What Now? with Trevor Noah - The Broken Promise: Democracy, the Economy & What Comes Next with Pete Buttigieg

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

Has democracy unraveled in America?  And if so, what can leaders on both sides of the aisle do to save it? Former Secretary of Transportation and 2020 Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg joins Trevor and Eugene in this wide-ranging discussion. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A graduate of Harvard, a road scour, a naval reserve officer who deployed to Afghanistan, and the mayor of a small city in Indiana. Buttigieg is now the first openly LGBTQ elected official to run for president. I'm running for president because I think our country is running out of time. We cannot keep doing the same thing over and over and over again and expected to get better. The Senate overwhelmingly approved the nomination of Pete Buttigieg as Transportation Secretary. He's overseeing one of the most significant investments in America's bridges, roads, rails in more than half a century.

What made Peter stand out was his leadership, you kind of knew that there was an extraordinary potential there. This is What Now with Trevor Noah. Do you miss being called Mayor Pete? Oh, I'll always go by Mayor Pete. Oh, you still go by Mayor Pete. I like that. Have you done LinkedIn?

I'm logged in a LinkedIn in a while, but yeah, maybe. I don't know. That would be great if you had a LinkedIn. I should. Maybe I do. I don't know. I should check now that you mention it. I still have my old, you know, one of my Spaces is still up somewhere.

Just like someone trying to link with you there. You know what I always think about like people's social media profiles is the people who don't pay attention to the world world, but pay attention to the social media. and then they're friends with you on MySpace and they're just like I wonder whatever happened to Pete Like think about it There's people like that out there Who are friends with you on like MySpace, Facebook

Any of those things You went off, you went and did things in the world They're still friends with you there And they're like, I wonder whatever happened to that guy And now you got a beard so you look a little different So they're just like, I wonder where he is You didn't always have a beard No, no, this is, it comes and goes

But I haven't had one in a while So beard beard crew both of them How do you make that decision of this is it now? Mostly my husband made that decision. He was like, I like you with a beard on. Oh, I don't like seeing your face. Because when a partner likes the beard, it's a hard one. Yeah.

How did your beard come around? I think it's an easy one. You just give in. I looked at myself in the mirror. I was like, what is your aim in life? Then I was like, what do you mean? I'm doing everything right. Then my face was like, is everything right for real, real, real?

Then I was like, yeah, maybe I'll try a mustache. Then I tried a moustache. Then I had a goatee. Then out here, girls going, yeah, well, you look, yeah, with a beard, I'm a baby, baby, baby. Then I was like, yeah, then I grew a little bit on the side. And I was like, oh, what do you think now? Then I did a little bit of a pole.

Then I went around. And I was like, what do you look vulnerable? I was like, yeah, what do you think? They were like, oh, yeah, actually, then it became my identity. Then COVID happened. Couldn't go to the barber. Okay. Then I was like, let me, let me see how this thing goes.

Yeah. Oh, that's when you went full beard. Yes. Then I went full beard. Then when I came out of COVID, people were like, this is you now. Then two weeks, three weeks ago, I shaved. Everything off. Really?

I lost my aura. You had to get it right back? Completely. I was like, I can't live like this anymore. I saw my dimple. I saw this part of my chin. I didn't like myself. Past mirrors.

I couldn't look at myself. And I started growing back. And I was like, I'm in now. Yeah. I don't know if I'm that committed yet. You are? You are here with it now still. If I've worn it here, it's over.

It's locked in. Now it's official. If you want to see how your partner feels about your beard, call them and then turn on clippers and then go, yeah,

I'm just shaving and just hear what they say. Then you know if it doesn't be good. Wouldn't be good. I like this. I like this. I didn't expect to be in a beard conversation

with you too. Thank you very much. Yeah, how long you've been doing that? Don't even ask me those questions. I can't grow a beard. Don't, what do you mean you can grow a beard?

I've tried. It doesn't work. This is it. It's gone. There's no chance. But your must game is strong, though. Thank you so much, Eugene.

Yeah, the mustache. Thank you. This is what good friends do for you. They give you hope. I appreciate it. No, I can't grow a beard. Or you can do the size. No, so when I was, you know what happened is when I was young, late, like early 20s somewhere

there. Yeah. I had really, really bad acne, like really, really, really bad. So then whenever my hair would grow out, it would make things worse. So someone was like, oh, you must go and get laser so that the hair doesn't grow. So I went and I got laser. You got laser on my face.

Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pap, pow. And then it helped. And then I was like, oh, this is much better. Thank you. And then beards came into fashion. Then I was like, I'm joining. And then my skin was like, no, you're not. So now I'm just, this is me.

Thank you for being vulnerable with us. I mean, this is not something that most men like talking about. What? Not growing a beard? Yes. Or getting laser? What you are doing right now is you're opening up the podcast to a huge segment of men who are struggling with connecting beards.

And some of them don't know what happened. but you, particularly, you chose this platform to face this disability that you now have. That's what we all do. You've got to share your vulnerabilities. Look, I would like to say, I see you. Thank you. I respect your decision.

Thank you. And Pete and I would like to say, we'll think of you when we're oiling up here all the time. Thank you, Eugene. You're welcome. Pete, welcome to the podcast. Mayor Pete, former secretary of transportation Pete. Which title do you prefer the most?

Just Pete. Just Pete? It's weird calling you Just Pete because I feel like you're not just Pete. Like you've done everything beyond Just Pete. You know what I mean? His excellency works. You see? I'm in.

His Excellency Pete. Now we're talking. Now we are talking. Yeah, that's what I'm... Midwestern. We're like humble, straightforward people. Pete's good. No, I like this.

