to where it's not going to be as vulnerable.

They're going after that kind of thing too because they're systematically deleting any reference to climate change or sustainability from anything in the government. And what that means is I think these projects are in danger. Let me ask you a question. The $80 billion that was allocated, they said 400 awards from 2021 to 2024.

What did that actually go to? Because they're calling it DEI grants, but where did it go? What did it go to? Yeah, so I don't know how they got the 80 billion number, but I can tell you. I mean, maybe if you're counting like any project that was connected in any way to taking care of people

who had been under-invested, that'd be one way to do it. Because we had this whole idea of making sure that a good share of the grant money went to neighborhoods taking care of people who had been under-invested in. That'd be one way to do it. Because we had this whole idea of making sure that a good share of the grant money went to neighborhoods or communities that were cut out in the past. So, but again, there are these specific projects. East Toledo, we had a project to connect East Toledo to downtown Toledo,

get people across this high crash corridor where they were having dozens of crashes. And it came under the heading of reconnecting communities or reconnecting neighborhoods, which this administration considers woke. So they're trying to cut it. To me, it's definitely important that it's going to a disadvantaged area. It's also just a good project. It's a good safety project. So they want to call it DEI. I would call it good policy. And this war on anything that has anything remotely to do with diversity, I think has gone to such an extreme.

People are starting to feel it because it's starting to come for them. So how would you respond to people who have concerns that these equity initiatives delayed urgent aviation upgrades. It's just not true. I mean, uh, you know, the person who launched the contract, for example, to modernize the tech backbone of the field, that was me, we did that. Um, it's a big agency. We did a lot of things. We did roads, we did bridges, we did aviation.

Uh, we did port. I mean, you know, you can do a lot of things at the same time. That's what we did. Now, all of this is coming from the New York Post. So it just came out yesterday. So I'm giving you a chance to... Oh, yeah. So that specific article, actually, it's...

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I would actually say it's worth reading. Because if you read it, you'll see a bunch of anonymous people, mostly from the airline industry, complaining with no kind of specific facts or figures followed by a whole bunch of which like the post does they put it at the bottom of the article a whole bunch of facts and figures showing something different which was our response but yeah obviously the airline

industry was not a big fan of mine right because I was a tough regulator I mean we moved the rule to make sure that you can get your money back if your flight gets significantly delayed. We had really tough penalties on airlines that were holding back on people's refunds. We pushed them on things like disability, making sure if they mangle your wheelchair that they have to take care of you. The current administration froze that rule. That's something we pushed on. So obviously, my replacement is an airline lobbyist,

or he was an airline lobbyist. Obviously, the airline industry is happier with the new guy who was an airline lobbyist than with somebody like me who was a tough regulator. But that's the kind of inside baseball that drives these articles. And I think it's very telling that none of the people who were throwing stones in that article

actually put their name to their quote. So earlier this year when there was plane crashes and stuff, is there a part of you that's like, I hate to see that, but I told you so. Look, aviation's still safer than driving or any other form of transportation, but it's the nightmare scenario for anybody who cares about transportation, definitely anybody's the nightmare scenario for anybody who cares

about transportation, definitely anybody who ever had the job I had to have a plane crash happen in this country. One of the things that was really important to me was during my time in office, we had four billion emplacements, four billion times that somebody got onto a commercial passenger airline and zero crash fatalities. And it's everybody's job to keep that up. And I do worry about what will happen if you got air traffic controllers who are being distracted by all this political nonsense, getting an

email telling them that they're gonna get bought out, then being told that doesn't apply to that. Like firing IT people like they did on day one. Of course I'm worried about that. You know, I always wanted to know, and maybe you can help people out. You hear more private planes crashing than commercial planes, right? Is that because the regulate, I guess,

whatever the regulations are less lenient? Why is that? Yeah, there is a higher standard for a jumbo jet that's got 300 people on it than for a recreational plane where somebody's flying a Cessna or even a private jet. And I think, look, if you think about how we manage risk, that makes sense up to a point, but there's also got to be a floor. There's got to be a baseline that no matter what, if you have an airplane in the national

airspace, it's got to have these safety checks. You said once that most flight delays stem from weather and airline issues, not infrastructure. Yeah, infrastructure or air traffic control is usually number three. So if you think about why or when are you most likely to get to have a problem? Yeah, weather's number one. A lot of times it's the airlines, especially when I was there, a lot of times the airlines didn't have enough staff.

