The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Pete Buttigieg Talks 2nd Ave Subway Project, Electric Vehicles, Derailments, Christian Values + More

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

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On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home, and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Wake that ass up early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy Charlemagne the God. We are The Breakfast Club.

Angela Rye is with us as well. And we have a special guest in the building. The U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Pete Buttigieg. Welcome back. Thank you. How are you feeling? Good to be back.

We got a lot of good news here. Before you came in, I was talking about Secretary Pete about his cars. And he was saying that I see somewhere that he likes the new Mustang, the electric Mustang. And they said you were in it? Yeah, because I thought we should practice what we preach. We're encouraging electric vehicles. And I thought we ought to do that, too. So our security detail, we had them get a Mustang Mach-E, which is

how I usually get around when I'm in Washington. And it's great. My favorite part is when they took delivery of it. Part of what's standard, they get the keys, they get the paperwork, and then they get a gas card for buying gas to reimburse that. And they're never going to need that because it doesn't need any gas. Taxpayers will never have to pay for a drop of gas going into that car. Question, does the Secretary of Transportation have to pay for transportation? Do you get free cars and stuff like that? Sure, it depends. So if I'm on personal travel then yeah obviously that's

that's out of my pocket. If it's work travel or if there's you know security need to get around then it's a little different but yeah I mean usually you know. Do you get free cars? I do not get free cars no like i've like we got a minivan that you know if i'm dropping the kids off daycare that's just our family car you know we got i never thought i'd be a minivan guy and then you got kids and then you realize you need a minivan and you very much it's actually great yeah and it's what it's a plug-in that one plugs in too so you can uh it's a hybrid so you plug it in you get maybe 30 40 miles off of the electric and if you go any further than that,

like if we're on a road trip, then it switches to gas. You can get a cooler car. You can get like an electric Escalade or something. They got the electric SUV. You don't have to drive a minivan. What's that out there? Escalade is not a job. You say that, act like you're from Indiana all your life. I'm literally from Indiana and I'm literally a dad. We're Midwestern dads. I got two kids.

I never thought I'd be a minivan guy, but I got to say it's kind of the right answer for us right now. all those electric cars and all the electric battery cars and everything that we need? And also, when people are driving from state to state, is it enough to make sure that these people won't run out of electric and be on the side of the roads? Right. So the honest answer is we cannot run tomorrow's cars on today's grid. But the other part of the answer is that's why we're upgrading the grid and the charges. So President's goal is by the end of this decade, we want half of new car sales to be electric. We think we can get there. It's not for everybody. It's not for everybody overnight. Prices still need to come down, but we think we can get to half by the end of the decade. We also have to have about half a

million chargers around the country by the end of the decade. And we're funding that. Part of what was in the president's infrastructure law is about $7.5 billion that we're using to really do two things. One is what you're talking about, where you go out on a road trip, you know there's going to be a gas station. We've got to make sure when you go on a road trip, you know there's going to be a charging station. But the other piece is we've got to make sure there's community charging. So if you live in a single family home where you've got a garage, then it's easy. You can just plug in your wall. Our house in Michigan, we just plug it in a regular wall plug. But if you're in an apartment building, if you're in a dense area,

and especially if you're in a low or middle income area, then it might not yet be profitable for companies to put in chargers. So we've got to make sure that we accelerate that process, put a little incentive in to make the economics move in the right direction so that everybody has access because then they have a chance at the savings

that come from not having to buy gas. So it's definitely a process. The grid has to be upgraded too. But remember, it's also complicated and expensive to move millions and millions and millions of gallons of liquid fuel around this country every day. At the end of the day, in the long run, it's more efficient to move electrons through, so to speak, through transmission lines than it is to move liquids around. But this is not going to happen overnight. It's going to be years. We're underway. We're working on it. I have two more questions before we jump in. You can't ask two more. No, with the electric. The electric car stuff, because this is something that I'm into. They say that those batteries are just as bad for the environment as gasoline and fuel is. Is that true?

No, but there are issues with them. And a lot of the issues have to do with how the materials that go into them are extracted. So we've got to make sure that they are extracted under good labor conditions and their mind appropriately. We're trying to get more of that done in the U.S. Under the Trump administration, they didn't care a lot about electric vehicles, as you know. China got an edge, and China does not care about things like mining, environmental conditions, or child labor, any of those other issues. We do. And so we're working to make sure that we get more of these things sourced domestically. But it's a different set of problems. So those are issues.