I like this a lot. Thank you so much for joining. You know, you know why I'm excited to have you is because like, from the very first time I heard of you. you, I knew you. I was on the Daily Show back then, and then you were the mayor, and you know, it was like, so it was Mayor Pete's running for president, and then it was like Mayor Pete's running for president, and then it was Mayor Pete, and then it was Mayor Pete in the administration. You've always been inside the government in some way, shape, or form. And this is the first time

where we find you sort of like in an in-between space. So maybe we start there. What are you up to these days? Like, what are you doing? Yeah, so this is the first time in 15 years that I haven't been either running for something or in some kind of public position or both. yeah um that's kind of great i mean you know most days i'm the one dropping the kids off at school or or camp this summer um just able to able to stop shaving for a few days actually and you know just things that that weren't possible when there was that like everyday grind um so i'm enjoying that i'm trying to make the most of that but then i'm balancing that with the fact that there's

things going on in the world that i feel like i need to be part of or making myself useful around all the time, which is why I'm in the media and I'm traveling and I'm doing what I can working with candidates I believe in and promoting causes I believe in and, you know, just being active politically without being in an active campaign. And it's different. I mean, it's, it's, it can be strange sometimes because I am so used to there being like the one big thing that you organize your life around. But, you know, that can, that can do a lot of work for you in your life. And it can also be very unhealthy, right? I think one of the, The occupational hazards for people, including people in public service who have a lot of purpose in their work, is that your work becomes your purpose and they can't live without it.

That's especially dangerous in politics because sometimes doing right by your job means putting your job on the line. It's the only way to do your job well and maybe losing it. And it's that much harder if you draw meaning from work. So yeah, I've been wrestling with all of that, but also really enjoying a life where I'm just around my husband and kids more. and at the same time getting out on the road and trying to be part of the political conversation because obviously there's a lot to talk about. It almost feels like you're like a retired superhero.

Do you know what I mean? You were thinking the same thing. No, you know why? Because we never think of it. But at some point, a superhero goes, I want to be done. Yes. I want to be with my family. I want to be, you know, it's like I want to be Clark Kent.

I don't want to spend as much time being Superman. But then what happens? That's off the Cape once in now. Exactly. Then there's something happens. They're like, oh, a tower is falling, or they're like, oh, there's a big invasion. And then it's like, where's Superman? And if you were a superhero in any capacity, I think it feels weird just sitting at home.

Because here's what I mean. Most of us watch the news and we can only respond or react to the news. Like most people. You just go, I can't believe that happened. Man, that sucks. And then the most you can sort of do, if we're honest, is like wait to vote or maybe phone lawmaker, maybe. But if you were in the inner workings of it, you have more access to the levers that can actually change something and do something. So maybe that's a good question. It's like, what would

you say is something you've seen recently in the past few months that has made you go, I've got to get off the couch and shave a little bit? I mean, where do you start? Right. I mean, obviously so many things are happening in the country under this administration from these like massive things that I think threaten the integrity of the republic, like sending troops into the street. of American cities, to very specific policy things that I disagree with, the FTC or whatever, or the department I used to serve in. I mean, one thing that's hard, even if somebody comes in who you agree with, I think it's hard for anyone who leaves a high office to watch their successor.

But it's especially hard for me to watch them dismantle the airline passenger protections we put in, for example. We worked really hard on that. It was the right thing to do. You know, we took on the airlines and we won, and now they're just unraveling it. So there's a lot of things like that that are very hard to watch. But what I've realized is I don't have to be in a seat of political power to be talking about it. I mean, one of the advantage of privileges, I guess, that comes with just kind of where I fit in the picture right now is, you know, I've, like my unexpected specialty going on Fox News a lot, right?

Like part of that was I was like everybody else, occasionally finding myself watching that network, being like, man, somebody ought to go on there and say this. And then I got to actually be the guy who went on there and said this. Yes, be the change. And I can still do that. I'm not doing it from a position of power. Yeah. But, you know, as a citizen, I'm out there talking about this stuff, and I'm hopeful that that matters.

I want to talk about each of those things that you said individually because I think they branch out into topics and ideas that everybody's grappling with right now. So let's start with, like, the first part of it, you know, leaving a position, seeing somebody else step into that position. I think we'll take that for. granted in many ways because it's very rare that that happens most of the time if you leave a position the person who fills the position after you is generally trying to do the same job as you

yeah just generally do you know what I mean it doesn't matter what level you're on so in my case it's like John Stewart hosting the Daily Show I come off to him we're sort of aligned you know what I mean and obviously we knew each other as people but we're we're heading in a similar direction as human beings and and so on and so forth in your office you leave your job as the head of HR the next person who comes and does HR, it's weird if they're like, nah, I don't believe in HR. I don't believe in people. Yeah. You're like, what, what happened?

They're like, yeah, that's not how I roll. Well, and you could take it one further. So I would say, actually, at my department, for example, I disagree with my successor, but, like, I think he believes in continuing the department, right? Okay. You go to the Department of Education. Oh, yeah, that's out. The Secretary's mission is to demolish the Department of Education, right?

Or you have people in charge of environmental protection who don't believe in environmental protection, right? Or, you know, they inherit USAID, the international development agency, and then they just burn it to the ground. So, yeah, there are, I shouldn't, I should only complain so much maybe about where I used to work. Because at least he believes in transportation. At least it's still there. Yeah. And even the projects, they killed some really good projects. But most of the projects that I launched, they're still doing. They just put a Trump sign on them so they can take credit for it. But they're still doing the projects. Do you mind when that happens? Yeah, of course I do. Okay, I like that honest.

All right. Because he promised when he was president that he was going to do a big infrastructure package, and then he failed. And then we set out to do a big infrastructure package, and he campaigned against it. People forget this. It's not just that he didn't do it. It's when we did it. He threatened any Republican who was part of the bipartisan majority that voted to do the

infrastructure bill and said, we will remember. And most of them either got taken out or took themselves out for the crime of having joined us to vote for more road funding, right? And now they're literally like slapping Trump signs on projects that were funded by our department, our administration, with a bill that Trump tried to stop. So yeah, yeah, I'm kind of pissed off about that. I always wonder if there's a way to like fix that in American politics. The first time I remember thinking about it was when I first moved to the U.S., I was reading a newspaper

and not a physical one, like digitally, relax. I saw the way you looked at me. And I was reading the newspaper. And it was interesting because it had names, and behind every name it had a little D or a little R. And, you know, it would say like, Congressperson, da, da, da, da, says this, D, R. Congressperson, that, D.R.