They've improved that. Then you go down the list, then you get to more issues around infrastructure, technology. If there's not enough air traffic controllers on duty, the airport will respond by reducing the number of flights that can come or go so that it's safe. That's what happened to a lot of people in Newark. So it's a factor, it's not the number one factor.

So how confident are you that infrastructure I guess plays a minimal role? I wouldn't say minimal. I mean one of the reasons we pushed so hard to get that infrastructure bill done was to make improvements, right? Things like stuff you might never notice when you're on a plane, like taxiway geometry.

So just. What the hell was that? So it's making sure that the way the taxiway is lined up makes it less likely that two planes would ever be at risk of colliding. Things like whether a plane has to wait to take off by lining up at the end of the runway or whether it can go around it. These super technical engineering questions that can actually really have an effect on safety. That matters, the technology matters.

Look, somebody's control towers, I mean, one of these towers, they make it work with some pretty antiquated systems. I mean, we're talking about dramatically older computer equipment than anything in this room, for example. No, they've gotten the results, but of course that system is gonna show its age over time. The airports themselves, that's why we push

so much money into the airports to improve them. And America should have better airports than we have. In some cases, we've upped our game. Look at LaGuardia, right? I came to LaGuardia yesterday. Really, really impressive. Especially if you remember what it used to be. The airport, but not the planes.

Yeah, planes is another story. That's down to the airlines to keep their fleet up to date and everything in between. But yeah, no, don't get me wrong. The infrastructure matters. I just made a point of making sure everybody knew if it was the airline that was responsible, they had to own it and they had to pay up.

Did you ever look into other nations, like when you go to other countries, I see a lot of times they have things that preventative things, like if the ground is too cold, they have things that they spray onto the ground that's connected to the ground to make sure there's no ice or if it's too hot. I feel like we should have some of that with as much money as we spend, as much money that we have. Why don't we?

And do you look at those other nations to see how their infrastructure works or? Oh, for sure. Yeah, you're going to learn so much going to other countries. You look at Japan and the train system they have there. By the way, their high-speed train, they've had that since the 60s. This is not some newfangled technology, which is why we push to get that done in the US. There's Las Vegas projects going out to Southern California that should be done in this decade. Why are we so behind?

Why are we so ghetto? Americans just ghetto compared to this decade. Why are we so behind? Why are we so ghetto? America's just ghetto compared to other places. Why? Bro, they have this thing where to avoid ice that is connected, it almost heats the road so it's not slippery in these other places. And I'm like, how we don't have that?

It's just the weirdest thing. You know, we did, I remember one project, it was in New Hampshire where they already had a power plant. And there was a way to connect it up to route some of the heat. They were just venting the heat through a power plant, and there was a way to connect it up to route some of the heat. They were just venting the heat through the cooling tower, and there was a way to put that in the sidewalk, and then it saved the city taxpayer money

to clear the roads. So there have been things like that going on. I think the bottom line is to get what you pay for. And America has had a problem with investing in shared things or public things for a long time. So where's this money going? When you hear about the money that you allocated or the money Biden allocated, the infrastructure,

but where does the money go? Well, it's going to exactly this kind of stuff, right? The Portal North Bridge is well underway in New Jersey. I don't know a lot of the projects I signed off on. I don't know their fate, but I'll tell you, every day when I'm taking the kids to school or to camp, I pass by a project that we signed off on in my time. These things take a while, right? So I signed off on it probably two or three years ago. Now the workers are there installing it

characteristically, right, for a three-year-old boy. Gus is like, why is that work or not working? That's an excavator. There's a role. We look at it every day and I see it taking shape, but these things take shape over three years, five years, not one year. You know, the post says that reportedly you remarked that modernizing air traffic control might simply allow airlines to fly more planes. Like, could you elaborate on that? Yeah, that's not a thing that I said. Get ready for a celebration of play like no other

at the all new LEGO Summer of Play event at LEGOLAND Discovery Center Toronto, now through August 3rd. I'm master model builder Noel inviting you to discover your play mode with awesome build activities, experiences, and even some fresh new dance moves. Enjoy the ultimate indoor LEGO playground with rides, a 4-day theatre, and millions of LEGO bricks at LEGOLAND Discovery Center. Build the best day ever with your family by getting tickets online now at legolanddiscoverycenter.com slash Toronto.