We take them seriously. But the problem with burning regular gas is it's causing the climate to change. That's not the problem that we're worried about when it comes to batteries. Climate change is getting faster. It's getting worse. It's real. People can pretend otherwise. And I know there's a lot of oil and gas profits to be protected by pretending otherwise, but it's just true. We can see it all around us. And the biggest part of the U.S. economy, of all these sectors of the economy, the one that puts the most carbon pollution into the air is transportation. So to me, as transportation sector, that means our goal has to be

to try to be the biggest part of the solution. And part of that is cars, and a big part of that is going electric. Last question I had was, Elon Musk was very mad at you guys, right? They said that he was giving you guys the middle finger, that he wanted some tax rebates, and you guys wouldn't give him the rebates. So he decided to take the money off of his cars himself, right? That's when the Teslas were at its lowest at one time. What's your thought process on that and Elon Musk?

Look, what they have built at Tesla is extraordinary. That's part of why EVs are available. They push the market forward, biggest maker of EVs in the country. Our job is to try to make sure that the industry as a whole does well. And we want to make sure that it does well in America with American workers. And obviously we care about workers having a free and fair choice to join a union, which some auto companies do and some auto companies do not. Past that, we're not out to put a thumb on the scale. We just need to make sure these cars are

safe. And we want any business on American soil with American workers making American cars to thrive. Mayor Pete, you know, one of the things, Mayor Pete, now Secretary Pete. I'll always answer to Mayor. And I love that. I think it really prepares you for where you are now. I want to just commend you on the fact that you've been one of the most consistent administration voices that have been on this show. That's right. And I also think that it's really interesting that other than that, the most times I hear about you is when something went wrong in transportation and nine times out of ten, your responsibility is to hold the folks accountable. You didn't do it. For example, the railroad derailments earlier this year, and I would love for you to talk to the audience about how you responded to the railroad administration responded to those derailments, the fact that they happen regularly every day,

but those in particular were egregious. Yeah, so the one that got the most attention was in February of this year in Ohio. There was a Norfolk Southern train that was carrying hazardous materials. It derailed, and it sent up, in order to prevent an explosion, they actually burned off some of the material

that was in there. Thankfully, there were no fatalities there, but it was terrifying for the town there called East Palestine. And there was a lot of frustration, a lot of anger, and a lot of misinformation that really terrorized the community. And when that happened, over time, I realized that we had to change the way we approach these. Normally, a secretary of transportation doesn't go to an active hazmat site or an active crash site. Not because people in this job don't care about the issue, but because we have a national transportation board, it's a safety board, it's designed to be independent.

They do the investigation, we do the policy. But what I found was people wanted and needed to see a visible administration figure there. And honestly, I was a little slow to see the importance of that given the misinformation that was going on. So I knew that I had to get out there and do something that was a little bit of a break from the norm, but was very important so that the people who live in that community knew that they wouldn't have to wait a year for the NTSB report to come out to know that we cared about them and we were supporting. Now, to be clear, our department was on the ground from the first hours of that incident. It's not like we weren't present or like we forgot, but

the information layer and the things that they were being told as they had very legitimate questions like, is my house safe? Is the water safe? Which it was, but they needed testing to prove that. Is the air safe? The community was, but they needed testing to prove that. Is the air safe? The community was so terrorized by that that we had to take additional steps to get good information there. But here's the other thing that's really important. When I went out there, I wasn't just there to show my face. I was there to talk about safety reforms that we need. That incident woke up a lot of Americans to something people didn't know, which is that all along, we have had every single day on average derailment. We have about 1,000 derailments a year in this country, and that's nothing new. In fact, it used to be more.

They came down from many thousands a year because of regulations. People don't always want to hear about regulations. Regulations aren't always possible, but they make us safer. And so right now, there's a bill sitting in Congress called the Railway Safety Act, a bipartisan bill that would give my department more power to hold these railroad companies accountable. It would allow us to increase the fines to something that would really get their attention. Because right now, a multibillion-dollar corporation might not really care that much about the fines at the level that we're allowed to assess if we catch them in a violation. Other measures around the physical safety of the tank cars

that these chemicals move in. And it's just sitting there. And some of the same members of Congress who couldn't wait to get on TV to try to make a partisan issue out of this still haven't gone on the record on whether they're for or against it. By February, it's going to be a year since that crash happened. And again, there are other

derailments, thankfully, usually not as serious, but there are other derailments happening every day. We need those enforcement tools. We need that stepped up action. And we're doing everything we can under the law as it exists, but we need Congress to do more too. Is there a limit with the cars that the actual trains can carry? Because anybody that lives in 757 Virginia knows that those trains are going for 15, 20 minutes. So is there a limit that maybe we break it up so you wouldn't have that many disturbances? There's not, but we're looking at the safety issues of that. Because now you've got trains that are a mile long, two miles long, three miles long.