And I was like, what is that? And then someone was like, oh, that's Democrat-Republican. And it was so normal to my American friends to say that. But I, for the life of me, I couldn't understand. why news in America is filtered through the lens of politics before it's filtered through the news of, through the lens of

news. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah, any other country, I guess you don't see the party label literally placed on. Not behind your name. Not behind you. Like in South Africa, for instance, they don't do that. They'll tell you, if it's a story about a person who's in the ANC or person in the DA, they'll say that. But it's not next to your name. It is not the thing that defines...

Doesn't become your identity. Exactly. And so even when they propose something, I always wonder how much it blocks Americans in their ability to be for or against an idea. If the idea is Eugene Kosa, Republican, says these four beards, then I'm like, I like beards, but do I want to support a Republican?

Do you know what I mean? Like, I wonder how much that actually blocks people from thinking of embracing an idea just because it might come from the quote-unquote wrong side. You know, I have a little experience on that through the lens of being a mayor because, you know, there are some, every state, every city has a different system.

Some of them, it's like national politics they have a primary and there's a Republican primary and there's a Democratic primary and there's two candidates. Others, there's a nonpartisan system. And so someone emerges, they might be, they might proudly be a Republican or a Democrat, but they might actually not tell anybody, which they are too. It just depends. And so I would find myself in mayor's conferences where there's other mayors, you know, these are elected officials in positions of major responsibility and get to know them well and not know. Like, I'd have to go back online and look. up, whether they're Democrat or Republican, right? So I do think you view people and you view

their ideas differently if you don't know right off the bat what, you know, what team they're from. It is weird to see America flip and flop, though. I will say that. Like, when you're talking about like one administration wants this, then the next administration wants that, the next administration, I was at an event in, I don't know where it was. I don't remember now. Europe, middle east somewhere, and there were some world leaders gathered. And they were having this discussion about America and its new place in the world. And one of the world leaders said something that was the most interesting thing I'd ever heard

because it gave me a different perspective. The moderator said, how do you feel about what's happening in America right now and what do you think this means for the future? And he said, well, I don't really worry about the future. I just know we have to weather this moment for the next three or four years. And then America will flip this way and then it'll flip that way

and it'll flip that way and it'll flip this way. And he said, we think longer term, and we try to think beyond one cycle at a time. And there was a general concession and an agreement amongst the world leaders there who went, yeah, that's pretty much America. And if you think about it, it is true, for the most part. America is one of the largest, most prominent countries

that completely switches the direction it's going in every single-ish. four years, which is a, that's like not a thing, really, when you think about it. Yeah, I think I'm trying to decide if I, if I buy that. I think that's somewhat true if we're in a normal political pattern. I think we're outside of that now. Like, I worry that even in my party, I worry that people are acting as if we're in this kind of normal pattern of elections and politics when we're actually increasingly outside

of it, right? In what way? We've always had someone win an election, somebody aggressively or not promote their agenda, they win, they lose, whatever. But we have not had an American government try to consolidate its power over civil society, over broadcast companies, over law firms, over universities. You just go on down the list the way that we have now. And what I see, see is a real risk that what happens is way beyond what happens in one election or two elections. I think we might think my party could win in 2026 and not get the message. I think we could even win in 2028 and not fully grasp the level of change that that these guys in charge now are trying to achieve, which is why I'm trying to push people who are in the opposition to Trump, whether they think of themselves as Democrats or not, to think at a higher altitude

as well about, like even by organization that's a nonprofit in a pack, we call it win the era. Not that I don't care about winning the election, but I think what's more important is to win the era. And when you're thinking of it in those terms, you start looking at, okay, what does it mean to get ready for the next,

the way some of these other countries you talked about planned? What does it look like to get ready for the next 5, 10, 20, 30 years? Especially because I think we're also at a change or an end of a certain cycle that has gone on for decades,

like certain patterns, assumptions, institutions about how the world works and about how the country works that were set up in the 40s and 50s are falling apart. And I don't think we can just go, take power, find all the pieces,

tape them back together, and have things be the way they used to be. I think so many of our institutions have needed to be rebuilt for a long time. They're being smashed to pieces now by the current administration, which is wrong. But it would also be wrong to imagine that the answer is to just go back and try to put it back to the way it work.

Put it back to the way it was. I know you could say that about anything from the Department of Education to tax policy in this country, which I think we might have to start over on if they really break the fiscal viability of the country, which I think they're trying, to things like international development, USAID. You know what I always wonder. I wonder who pays the actual price. because politics is weird in that when you look at the term generally of a president in a democratic country it's not really enough time

to implement change and see the effects of that change just generally speaking not all the time but like economies move slowly effects generally you know happen over time but I think to myself like wouldn't it be crazy

and we've seen this sort of happen before in America Wouldn't it be crazy if, like, Trump does all of these things, and then only at the end of his term do you sort of start to see the results? But that means whoever comes in next takes all of the blame because that's when you might see the biggest results of education. That's when you might see the biggest results of taxes and how they've changed and health care that's been cut. Not only that, some of they're doing that some of the health care cuts they're doing that will take people off Medicaid. They set up to only take effect after the next election. Oh, yeah, they did that. They're not stupid.

They know that that can happen. But you're right, even if you are trying to do something immediately, it's a lot. takes a while to filter through. I mean, I saw this back when I was mayor. I spent a lot of my first year as mayor doing things that upset people and cost political capital and weren't necessarily popular, believing that if I was right, if they were the right things to do, by year four, I would have something to show for it. And people would trust me, reelect me, and give me the benefit of the doubt. And that's kind of what happened. Everything from the way we designed our streets to the way I organized the city administration. People were mad.

We stuck to, I heard them out, but we also stuck to it in some important ways. And then things worked. And then they gave me a little more credit or a little more trust the next time around. So I think that in an ideal sense is how it's supposed to work. But I agree with you that I think a lot about if if there was a four year, if there was a five year instead of a four year term and we were able to do just a little more on the bridges and the tunnels and the roads and the stuff. at least the little piece of it that I worked on, how would things have been different? I come from a country where there were general elections last year and no one party won outright. Whoa, whoa, we.