Kelly Harnett spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit. I'm 100% innocent. While behind bars, she learned the law from scratch. Because oh God, Harnett, jailhouse lawyer. And as she fought for herself, she also became a lifeline for the women locked up alongside her. You're supposed to have faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her. So many of these women had lived the same stories.

I said, were you a victim of domestic violence? And she was like, yeah. But maybe Kelly could change the ending. I said, how many people have gotten other incarcerated individuals out of here? I'm gonna be the first one to do that. This is the story of Kelly Harnett, a woman who spent 12 years fighting not just for her own freedom, but her girlfriends too.

I think I have a mission from God to save souls by getting people out of prison. The Girlfriends, Jailhouse Lawyer. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My Uncle Chris is definitely somebody worth talking about. He was the kind of guy that lived in a trailer with an ex-con and a retired stripper, left loaded machine guns laying around, drank a bottle of whiskey a night,

claimed he could kill a man with his bare hands, drove a garbage truck for a living, spoke fluent Spanish with a thick southern accent, and is currently buried in a crypt alongside the founding families of Panama. Listen to the Uncle Chris podcast to hear all about him and a whole lot more. Wild stories about adventure, romance, crime, history,

and war intertwine as I share the tall tales and hard truths that have helped me understand Uncle Chris. This collection of stories will make you laugh, it'll make you cry, and if I do my job right, they'll let you see the world and your place in it in a whole new way. I can't wait to tell you all about Uncle Chris. Listen now to Uncle Chris on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

podcasts. American history is full of wise people. What women said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is glory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they loved to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses and then he says the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar and Jefferson writes in his diary this

proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said it would have been harder to fake it than to do it. Listen to American history hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I mean, the least of our problems was airlines wanting to add flyer. Big problem actually was airlines couldn't keep up with the flights that they themselves had scheduled. And then if we caught them in unrealistic scheduling,

we're gonna enforce on them. But now what I will say is, we should have good alternatives. So you should be able to get a flight, we should also be able to take a good train, you should have a safe, effective highway so that people have more options and not less. Same with transit, right?

Yesterday from LaGuardia I took the bus, the M70 I think it is, and then you get to the subway. Which was fine, but in most countries if you're- They got people bussing now. Before, Pete- Oh, yeah, well I was always pro-transit, but they wouldn't let me do transit most of the time. They wanted me to be in the vehicle

and have the security protocols. I get it, but- He thinks you Paul Pete. Nah, he didn't say that. I get it, but. He thinks you poor, Pete. Nah, I didn't say that. He really thinks that. Nah, I didn't say that. But elected, not like you was rich before. He really think you poor now.

No, I didn't say that. I didn't say that. Pete before would come in, you know, he'd come in the truck and all that, but now he's an elected official. He's not an elected official, but he's a little more low key now. Yeah, he's low key, all right. He was an elected official. I mean, not an elected official but a full world key now. Yeah, he was a little key.

All right. But my point is, in most countries, most modern countries, you're in the biggest or one of the biggest cities in that country and you get to the airport, you're going to have a one seat ride to downtown, right? We're one of the very few places where you don't have that. We should. Why do people get so mad at equity and initiative programs? Like why?

Like why is that such a thing? Like why can the New York Post, you know, post this article and put this headline and then people say that is a detriment to Pete Buttigieg and anything he wants to do in the future politically. Like, you know, especially if you ran a national campaign. Look, I think for years there has been this politics of saying that if you do anything to try to

make a situation more fair. For black people. Usually for black people. That's going to make it worse, right? If you care about recruiting more black people to have a chance to get a job, then you're somehow lowering standards. That's not what we were doing. When we were going to HBCUs saying, we want you to apply to work at the FAA or work at USDOT,

we were saying, we want to let you know this job exists and show you the path so that you can meet that same high standard that everybody has to meet. But there's a lot to be gained by characterizing it as something else, right? This idea that anything that we do to deal with those fairness issues is at your expense. These numbers that they're throwing around in the post,