It is amazing. And this is another thing we're working on. Right now, there's actually no legal requirement on how many people need to be staffing that train. The railroad industry lobby has been pushing to have it be down to one. Imagine one person on a train that's three miles long. Can't even see the back of it. No. I mean, it would take you an hour to walk to the back of it. So we're putting through a rule

that would establish a minimum staffing standard. But we're also looking at some of the safety implications of trains being that long. Then you have the community implications. When I'm in, especially in smaller communities, and they have these railroad crossings, and you get stuck behind it. 20 minutes, 30 minutes.

Yeah. Easy. And that's not just for your commute, but sometimes that's an ambulance. You know, sometimes that's a safety issue. Somebody really needs to get there. But we're also changing that. So we have another part that I love the president's infrastructure plan is we have dollars for railroad crossing elimination. Now we can't get all of them. There's hundreds of thousands of these, but we can go to some of the places. We were in North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota. They've been trying to get rid of this railroad crossing since, I think, 1991.

Everybody in town when we went there knew about the spot we were talking about. I think it's 41st Street. That just cuts off one part of town where the university is from another part of town. And finally, we brought the funding that's going to allow them to eliminate that crossing. We're in Orangeburg, South Carolina. You know a lot about Orangeburg. Absolutely. We're with Congressman Clyburn there celebrating work that's going to help there where you have highways and railways that cut people off. So in addition to holding the railroads accountable, we're also looking at the physical

infrastructure here. Now, I would be remiss if I did not mention that as we speak, House Republicans are pushing cuts to a program called CRISI, the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure Safety Improvement Program, which is one of the main sources of federal dollars we use to improve the safety of our railroads. I would argue that now is the time to double down on that, not to cut it. And you're going to hear me making a lot of noise about this as they're deciding how to vote. You know, the other thing, you brought up East Palestine, which is not exactly the same as what's happening in the Middle East and Palestine-Israel conflict. There are a lot of folks in the community who feel very strongly about the amount of $4 and $8 that are going overseas to support but aren't feeling that same type of aid and relief in our own communities. Department of Transportation is responsible for some of the relief that can be provided

to the community. So can you talk a little bit about what you all are doing in that regard? Yeah, we're focused on what we can do with the federal dollars that have been entrusted to us to make everyday life better. It's part of why I'm here in New York. Yeah, so we focused on what we can do with the federal dollars that have been entrusted to us to make everyday life better. It's part of why I'm here in New York. Yeah, so we've got the Hudson Tunnel. This is a tunnel. Hundreds of thousands of people count on this to get their communities from here to New Jersey and beyond.

It's 100 years old. And if there was a problem that took that tunnel out of service. It's 100 years old? Yeah. More than 100 years old. I think it was finished when Teddy Roosevelt was president. The one that connects New Jersey to Penn Station? Yeah, you've probably been through it very, very often. Jesus Christ.

And you're going through century-old infrastructure. We got one in Baltimore that we're redoing. It will be known as the Frederick Douglass Tunnel. Right now it's known as the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel. What tunnel? You talking about? You said the Hudson? The Hudson, yeah. Yeah, East River Tunnel needs some work? You said the Hudson? The Hudson, yeah. Yeah, East River Tunnel needs some work too.

And we're working on that. So, and this is a major, I mean, the Hudson Tunnel piece alone, that's going to be one of the biggest public works projects in modern American history. Between the $92 million. That's just the start. We've got billions more identified

in our transit programs, and then we're going to have more announcements to make about that. It's going to be billions. But, yeah, this $292 million piece, that's going to do the concrete casing around Hudson Yards. That's a big piece of it because we really need it. People count on it every day whether they think about it or not. In fact, our goal is that people don't have to think about it.