I come from a country where... I like how you just kicked me out of my own country. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, Eugene. Look, I'm sorry. You got to understand there's nothing that's changed about me, Eugene. I'm probably South African. I'll tell you what.

I'll tell you would. I'll tell you would. I need to just give you guys a couple of minutes. When no one party won outright, the ANC for the first time had to share power with another party, which is an opposition party, which is now in government. But what I've realized is when people oppose someone's idea,

as soon as they get into power, they get co-opted into believing in the same thing as well. And I think that's what's causing distrust in my country about political parties. And if you've been opposing for so long, the next thing you become. minister of whatever. Now you're like, I'm enjoying the perks, the blue lights and the great, and the great side. Yeah, what happened to that thing where you said you hated, hold on, hold on,

we'll deal with it when we get there. And I think that's what caused a lot of distrust. And I've said to many of my friends, it looks like most politicians want young people to be interested in voting, but not to actually vote. Do you think that might be true for many countries, not just for the US or South Africa? I don't know. That's a really interesting warning for those of us who sometimes fantasize about what it would be like if America had five political parties. And, you know, there was a minute last year when Speaker McCarthy was losing his grip on the U.S. House, it looked for a minute like he could maybe keep his speakership by getting some Democratic votes.

And I thought, if Democrats name their price and McCarthy goes with it, we could see a coalition government on American soil for the first time my life. And I was actually kind of intrigued by that. It didn't happen, obviously, but I wondered whether that might give us some chance of breaking out of this really stultified, paralyzed state that we're in. But it sounds like what you're saying is not to romanticize that model too much because it has its other downsides, which makes sense. I think for us, the problem we have is here in America, there's no party that actually

commands a majority, right? I mean, both parties in terms of people who really are like, yeah, that's my party, or at like something like 30% right but every election functionally pretty much every election for Congress and certainly for the president it kind of comes down to two

and people are supposed to pick and then people are dissatisfied with what they get right part of what I wish we could do to respond to that is just expand the scope of things that both parties think are in arguably true and will defend

and then go out argue about the other stuff so I don't know about South Africa, but I know a lot of countries where if there's a center right party and a center left party, they both, for example, acknowledge the reality of climate change. They'll fight over, they'll fight over who's doing a better job. Oh, yeah, no, no, that's, yes. But they don't fight over whether it's a thing. Yeah, universal health care, yeah, a lot of these things are just a given. And I'd like to invest a little more in what I think of is the in arguables that we all ought to be,

or most of us ought to be able to say we care about. Yeah. But then there are all these other things that are contested that that are fought over that we still have like two-thirds support in the country for. Importantly, lots of things that Democrats are for and Republicans are against that two-thirds of Americans agree on. I mean, the idea that we got to tax the wealthy more, the idea that we ought to have a stronger minimum wage, the idea that there ought to be paid family leave in this country when you have a kid, ideas around a woman's right to choose or freedom to marry. or climate change or background checks on guns. These are not like 51, 49 things. These are actually like 60 or 70% consensus positions in the country.

And yet my party can't figure out how to get 51% let alone 60 or 70 on our candidates. I think that needs to lead to some introspection on how we approach these issues. And then this other set of issues that I'm spending a lot of time thinking about that don't have any left to right pattern yet. I'm thinking about a lot about artificial intelligence, right? Where I think most people, left, right, or center are skeptical of a lot of these tech companies. Yeah. Interested in AI, if only because we use it, you know, chat TPT or whatever, we use more and more in our day-to-day lives. Excited about what it can do, but also very worried about what it might do to us.

And there's this moment where it hasn't fallen into this obvious left-right fight yet. That's interesting. But what COVID taught us, the hard way, is that even something like public health and getting vaccinated that you would think was not a partisan thing, almost overnight became one. Yeah. Which tells me that this is a very special and narrow window around AI to talk about things that might be shared principles before we figure out what to fight over between Democrats and Republicans. You know what I mean? Yeah, that actually is a fascinating idea to think about is like when doesn't issue suddenly become politicized and when is. and when is it not?

I distinctly remember, because I mean, I was like in the thick of things when it was COVID and it was, I distinctly remember seeing one of the strangest flips and it was how Donald Trump was pushing forward for a vaccine. Donald Trump was.

I'll say this again. Donald Trump was pushing forward with a vaccine and he was leading a team that was like, it was Operation Something. Yeah, Warp Speed. Warp Speed. Operation Warp Speed. And it was like Donald Trump.

And I'll never forget this moment. I would see liberals, progressives, Democrats, whatever they want to call, I would see tons of them going, I don't trust his vaccine. This man is, how are they making it so quickly?

How are they rushing? I don't trust. Donald Trump's going to make a event. And then I was like, guys, Donald Trump's not in the lab. It's not like he's there with like his little vial and he's like, add two months, two of these, four drops.

I think I got it. Oobidoo, be no. He's leading a task force that is trying to get it. Then they were like, I just don't trust it. I just don't trust it. And then Biden wins during COVID.

Biden's in charge now. They keep moving forward with the vaccine, which I still say is Trump's vaccine. And by the way, which Trump has said is his vaccine. And then I noticed everyone flip. All of a sudden people are like, well, of course I trust it. And then now the flip happened the other way around.

It's like, people are like, I don't trust that vaccine. I don't trust the Democrats. And I was like, what just happened? Has it become so like, red and blue that it you get what I'm saying you can literally just flip based on no it's true who's telling you something yeah who's telling and then Trump he went to I don't know if you saw this he went to one of his rallies I will never forget this and then he said it's my vaccine say it in his voice in the crowd oh he's there and he's like it's my I

created a vaccine Joe Biden taking credit for my vaccine taking credit I did it I did it and then the crowd was like boo boo and then he's like yeah a lot of people don't like it was mine. It was mine. I did it. I did it. And his crowd was booing the idea of the vaccine. And Trump was like, no, no, no, it's mine. And even now in moments, you'll see him slip. If someone asks him, who made it, he'd be like, well, I made it. But then he sort of says it like Joe, Joe spoilt it. But he still goes, he made it. And I'm like, what happened in that moment? I love that you brought up the air, I think, because it's like, when does a topic or an issue become politicized in America? And I was wondering, because I know you spend a lot of time thinking about this.