right, make it sound like that money went to somebody else and it didn't go to you. They're trying to do the same thing with Medicaid. They're trying to make people feel like, well, this is just for lazy people who shouldn't be on Medicaid. When we know for a fact, because they did this in Arkansas, that what winds up happening is it kicks off people who are eligible, should be getting the Medicaid, but they get buried

in paperwork and that stops them from getting their benefits. There's this, it's a classic kind of pitting people against each other. Look, I get that sometimes these, honestly in their vocabulary and their style, like some of these programs got out of hand. I've sat through some trainings that just made it seem, they seem like something out of a like Republican caricature of what Democrats do. But they've now taken it so far to the other extreme that people in Toledo or Missoula, Montana or Milwaukee aren't going to get their roads or their sewers fixed because the Trump administration and the Republicans thought that the program that funded it had something to do with diversity,

right? That's hurting everybody. Where when you do this right, everybody's better off and nobody's worse off. What's wrong? I guess my old day, what's wrong with diversity? America is a diverse nation, diversity built this country. Look, the opposite of diversity is uniformity. And I don't wanna live in a country with more uniformity.

I wanna live in a country where there's lots of different perspectives, different values, different ideas, different politics, but what we are headed toward now is more uniformity. Look at what just happened with CBS, right? Oh my God. You've got somebody canceled who happens to be one of the most effective critics of the president.

That's right. Working for a corporation that happens to have business in front of the government because they're trying to get their merger. That's right. This is not that complicated to figure out all the pieces coming together. And the net effect of it is one less voice on the air that's different than the person

running the government. But the thing is, in my experience, that's never been what people left, right, or center want in this country. I mean, if anything, it was my conservative and libertarian friends that I'd be arguing with over beers in college who would talk about things like the government trying to impose censorship on people or federal agents snatching people off the streets or any of these things.

I used to think of those as a libertarian fever dream that was never gonna happen. Now we see it happening under a president who claims to be conservative. So I would like to believe that one thing we could agree on as a country is we want less uniformity and more diversity of thought, more support for all the different things

and different people. I mean, again, you spend a minute in New York City and it's exhilarating to see all of the different styles and backgrounds, and you know that with that comes different ideas that's part of what makes America great. I think it's hard to have these conversations because when you use words like authoritarian strategy,

a lot of people don't even really understand what that is. And you can say, oh yeah, Colbert got canceled, but he was losing a lot of money for the network. You can just chalk it up to something else, but then you gotta look at PBS being defunded, and NPR being defunded, and the Wall Street Journal being sued, this is all in a matter of days. This is systematic.

And they're doing basically any place where there is independence, whether talking about PBS, or a law firm or a university, any place that is independent is being put in a position where they have to look over their shoulder because they might do something that's inconvenient for the government. Damn. And again, when I say that, I sound like my libertarian buddies 20 years ago, but that's what's happening.

And left, right, and center, we should be able to come together and say, wait a minute, we don't, I don't care, wherever you come down on like taxes or Medicare or abortion, like all of us should be able to agree that we don't want that, and that if we move in that direction, if we live in the kind of country where a TV show or a university could get shut down because the government doesn't like them,

this isn't America anymore. How do you feel about the Epstein-Fauce? I feel that Democrats should never stop talking about the Epstein-Fauce. I think it is the one thing that builds a bridge between Democrats and that MAGA base they've been trying to reach ever since Trump won re-election.

I think that's right. Look, I think there's some folks who might say this is a distraction or this isn't the bread and butter of what we care about. But what I would say is, or let's say what you really care about is legislation, policy. That's your thing. You see all these headlines about Epstein, but you think to yourself, what I care about is how the Congress is dealing with health care taxes etc. Okay well Congress just got shut down. The Republicans just shut down the United States House of Representatives for two months in order to avoid having to vote

on Donald Trump blocking the Epstein files. So even if you don't give a shit about the the news story or the sensationalism of it, this now affects you because one of your branches of government is not operational between now and September because Speaker Mike Johnson and the Republicans would rather shut that branch of government down than let the Epstein files come out. Let that sink in. It's also another example among many, many examples of Donald Trump saying he's gonna do something on day one

and then something very different happens, right? Said he's gonna lower prices on day one. Opposite happen, he's pushing them up with tariffs. Said he's gonna bring peace to the Middle East on day one, get peace with Russia on day one. I don't know if anybody really took him seriously on that, but that's what he says. And then he says, day one,

these Epstein files are gonna come out. Because at the time, it was in his interest to pretend that he was going to do that. And now it is in his interest to block those files coming out. And I don't think it's unreasonable to ask why. Why do you think the Biden administration never put them up? I don't know.