If you're not thinking about infrastructure, if you're not thinking about whether there's a hole in the road that's going to screw up your car or whether your train's going to be late because there's a problem in the tunnel, then you can think about whatever else you're dealing with in life. You can think about your job. You can think about your kids. You can think about your faith. Especially when you have all that traffic that is going to cause because of the construction.

While we're doing it? That's not what I had in mind. But the other thing is if you put back on your Mayor Peay hat, it's not just I had in mind. But the other thing is, if you put back on your Mayor Pehat, it's not just folks getting to work. There are folks who are going to work on these projects. Yes, absolutely. And that's the, because look, some of these projects are going to take a while before they're done.

But even during that period you're talking about where things are delayed or backed up, the jobs that that's creating. And we're working to make sure that there's fair access to those jobs. We've heard so many stories from communities and people who look, the project finally comes to their neighborhood, and they say, great, but nobody working on this project looks like they're from this neighborhood. My dad is the main one with the bullhorn.

This bothers him. Yes, indeed. So we've got local hire preferences that we're now able to do under the law. We've been working with project labor agreements and community benefit agreements. I was in L.A. They have a program called Hire LAX specifically for people who are from the same zip code as LAX to get into these building trade jobs. And some of them, you know, some of them had been homeless in the past. Some of them had had involvement in the justice system.

And we're now making good money educating their kids, buying a home. I mean, these are transformational opportunities when you get some of these construction jobs. So we're really excited about that. How long will it take, though? So some of the projects we can do in one construction season. So not in time? That's going to be years. That's going to be four years, minimum, four years of traffic.

We're not stuck on traffic. So the concrete casing, we think they can do it in about three years. Okay. Other parts of it are going to go well into the 2030s. It's just that big of a vision when you talk about the overall connection of what's called the gateway, linking all the way there. But that's part of what we know you have to do. You have to have a portfolio of projects from ones that are going to be done by this year to ones that some other transportation secretary is going to get to cut the ribbon on one day. But that also means a pipeline of work, you can expect.

And some of these are a long time coming. The other big one that we're excited about that we're announcing is Second Avenue subway, extending that out to 125th Street. That neighborhood has been asking for decades to get that kind of subway access. And we're finally able to get it done with this kind of funding. And I know that it's going to change lives. Yes, the jobs working on it, but also just the jobs that people are going to be able to have

because they can take advantage of the transit. Secretary Pete, there was a rumor that's been going on probably since I've been alive that in any state that you're in, if the roads are bad and you hit a pothole, you can send a bill to your local or state official and they will replenish your money. Is that true? I would not bank on that. I don't know why people say that every time because if they say if you get a flat tire, because if we pay for the roads and there is a pothole and I damage my tire,

that there was a way to get your money back. But that's not true. Not in any place that I've ever worked. As mayor, my sworn enemy was potholes, right? Mayors hate potholes. Yes. Because you see them and you get calls about them and you're trying to fix them.

And they destroy your car. So one other thing I got, yes, they call it the pothole tax, right? So sometimes people are paying so much in terms of the cost that you then have to take on because the road's not in good shape. You would have been better off, obviously we'd all be better off if the roads were better, which is why we're fixing the roads. And the single biggest piece of all the funding we have across this trillion dollars, I think that the biggest individual set of investments ties back to the roads and the bridges that go with it. But also, we're trying to make the roads last longer. We just cut the ribbon at a facility. We actually have a research facility inside

of the DOT. We're belonging to the DOT. It's in Virginia. We have a few research facilities. But this one, one of the things I saw there was a test bed where they've laid 11 different types of pavement and concrete. If you look at it in a cross-section, it's like a layer cake. And we have 300 sensors through it. And we're going to be able to monitor and measure how it responds to different weather conditions. They have machinery that can test an I-beam or a piece of concrete until it fails by putting

100,000 pounds of pressure on it or simulating a million trucks over the course of years and years in an accelerated way. So we're trying to be smarter with the technology so that this stuff lasts longer. The big problem is in the spring. What happens is the especially if you're anywhere north of well certainly anywhere like New York or where I come from the the the freeze thaw cycle means you get some water, it gets into those cracks, then it freezes, it expands, it starts to crack the surface, then it melts, then you get more water getting in there, and it gets worse and worse.

We think we can be much, much smarter with our materials and with our technology. I know this isn't considered the sexiest thing, but I love the potential of just making our pavement more durable because it means less potholes and it means our taxpayer money goes further so we can do more good projects. Question about the Hudson Tunnel again. With those changes, would that increase the price of traveling?