Is it when the groups know which lever to pull? Is it when, like, for instance, I often think that sometimes American politics is thought of as this pure idea and ideal that's hanging on its own. And we sometimes forget how many outside forces are poking and prodding assets, right? So if I run a major corporation and I'm trying to. to get AI, you know, I want to get as few restrictions as possible. I want to be in a power position. I think all I would do is look at which party would be more amenable to getting me what I want, and then I would try frame it so that AI is in or out of the other party's wheelhouse. But does this sound like real to your, even familiar?

I think companies do that all the time. Like they figure out a way if, you know, you're running a clean tech company. Yeah. And Trump wins and suddenly anything green is out of fashion. Maybe it's smarter to talk about it in terms of contributing to American energy independence or American energy dominance, which is also true, right? It was one thing that, like, green energy has to say for itself. Now, it doesn't, I mean, Trump's still killing wind power, but I think that happens all the time on some level. I think also, though, a lot of this is downstream from culture, as they say, right? That the politic, politicians kind of flatter themselves or ourselves that we're shaping things. Sometimes, obviously, leadership decisions matter hugely, but a lot of

times a lot of things have worked through the culture before you even get to the the left and right boundaries of what politicians get to do. Oh, that's interesting. Right. And then sometimes it can come back out. So think about tech, right? Think, um, not AI. Think about social media. Yeah. So it starts with kind of like left vibes, right? Think of like early internet days. These guys like basically seem like Democrats because they're maybe they're more libertarian deep down, but like they're young, they're socially liberal, they think climate change is real, they care about immigration, you know, and, you know, you've got Obama hanging out with tech CEOs. That seems like a very natural thing in like 2012, say, right? Then these things happen with the way social media affects the election, the role of Twitter, and suddenly it gets more complicated than that. And you come to this point where actually now when you think tech CEO, Silicon Valley tech CEO, you are more likely. to think of them at that dinner in the Trump, you know, White House, then thinking of them like rubbing elbows with Obama, right? And yet, even though that's been kind of coded either way,

one of the few kind of areas where the horseshoe has come together on our political spectrum is the idea of getting phones and social media apps out of our schools. So you've got really right-wing, like MAGA right-wing politicians, Josh Holly comes to mind, who I would disagree with on ferociously strongly on lots and lots of things, teaming up with more liberal politicians and not just federally, but the state level, saying things like, yeah, a screen should not be with a kid during the hours that they're in school. Because that's a distraction, it's a problem, it's a factor for a lot of bad things to get into their minds. And there's actually something of a consensus. I don't think that's happening because the politicians got together and said,

hey, we got to find something that we can agree on. What about this? Or, to put it another way, if that happened, it happened after more and more parents who didn't agree on politics, didn't agree on what they thought of, you know, this or that election or how social media played, but definitely agreed on, oh, wow, this could be screwing up my kid, start to feel the same way about this issue. And that pressure then finds its way, which is healthy, by the way, that Pressure finds its way into the political system. And then politicians are saying, yeah, we've got to do something about that. We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break.

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variable APRs for Apple Card range from 17.99% to 28.24% based on creditworthiness. Rates as of October 1, 2025. Existing customers can view their variable APR in the wallet app or card.com. Turns and more at Applecard.com. What always helps a voter not feel helpless? Because sometimes people think of government in this big juggernaut that's going to happen with or without you and you're just happy for smaller wins.

Like, for example, in my country, people who are... Our country. Pete, you know what I mean. I'm staying out of this. Our country, Trevor. Thank you, Eugene. You're welcome. People who are mostly underprivileged or underserviced will always worry about social grants.

If you can sort that out or cheaper housing, if you can sort that out, whether it takes you four years of your tenure or the last two months of it, it will happen. Just the hope of it is always enough. So how do people feel empowered that whoever they voted for will always do what they promised? How do you hold the person that you voted for accountable? Because obviously that seems like protesting on social media becomes a thing. I think that's universal. I think that's every country, to be honest. It is a great question. Yeah. Well, look, the answer is supposed to be the election, right? But look at our system. I mean, in addition to all the problems around presidential elections, including the fact that we're the only presidential democracy in the world where the person who gets the second most votes can get the office and the person who gets the most votes loses because of the electoral college.

But in addition to that, you look at the congressional level, and out of 435 seats in the U.S. House, less than 1 in 10, less than 40, are actually considered competitive. Less than 40. So even though we are, let's say, typically a 55-45 country in terms of which way the country feels, which party the country supports, you have states like where I grew up in Indiana, I remember when it was five and four, five Republicans, four Democrats. in the house. Then it was seven and two because they gerrymandered it. Now they're under pressure to make it like nine and zero. And even if Indiana is a more Republican state, like a 60, 40, that's probably true about Indiana right now. It's not 100 to zero, right? And so there's this thumb on the scale, not in terms of somebody like secretly going in and changing what's in the ballot machines, but out in the open, the way they redraw these districts that has made more and more of our elections less competitive. So big picture, we need to reform that. In the the meantime, since that's not going to happen overnight, I think the best ways in places to feel empowered are, first of all, closer to home, because a lot of these processes are actually playing out locally. A lot of decisions about vaccinations are happening at the state level or even the county level. Right? Most decisions about policing happen at the local city level. A lot of decisions about resources for mental health or the policies we were just talking about smartphones or any number of things are happening either at a state. or a local level. There was a much better chance of getting somebody's attention

at a local level. Yeah. And look, I got started as mayor, right? So part of it is, I think, in those terms. But I saw, like, a city council make a different decision because a bunch of people lined up, many of them too young to even be eligible to vote,