I was not close to the, you know, the DOJ or how any of that worked. Um, I know some, a lot of stuff came out. Uh, but if there is really more and I don't know, but they, they were waving around these binders, right. At press conferences. Um, do you think it would be mutually assured destruction? Could be, I mean look, we already know that there were Democrats, Republicans, like there are all kinds of people

mixed up with this guy, right? I think most Americans say, okay, let the chips fall where they may. Like, we gotta know. Yeah, and get rid of everybody, get rid of all of them. Anybody who's an abuser, anybody who's committed, like, of course, right? And it does feel like something in this moment

where none of us can agree on much, that all of us can agree on that. And it's especially weird with Trump, right, because it's not some wild liberal conspiracy claim that he was involved with, Jeffrey Epstein. There's pictures, pictures still coming out now, after all these years, not to mention the pictures and footage

that were there years ago. And not just him like shaking hands, getting his picture taken with the guy, but like ogling women with him, right? Like dancing with him, like grooving with him. Now he's finally at his wedding. So obviously there's something there. It's not even arguable that there's something there.

So I think you're right that we should be pounding on that, even if it's not a central policy priority of the party. and arguable that there's something there. So I think you're right that we should be pounding on that, even if it's not a central policy priority of the party. I asked some other people that were in the Biden administration why they didn't release it, and they said that they don't dwell in conspiracy. And I'm like, well, now you're not dwelling in conspiracy, you're talking about an obvious cover-up.

And this is the first time that I've seen Trump supporters be agitated and angry about anything. So to me, this should be, Democrats should treat this issue the way Republicans treated transgenders in women's sports. Never stop talking about it. Never. Yeah. Why let it go, right?

When there's obviously something to it. And again, it's affecting the entire government now because we don't have a House of Representatives because the speaker sent them home because he didn't want to do anything to impact Trump's ability to block these files. Think about that. That's crazy. What is their reasoning?

I saw that they're taking a reason, but what is their reasoning? I think their reasoning is they don't want to deal with it. I don't know, what did they say? What are they telling the people? I don't even know. Maybe they said, actually, that's a good question. I haven't even seen them,

let alone a convincing explanation. I haven't seen any explanation. Well, maybe I said, actually, that's a good question. I haven't even seen them, let alone a convincing explanation. I haven't seen any explanation. Well, why would they bother, right? We all know why. So, there's just no reason to even bother coming up with an excuse. So, what would you, what are your thoughts on former US President Obama

saying that the Democrats need to toughen up, you know, and take action? What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think he's right. Although, that just reminds me of one other thing, right? Which is the distraction machine. So, Trump says we're gonna release the files, we're gonna release the files, we're gonna release the files.

And he says we're not gonna release the files. And people are mad, including Magus, saying wait a minute, you said you were gonna release this information and you're not, and what does he do? He's like, we're gonna arrest Obama. What? That has nothing to do with anything, but it's the distraction machine.

But yeah, as to what President Obama actually said, look, we have to be a party that is not pulling punches, that is ready to call things out for what they are, internally and externally. I think people wanna know that somebody's fighting for them. At the same time, my personal theory of politics is you don't have to be a dick about it. And what I mean by that is that

when I encounter people in actual real life who voted the other way, relatives, or even somebody might come up and say hello in like an airport or something, I'm more likely to have somebody come up and say, you know, I'm from the other party, but it's nice running into you than to, you know, come up and give me the finger or something like that. Why would that be? Because look, we're humans and for the most part, like don't want to in real life, we're actually around each other.