Will Metro cards go up again? No, at least not as a result of what we're funding. I don't know what the plans are for MTA or how they're thinking about their fares. I know congestion pricing, which is a state project, that's part of how they're planning to fund some of their work. But no, part of what we're trying to do is provide more of the federal funding because you couldn't raise fares high enough to cover the cost of these. You just can't do a $15 to $20 billion project on the strength of fares. There's not enough money to go around. People would stop.

You couldn't keep using it. That's why there has to be a federal role. And by the way, I think it's fair game for there to be a federal role because even if you don't use that tunnel every day, we're all living in an economy where if that tunnel was out of service, that would impact the economy all the way back to our house in Michigan.

One of the other things that I think is important, we of course saw the Supreme Court decimate affirmative action for higher education earlier this year during the summer. I know the 8A program at SBA took some hits as well. This attorney that's on these cases is relentless about it. Are you at all concerned about the impacts on the disadvantaged business enterprise program at DOT and how that might impact even some of the companies who are working on projects around the infrastructure? I am.

They're coming after our DBE program, too. Now, we believe that program is not just good policy, but it's legally sound. We're going to fight for it. We know that it's made a difference in terms of people getting access to these jobs and opportunities that come with it. Just yesterday, I was speaking to the National Association of Minority Contractors. They are gearing up, getting ready. And by the way, what they want is a fair shot to compete. But these are businesses that have been, you know, over the years, you look in the past, systematically excluded. The whole basis of the DBE program, the reason why it has legal footing,

is that there's been a lot of proof of the disparities that have opened up. And when these businesses do get a fair shot to compete, they can do amazing work, and then they create jobs as they go. So whether we're talking about 8A, which is a small business administration program, or our own programs that go under the flagship of DBE, we're going to keep pushing because we believe in them. We're doing matchmaking. You'd think it was like speed dating between investors and businesses that want to grow in this way. We're doing matchmaking between people who are building transit and transportation projects and the businesses that hope to bid on it.

And it's not just, you know, if you're in heavy construction, it could be you could have an accounting or legal services or professional services business that could benefit from some of the opportunities. We even upped our own goal for the federal contracts from our department, the DOT. We upped it to 21% from a category called SDBs, the small disadvantaged businesses.

And we beat that goal. And we're looking at what we can do to turn the dial even higher. So we really believe in this work. I know it's coming under attack. I just don't think those attacks are legally sound. So we're going to push. I want to ask you about some political stuff going on.

How do you feel working with the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, when he hates gays? You know, it's my job to try to work with anybody. So I will try to work with him. It's gotta be tough, man. Yeah, I mean, look, we were joking earlier about my minivan. It's a strange feeling to be driving our kids,

our twin two-year-olds to daycare, driving past the Capitol, looking at the dome of the Capitol, knowing that under it sits a speaker who thinks that my marriage ought to be against the law. Jesus Christ. I mean, not just not being in favor of marriage, which most people in the country get now,

but just wanting it to be a crime. You're partnering with an anti-gay conversion therapy movement. The conversion therapy, these laws. I mean, I don't get it. But maybe he, I don't know. Maybe we can get through to this guy. I'm not sure I've ever met him. You probably haven't. Like, where did he even come from? Like 52 rounds later.

They went through a lot of different steps to get to this speaker. But again, you know, my job is to try to work with anybody. Look, I was a gay mayor in Indiana when Mike Pence was the governor. And I fought him on those issues. But I also worked with him on other issues, because working together on the economy was the right thing to do for the city. So it's, you've got to compartmentalize. I think he takes it a step further than Mike Pence, though. I mean, the criminalization of gay sex is what he talks about.

He says, you know, homosexuality led to the fall of the Roman Empire. Right. Like, that's a bit different. I think that's a step further than Mike Pence. Yeah, he seems exceptionally committed to that ideology. And... I don't know how you reach somebody like that. You know, I saw somebody asked him about his worldview.