and said, hey, this decision's going to impact me. And they spoke with the kind of moral authority that young people have. And it got people's attention. And it changed them. things. So that's one example of where I think people sometimes have more power than they might imagine, even if I understand why and share why so many of us feel disempowered when it comes to national politics. Another thing is to recognize that you don't have to wait for the next

election to be having an effect. So of course, periodically of these elections, that's the kind of ultimate check on some on power, assuming the elections take place appropriately. But in the meantime, some stuff that sounds very old-fashioned like getting in the streets or calling your member of Congress matters. You can tell it matters because of what happened at these town halls, right? A lot of people, especially when the Republicans were cutting Medicaid, a lot of people went to the town halls and said, if you cut Medicaid to give tax cuts to wealthy people, it's going to do this to me. And I'm pissed. And it mattered enough that a lot of these members either stopped doing the town halls completely or had these moments that showed that that really shook them, right? So I think,

that we need to get more in the habit of flexing political muscle offline as citizens not just on our you know on our smartphones but yeah as citizens in a very real iRL human 3d format and the other thing i would say back to our thing about culture is that a lot of the the kind of battlefield of ideas and politics is inside people's social circles and their families and i wonder if actually because it's so easy for us to spout off on politics online are actually less likely to have a hard political conversation with someone we know or care about. But those are the people you can actually move, right? Like we know time and time again we've seen it. Like people's hearts and minds change when somebody they already know and

trust shapes the way they think about something. And I worry that we might be doing less of that in a moment when you need to be doing more. Yeah, interpersonal mobilization. Absolutely. yeah you know it's funny i i think of it less as changing people's minds and i think of it more as just being around people who change you and how your mind works like the reason i i think of it is i remember reading a book about how the views and opinions that we hold are oftentimes more influenced by our locales and our location right then how we think we think right and i remember I finished reading the book and I thought to myself, huh, maybe you're not conservative.

You just live in a rural area. And maybe you're not actually liberal. You just live in a major metropolis. And I'm not dismissing anybody's political views, but I think it's inevitable that if you move to a major city where there are more people who have come from more places, you're going to be exposed. You're in New York, you're walking around.

You're like, this is how I think men dress. Within the day, you're like, oh, maybe I don't know how men dress. I'll be resisting that. Yeah, when you're around it, but when you're around it enough. I have been resisting. I'm keeping my fashion sense until I leave. Stay here long enough. I've seen what the men yet.

Stay here long enough. What are your tools of resistance? My wardrobe? But this is what I mean. And you don't even realize it's happening to you. So like, you know, the Overton window is such a powerful thing in our lives. Because it's where we perceive the bulk of reality to exist. And then it shifts.

without us realizing it's shifting. So you look at yourself, like, beards are a good example. I remember a time, and I know I have a personal, you know, feeling to that, and I'll say I'm biased. But I remember a time when a beard was considered the number one indicator of your unprofessionalism. You could not be elected with a beard. You could not be on TV with a beard. You could not get an interview.

People were like, the dude with the beard. You can't read the news. You can't read the news with a beard. and then part of it is COVID you know whatever it is shifts in society and all of a sudden it's like oh look at that oh that news anchor has a beard and that TV presenter has a beard

and your teacher has a beard and then society doesn't realize that the overton window of a beard has shifted same thing happened with tattoos right there was a time when a tattoo was a great way to know who you shouldn't hire that's how people thought of it oh tattoo I guess we're not hiring you and then now a tattoo almost means nothing

It's like it's not, it is not a signifier that tells you about how somebody does or doesn't live their lives. Not that it ever was, but now it definitely isn't, even in society's view for the most part. And so when I think about these things, and I think about like the Overton window and how it shifts in politics, I wonder if you've thought about it on a local level versus a national level, because you are in an interesting position. You were a mayor. As a mayor, you're only trying to shape the lives of. of the people who are in the same town that you live in. You know, we all know the streets, we all know that corner, we all know that shop.

Yeah. Let's get something done. I would love to know how you think the nationalization of all politics has adversely or maybe beneficially affected politics in America because I'm assuming there's a big difference between what people need on the ground and what they're reading about is like national news. Totally. I thrived on the fact when I was mayor that our work was distant from what was going on in Washington or national politics. And I think that's one of the reasons without ever concealing where I was, that I was a Democrat, that I was more progressive than probably most people in my city. I had, you know, before I became more of a national figure, I like equal approval rating among Republicans, Democrats, and independents in the city. Because they weren't, they just weren't if I was going to get the trash. picked up and are we going to grow the local economy? What were we doing about these, this blocking and tackling, like basic things to take care of the city? And so I guess to your question,

I'd say it's in one way easier and one way harder. The way that it was easier was we were all operating from pretty consistent sense of the facts. So if there was a hole in the road as the mayor, I couldn't be like, that's the best road ever. There's no holes in it. And There's a pothole. People can see, and they were like, there's a hole in the road. What are you going to do about it? Right? If something was good or something was bad, people could just tell.

And so there was much less of a contest over what the facts were. Wow. And much more of a contest of given these facts, what are you going to do about it? Right. It was the good, the bad, and the ugly. The ugly was we had, because we'd been a factory town, we had acres of collapsing auto factories everywhere and vacant and vacant and abandoned houses everywhere. And you couldn't escape it. You couldn't pretend otherwise.

And so what was easier was we at least had the same reality compared to nationally where you can tell like the way like the way Donald Trump talks about in American cities. Yes. He's clearly just using his imagination. Yeah. Right? This is not based on any experience of what it's actually like. Yeah. Or maybe it's social media feed because I think we take for granted how much that man is on social media.