We don't want it to be any uglier than it has to be. And yet you go online, you go on TV, you get into those spaces and it's different, right? So I think the challenge for us is we should never back down from a good fight over what the right thing to do is and what the wrong thing to do is. But I think we can also demonstrate a way to do it that's actually inviting people into our coalition, saying like, we want you, and maybe you don't agree

with us on 10% of the stuff or 30% of the stuff, or maybe you voted the other way last time, like all the more reason we want you with us this time around. And we need to be inviting where I think people have viewed us as kind of, frankly, scolding. Like we're scolding people for not being up on the latest cultural developments or not being the right kind of progressive or whatever it is. That has to change too. My biggest problem with Democrats is they uh it's like

everything they're saying now you should have been saying two three years ago. Like we've been saying Democrats was cowards so yeah yes, yes, y'all should have been toughened up. Jake Tapper with the original sin and you'd read that book and you see everybody knew that Biden was too old to run, but nobody said anything. But now everybody wants to speak up. His press secretary, Corinne Jean-Pierre, saying she's an independent now.

I'm like, why weren't y'all saying this two, three years ago? All of these things that y'all are saying, we the people had been saying. I would say also that there were a lot of things we were fighting for then that we're fighting for now. The Medicaid stuff is a good example. The transportation stuff, right? I was, you know, sometimes we were taking hits

for people thinking we were caring too much about taking care of neighborhoods that were under-invested in or hurt in the past. I believed that it was the right thing to do then. I believe it's the right thing to do now. But yeah, we have to show a level of toughness in order to be, just in order to be credible, I think. And in order to go up against these guys

who obviously you can fault them for all kinds of things, but they definitely project toughness. They won the culture war. Like every time I hear Democrats talk, they talk about the work that they've done, which is true. But what do you do when the work isn't enough? Yeah.

Well, look, I think that we need to bring it back to everyday life. And culture is part of that. But so are just the basics of policy. Right now, it's going to be harder to buy a house because Donald Trump just added to the deficit in order to get tax cuts for billionaires. And that means that interest rates are going to be higher. Right now, it is growing more difficult to get healthcare because premiums just went up because how Republicans changed the Obamacare subsidy. You don't have to be a policy buff for these things to hit you.

And by the way, I think all these things that have happened are small compared to what's about to happen. This AI development that's happening right now is not just something people should care about if they're interested in tech. This is not just like a nerdy fascination. This is going to affect how all of us, it already is, right? Maybe in useful ways, like you ask Chad GPT for anything. But also in terms of jobs starting to dramatically change, right? This is a level,

I mean, we lived through one version of this in the 90s when I was growing up in Indiana and trade and automation happened and it changed what was going on in the auto industry. I think that this will be 10 times or 100 times more disruptive. And if Democrats are caught up in yesterday's culture war or defending institutions that were getting pretty old and trying to look like the protectors of a status quo that wasn't serving anybody well, instead of offering some kind of answers for how you're supposed to make a living and how you're supposed to fit into your community

when you've got technology changing everything. If we don't have answers on that, then we're definitely gonna be left behind. So what does the future of the party look like then? Like is it more Pete Buttigieg or is it more Mondani? Is it more Josh Appera or is it more Mondani? Is it more Josh Aparo or is it more AOC? What does it look like? Look, we're always gonna be a big tent party.

I think my style is different from some of the others in the party and that's fine. We're each gonna be putting forward the version of the message that's truest to who we are. And I think that a younger generation of leaders, many of whom are politically moderate, some of them are politically pretty far left, what they have in common is they are who they are.

You can feel it, you can just see it. That I think is the future of the party. And my last question, you know, Republicans clearly are fumbling the ball. Trump is clearly fumbling the ball. Do Democrats have the proper team now to recover the fumble and actually score? Was only one way to find out.

But that moment is on us, right? And it's gonna get harder. I mean, they're even changing the rule. They know they're fumbling the ball because right now the Trump administration is trying to get Texas to change the way the maps are drawn so that they don't lose the house because they think they're gonna lose the house, right?

So we can see signs that there's a huge opportunity here. But Democrats also need to figure out that we're not playing like normal Democrat, Republican, left, right politics like we all grew up with. This is the media environment's different, the state of mind of the American people is different, that the game is different. It's, I don't wanna torture your metaphor,

but it's like they fumbled the ball and we need to figure out whether we're actually, whether it's actually suddenly turned into a game of football instead of soccer instead of football or something. We don't even know if it's gonna be a free and fair election in 26 or 28. Yeah, and again, look at what they're doing in Texas, right? So nevermind, you know, things they could do to manipulate the election in a really sinister way.