And he said, you know, pick up a Bible and read it. That's my worldview. When I pick up, first of all, this country was established by people who didn't want to live under other people's interpretation of their own religion. But also, as a Christian, I pick up a Bible and I get to a place like Proverbs 29, the righteous man knows the cause of the poor and the wicked regardeth it not. And then I'm thinking about the Speaker of the House who went out of his way to be against the child tax credit, which when President Biden's American Rescue Plan

expanded the child tax credit, cut child poverty in half. And when they let it expire, child poverty doubled. So we know that it was a cause and effect. And I just, Reverend Barber, William Barber, somebody I have a lot of respect for, he sometimes talks about how you see some of these figures out there who have, as he puts it, they say so much about what God says so little and so little about what God says so much. I don't know.

We'll see if we can get through to these folks. You know, it's interesting though, right, because you're a politician, but then you're still a human at the end of the day. So what you gave is a human at the end of the day. So that's what you gave is a very politically correct answer. But when you and your husband are sitting around, the conversation gotta be a lot different. I mean, the guy said that same sex relations are the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy

that could doom even the strongest republic. Like I'm trying to figure out, is there anything that disqualifies you from being a politician nowadays? Obviously nothing. I mean, I look at some of the folks running around that House Republican Conference who were above and beyond that kind of stuff. But yeah, I mean, the thing I don't understand is, that's our family he's talking about. And I just got asked about this yesterday too. And I was thinking, you know, chaos is not a bad word to use to describe what it's like around bedtime at our house when we're trying to get our kids ready for bed.

And we're trying to feed them. And there's spaghetti flying. And, you know, one of them won't take their shoes off. And one of them needs a diaper change. But, like, that's our family. Like, that's a chaos that is rooted in love. It's not dark. It's beautiful a chaos that is rooted in love it's not dark it's it's beautiful it's it's and that is strengthening I'm I'm certain that every

family certainly I'm certain that our family is part of what we have in mind when we talk about society needing protect people going about their lives and I think about all the other families that that are terrified right now and what we have in mind when we talk about society needing to protect people going about their lives. And I think about all the other families that are terrified right now and that maybe are not in as comfortable a situation as we are where you've got, you know, a governor threatening to take away your kids

because you took them to the doctor to see if you could support them because they're questioning their identity. How terrifying that is. Mm-hmm. Do you lose faith a little bit when you think about all the things that you and your husband are thinking? Do you lose faith just a little bit,

because this is our government? It's our government. It's the only one we got. So, if there's a part of it that is disturbing or discouraging, you've got to respond to that with the part of it that is disturbing or discouraging. You've got to respond to that with the part of it you believe in. I mean, I can't throw up my hands and complain about the government when I've been given such a prominent role

in our government, right? I just have to figure out how to use it to do the most good for the most people, which is my job. And yeah, there are things that are discouraging. Then again, there are things that are incredibly exciting. Some of the projects that we're doing that people gave up on a long time ago, or I mean, we go to a lot of communities and they still don't believe that the money's actually coming, even when we're delivering it, because it's taken so long that they started to give up. We even got this done bipartisan. I mean, I don't think we had Mike Johnson on board,

but we had some Republicans who crossed over and voted with us to get some of this infrastructure stuff done. So have we solved every problem? Definitely not. Are some things going to get worse before they get better? Maybe. But I believe in what we're doing, and I see good things happening around us.

Looking forward to the 2024 election, you're in this role at DOT, Transportation Secretary. Have you thought about if you'd want to serve in any other capacity under another Biden-Garris administration? I know you're not supposed to necessarily answer this, but you are really smart, have a lot of skill sets that you developed in school as well as as a mayor. There are so many other entities and agencies that could utilize the way that you think things through. Have you thought about any other role that you'd want to serve in? I'm pretty absorbed just in the day job that I've got. I love public service and I serve at the pleasure of the president. I know that, you know, the job I'm doing now is not the kind of job you can do forever.

Hence my question. But I also think it's got to be the best job in the federal government right now because we're building things that, you know, we're building the things that my kids are going to be counting on 50 years from now. You know, 50 years from now, my kids will be going through the Hudson Tunnel that we're going to be starting construction on today. And being able to be at the forefront of some of that work is incredibly rewarding. So, yeah, I mean, the only honest answer to your question is I don't know. You think Biden and Harris is still a winning ticket? Yeah. I mean, I got to be careful how I talk about it just because I'm here as secretary. I'm not supposed to talk campaigns. But what I will say is I believe in the president

and the vice president. I believe in the work we're doing. And I believe in the results that we're getting. I mean, the economic, I get that in so many ways it's been a rough few years for everybody. And I get that we're still kind of coming out of some darkness from COVID to what was going on earlier with inflation to just the political upheaval and everything that we're seeing in Congress and the former president. But look at what's happened.