Totally. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Now here's the way it's harder. It's harder because if you're trying to pry open an Overton window, the more that the reality is. you're trying to describe that's different is kind of in somebody's face, I think the harder it is to picture something different. I can try to open somebody's Overton window, and I have about changing the electoral college. I talked about that when I was running for president,

which probably not the smartest thing to do in New Hampshire. And I definitely didn't think that that was going to happen in five years, but I just think, like, I should lay down a marker from the earliest in my career till the end about that being important and try to like push, push, push. So like one day, 20 years from now, maybe we will fix it. But when you're asking people to look around the vacant and abandoned houses in their neighborhood or look at the abandoned factory downtown and say with a straight face, it doesn't have to be this way, we can change it. If you trust me, I will change it. Give me a chance. That can require even more of a push on the imagination then when I'm talking in abstract terms

about what we might want our country to be like. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. But I think the other thing that's at stake in what you're saying is a kind of a humility about what we believe. Like, I passionately believe in all of the things that I passionately believe in. By definition, I think I'm right about the things I believe.

But I recognize that if I were born in a different family and raised in a different community and soaked up different values, I would probably think, differently about a whole bunch of things. And that's just a basic thing that's definitely true about how we all form our political values. And yet there's even less room to show regard for that now than there's ever been.

Because instead of a news story, and now I sound like a grumpy old timer, but I can say like I grew up in a time when the way I learned the news was I watched a TV bit or read an article. And that article on a controversial issue contained the perspectives of the two different sides. Whatever it was, abortion taxes, you know. And it's not that I read both sides and wound up in the middle. Like maybe I read both sides and seeing the other side maybe feel my side even more strongly. Or maybe not. Maybe the other side may stop and think. But the point is you would think about it. Now I have a feed. And what does the feed give me? Give me two things. Here's this person I already. like doing something that looks good and reminds me why they're amazing.

And here's this person I already don't like, doing something which reminds me why I don't like them. And that's it. Right. And I think it makes it that much harder for us to have any humility about why we are where we are on the political spectrum and why we believe what we believe about what ought to happen next. Yeah. I think as you separate communities, that becomes the first thing. Like we had Robert Putnam on the podcast. cost a while ago. And he wrote that amazing book, Bowling Alone. And the fundamental, I mean, you're familiar with it, but for those who don't know,

the fundamental premise of the book was he wanted to study why some societies work and why some don't. And when he was in Italy, where he was studying it, he came to realize that in Italy, which is a relatively small country, especially in size itself, he saw that some towns and cities were doing particularly well. And people trusted the government. They engaged in the government. and there was low levels of corruption.

And this is what interested me because, you know, from our country, I was thinking, I was like, why is corruption worse or better in some places? And he found one of the most interesting correlations and it was just about how strong community bonds were. So in places where they were still church choirs and community bowls and clubs,

whether it was coffee or debates, social clubs, he found was the big, biggest correlation between how the thing worked. And then when he brought it to America, he almost instantly found it was true. Where people had bowling clubs is where they generally were less polarized and where they had more community. And they moved in unison in a different way.

It doesn't mean they all had the same view. But he found it was because you had spaces where people could sit together, not coming to talk about politics, but because of the in-between time, would just talk about things that might be political. So they would say to your point, hey man, do you see that hole in the road? What's been going on? And now the person goes like, well, I heard this guy, Mayor Pete says he's going

to fix. What do you think of that guy? I don't know, man. What do you think? What do you think? But because you know me and I know you and we're bowling together, we're more likely to form opinions that are shaped by the collective as opposed to individually and it's less of an echo chamber. Right? And that made me rethink everything. I even started, quote, unquote, judging America less because I went, maybe America's not polarized. Maybe America's just isolated, you know? And he shows it like starts with TV. He goes, as soon as TV came, people just stopped hanging out. And when they stopped hanging out, that's where you start to see the split in American politics. And I was like, oh, man, what if it's not that people don't get along? It's just that people don't

hang out. Yeah. I also think COVID played a big part in exposing people's vulnerabilities. You're not wrong. I think the rise of the political strong man, which in most cases would be called the dictator before has become more prevalent. We see it now with countries that we won't mention their names and we know India. So we know those countries and the strong man is and I think it makes sense now because I've been battling with this question is why councillors locally and municipal managers and mayors are not taken seriously is because people think there's an overlord somewhere that can affect change immediately. Then you go, no, don't worry about him. You probably doesn't even know there's a pothole in this street but I do

but people have looked at the world now like I said people would have assumed before that a Putin, a Zelensky a Trump or Ramaphos or whoever in Africa would have been a dictator 10 years ago but since now it looks like if he's a strong man and he's rolling with strong men it looks like we're safe generally as a

population but I also think I think people generally as voters have lost hope in the system I see it every time I see when people go what can we do That phrase is very prevalent everywhere now. I think that's true everywhere. Yeah.

What can we do? But in a democratic, even a complicated democratic society like ours, I think the answer comes back on us. Like if there's something wrong, either with an individual policy in our system or with the system itself, we're responsible because who else is going to, right? Yeah. I mean, it's either the strong man or it's us. and if it's us, if the entire, and I would argue,

I have a very different view of what it means to be American than people like J.D. Vance. My view is what it means to be an American has a lot to do with this civic structure we created, this democratic structure we have. Go deeper into that. Well, one way to think of it is this. The fact that we have a word un-American, which gets abused and used as a weapon. But the fact that we even have that word is telling. because I don't know what you could do to be

on South African or uns South African or un-Jadis. We really don't have that as a thing. And I think what it signals is we believe that actually a certain set, a certain creed, I mean the declaration, right, the things that are in there, not some ethno-national affinity,

but the creed is what makes America America. Of course, we came out of a specific place and have a specific story and heritage and a certain landmass, obviously, but that's not what makes America America. What makes America America is our fidelity to this national experiment in democracy that we've been running for 249 years.

Right. And it follows from that that all of us, just in as much as we were Americans, have some responsibility toward that in a way that I think is just different than the way you would say somebody in any other countries I can think of relate to their country.

And so I, I just think it's too easy of an out to say, what can we do? We're in charge. Like, we the people collectively are in charge. What threat does the strong men pose to those ideals? Like, it almost feels like everywhere we are spoken about a strongman, people have voted for and Andrew Tate to be a president. Yeah, it's bad.

And I think the threat is all of these commitments, all of these freedoms that we care about, But by the time everybody wakes up and sees that they're gone, it's too late. And this happens. I mean, when Strongman come to power in elections, when they don't just emerge as figures but then actually win an election, very hard to get them out. Yeah. I mean, history has shown that again and again and again.