This is a way to manipulate the election in broad daylight. If they change the maps in Texas, which by the way could technically be legal, that doesn't require anybody going in and tampering with a voting machine. It doesn't require anybody changing election results, and yet it changes what happens. And there's a reason why they are thinking about resorting to that. So we can't be, my side can't be precious about all of the norms and routines that we were used to and expect to win. There are things we're not going to do.

We're not going to lie. We're not going to demonize unpopular minority groups in order to get ahead. We're not going to do the things they do. But that means that our version has to be 10 times better. Pete Buttigieg, ladies and gentlemen. So what's next for Pete Buttigieg? What do you have your eyes set on? He's running for president in 2028. Come on, stop. Cut it off. It's 2025. You've got gotta give me at least one year to not be running for anything and not be in office

so I can drop the kids off at school and be a human being and then we'll figure it out. But what I am definitely doing now and gonna keep doing is speak out about this stuff and try to show versus tell a way of fighting for what's right that I think our party would benefit from. I think you're polling at what, 13% right now? It depends who's polling we look at, but.

Yeah, do you look at stuff like that? Depends who's polling you look at. I can't. That was crazy, Pete. But you're polling at 13%, that's a pretty good number. I try not to look at that too much. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's not bad.

Gotcha. You shouldn't look at other polls, Pete, you're married. First of all, Oh my goodness. You can't pause a gay man. Just chill you're married. First of all, Oh my goodness. Pa's a gay man, just chill out though. What? Shut up. He said it.

Pete's like, I don't know why I keep coming back here. I don't know why. He's like, I don't know why. We appreciate it whenever you come, Pete. I tell you this all the time, man, but you never stop talking to our audience and that means something. Cause I feel like politicians only come around

when they want something, they only come around when it's a campaign season. The fact that you come and just, you know, keep us abreast of what's going on all the time, I truly do appreciate it. Anytime. Absolutely. That's right.

And then don't forget those hair snaps because I want to see if it works. We're doing the conditioner and then the leave-in conditioner tonight, and then in the morning, it is a journey. Oh, that's good. I know, it's a whole. Oh, that's good. I know, it's a whole job.

It's a whole job, all right? Cause you got the detangle and all that. So look, you got it. We should talk after this actually. I have a couple of questions. All right, it's people to judge. It's the Breakfast Club, good morning. Wake that ass up.

In the morning. The Breakfast Club. Ah, come on, why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient. Still using yesterday's tech?. Not the other way around. Whoa, this thing moves. Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Win the tech search at Lenovo.com. Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, powered by Intel Core Ultra processors, so you can work, create, and boost productivity all on one device. Join iHeart Radio and Sarah Spayne in celebrating the one one year anniversary of iHeart Women's Sports. With powerful interviews and insider analysis, our shows have connected fans with the heart of women's sports.

In just one year, the network has launched 15 shows and built a community united by passion. Podcasts that amplify the voices of women in sports. Thank you for supporting iHeart Women's Sports and our founding sponsors, Elf Beauty, Capital One, and Novartis. Just open the free iHeart app and search iHeart Women's Sports to listen now. The Girlfriends is back with a new season, and this time I'm telling you the story of Kelly Harnett. Kelly spent over a decade in prison

for a murder she says she didn't commit. As she fought for her freedom, she taught herself the law. He goes, Oh God, her and that jailhouse lawyer. And became a beacon of hope for the women locked up alongside her. You're supposed to have faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her. I think I was put here to save souls by getting people out of prison. The Girlfriends, Jailhouse Lawyer. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Ian Faff, the creator and host of The Uncle Chris Podcast.

My Uncle Chris was a real character, a garbage truck driver from South Carolina who is now buried in Panama City alongside the founding families of Panama. He also happens to be responsible for the craziest night of my life. Wild stories about adventure, romance, crime, history, and war intertwine as I share the tall tales and hard truths that have helped me understand Uncle Chris. Listen now to Uncle Chris on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.