Like take aviation, right? Right now, we've got a lot of frustration with airlines not being able to keep up with the tickets they're selling. By the way, it made a lot of progress. This year, cancellation's down below normal. Still very expensive for them. Yeah, but that's because the demand has been going up. It was only two and a half years ago that the big conversation about airlines was, are they going to go out of business?

The big conversation was, how much taxpayer funding do we need to put together to make sure that the US aviation sector doesn't collapse? And that was less than three years ago. It's November right now. Folks are starting to think about holiday shopping, Christmas presents. Two years ago, that was just two years ago, we were looking at news stories of ships waiting their turn off the West Coast, and the supply chains were so backed up, people were saying Christmas is going to be canceled. And it wasn't. We, we figured it out. We got through it. We actually had an all-time record high

that year in terms of retail sales. But those kinds of things are happening. $35 insulin for seniors. And if we didn't get blocked by congressional Republicans, it would be $35 a month insulin for everybody. And I think we can still get that done. So whether it's our transportation stuff or other sides of the house,

the administration has a lot to be proud of and also a lot of work to do. Can we go back to Mike Johnson for one second? I know you've got to go, but were you ever discouraged by Christianity because of the Bible's views on homosexuality? Because a lot of those guys like Mike Johnson, they say they have those views

because of what the Bible says. were you ever personally discouraged yeah I think every Christian definitely every gay Christian has had to contend with the ways in which the church and and Scripture have been sometimes weaponized or or turned against people but I also also think that at least as I spend time with Scripture, there are parts of it that tell you about the wisdom of God, and there are parts of it that tell you about the values that prevailed at the time that it was written. We don't think it is outrageous to wear mixed cloth.

We don't subscribe to a lot of things that you're going to see in Leviticus. Even the most devout people don't think that those codes or ideas tell us how we ought to live today. They tell us how it was viewed, what was viewed as the norm thousands of years ago in the Middle East. But the parts that most speak to me have to do with protecting those who need to be protected. They have to do with infinite love. And I think every Christian wrestles with all of the different things and ideas and forces and traditions that are part of that.

And it's turned a lot of people off from religion, right? At our wedding, our pastor talked about how many people are walking away from religion entirely. And yet, I think that it can be such a force for good. Without ever believing that, I push what I believe on anybody else and while being adamant that no one in this country ought to have to live based on some other guy's interpretation of his own religion yeah could you reference what Mike Johnson said earlier about his world you see you wanted my world view yeah pick up the Bible and it's like could it be possible the Bible is an outdated worldview?

Or, you know, which chapter and verse are you looking up when you pick up that Bible? You can't pick and choose, though, right? He seems to. Yeah. He's fine with doubling child poverty, but he's got a problem with what goes on in other people's bedrooms. I mean, they're picking and choosing more than everybody. Mm-hmm. It's kind of hard. It's crazy to dislike gay people so much, and your last name is Johnson.

Bernard. Shut up, man. What Pete, use that one, Pete. Secretary Pete, use that one. We'll file that away. Use that. Secretary Pete. We filed it away. Never to go back. You know what you say? You say, yo, you know what, Mike Johnson? He needs to look at the tip of the files. You know what? I think I gotta go cut a you know what, Mike Johnson? He needs to look at the tip of the file. You know what? I think I got to go cut a ribbon.

You know what? Secretary Pete, we appreciate you for joining us. Why are you such a troll? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But y'all know the tip of the file? He does it to all of us. He does it to all of us.

I'm so sorry. Secretary Pete, appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on. Oh, my goodness. Angela Wright, thank you as well. It's The Breakfast Club. Good morning.

Wake that ass up. It's The Breakfast Club. Cloak of Morning. Pirates and John Glickman? Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. 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 Colvin. 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 iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. This is Courtney Thorne-Smith, Laura Layton, 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. So listen to Still the Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, this is Justin Richmond, host of the Broken Record Podcast. Every week, I or my co-host, Leah Rose, sit down with the artists you love to get unparalleled creative insight.

Our new series is looking at one of the most influential jazz labels ever, Blue Note Records. You'll hear from artists like legendary bassist Ron Carter, singer-songwriter Noah Jones, and guitarist Julian Lodge. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking música, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers.

Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight up comedia, and that's a song that only Nuestra Gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him.

Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.