And so I think the challenge, especially for an opposition, is to do two things at once. We have to talk about those freedoms and that democratic commitment itself. and talk about the things that are a little more immediate in people's lives because the other thing we have learned definitely the hard way over the last hundred years is that these authoritarian systems are systematically worse at taking care of your needs. At the end of the day, they will not help you be able to afford to buy a home. They will not help you get health care.

They will not deliver these things as well because they don't have to be responsive to you. They don't have to be responsive to you. But I think that misses the point of what they're trying to do actually. Right. How do you mean? I hear what you're saying. But the more I talk to people, the more I realize that some of the allure of the strong man, some of the allure of the populist is not the fact that people actually think they're going to fix it. Some people enjoy the fact that they're going to break it for everyone.

Do you get what I'm saying? Yes. So there's people in South Africa, there's people in the UK, there's people in America, there's people in Brazil, there's people in wherever where they go like, no, no, no, no. I don't think that person's going to fix it. But you know what I like? They're going to break it for everyone. It's almost like being on their side means you're in on the joke.

Yeah, because they go, look, I was left behind. I was in that town that had cars that were being, you know, it was a manufacturing city. I was in that town that had jobs. I was in that city that had this. And I don't have it. No one cares about me. No one looks at me. The news only pops up when it's the next election and they're going to ask my opinion.

But no one's here for me. But now there's somebody who's going to break all of it. And they go, look, I'm already living in the trash. You're going to join me. And I think that's sometimes what we forget. We always think of it as a logical push. We go like, this person's not going to help. Then they're like, yeah, I'm already homeless.

I already don't have health care. I already don't have a job. My wages are already not keeping up. So I would like them to break it so that we're all on the same page. And I actually wonder if that's something you look at. You know, when you talk about the Democrats now, there's a feeling that I hope you're aware of where a lot of people

and this isn't unique to the United States when I was in the UK and I was talking to people who voted for the new government now they go I mean they're useless that's what they go we voted for this guy and here's Keir Starmind but they're useless

and the main thing that people say when I listen to them in different parts of the world is they go it feels like liberals are selling an agenda that is beautiful on paper, but they're feckless when they get into power. They'll tell you about health care.

They'll tell you about education. They'll tell you about jobs. But when they get in, they tell you about like, oh, you can't just do that overnight. And it's so hard and it's this. And then they'll also tell you things like in America, for instance, we've got to get the Republicans on board. We've got to get them on board. Obama, no, no, no, I don't want to do it myself.

I got to wait for Mitch. Mitch has got to come on board. You know, got to get this thing. It's like, why are you waiting? Then when Donald Trump comes in, Donald Trump goes, I'm not waiting for anybody. I'm going to shut down the border the way I said. Then they're like, you're not allowed to. He's like, stop me. You try and stop me. And he goes, and he does

it. He goes, I'm doing trade. I'm doing tariffs. You can't do tariff. He's like, bring your courts. I'm going to do the thing. And whether or not you support Donald Trump or not, you can't deny that people see that and go, man, he does the thing that he said he's going to do. And it may not have the effect that people have promised. And he may not help the people he said he's going to promise.

And your taxes are going to hurt. It creates the impression of being decisive. That's exactly what I'm. I mean. And so I wonder if like the Democrats internally, are you guys having a conversation about how there is a perception that you just don't like do a thing? It feels like you guys are very good at like, you know, the homework side of it. He made everyone look like a bureaucrat. He did actually. You're not wrong. He did make everyone look like a bureaucrat. Yeah. Yeah, I think we need to be able to demonstrate how your life gets different materially and rather quickly if we're

in charge instead of them. And part of that standing up to what they're doing that's wrong. It's like you are going to lose your health care or pay more in your premiums. Like now, people are paying more in their premium now because it turns out he doesn't care about you and he's taking the money and he's giving it to the wealthy. But it's not enough to just point out poke holes in what they're doing. We have to be able to say, look, if you put us in and you give us enough political room to implement this agenda, here's what we're going to deliver for you. And I think it's a good list. The list of things we want to deliver, like higher wages, more housing. Paid family.

leave. This is something every country has, except us. Wow. But let's pause on one, like a few, let's just pose on the housing one, for instance. One of the criticisms that I think a lot of people correctly level at the Democrats as they go, there are states where Democrats are ruling from

top to bottom. Why do they have some of the worst housing crises in America? Like, why do they have some of the highest homeless populations? You know what I mean? So it's like, I think that's the thing that a lot of people butt up against is they go, I, no one is against housing. No one will say, I don't want housing for people. No one is

against, but I think the question people will ask is they'll go, yes, beyond the promise, why does it seem like? And again, this is why I'm not in all the states. But some might ask you, they might go like, but Pete Buttigieg, why does it seem like the Democrats aren't able to do this thing in the state where they're running all of the, all the levers? Why can't they get housing going? Why can't they get better schools going? What's your response to them in that situation. There's so many different answers that are all true and that are important. One is that yes, like sometimes we just get in our own way. I mean, I saw that with a kind of a, it's kind of a proceduralism, a kind of a fetish for process. Yeah. That all these processes that are there for

good reason, but the result has been a federal government. I felt this when I was trying to build things around the country as a, as transportation sector. The process is more set up to stop a project from going wrong than to make sure the project happens, period. Oh, but. Okay. Okay. So there's so many checks that by the end, it's taken so many years that it's doubled in cost and you can't get it done. Now, sometimes we're able to get through that. Other times, it was really tough. So that's real. But another way to answer the question is to point to the places where we are getting results or did get results, either locally or nationally. And I think because we are doing a healthy process of questioning some of our own policies and habits, sometimes missing the fact that we also need to vigorously defend the things that we got right. And that's true at the local level where you have Denver, where there's mayor, Mike Johnson, who has gotten extraordinary results on housing in a way that mixes compassion for people experiencing homelessness with the need to make sure that it is safe and clean on the streets and expanding just the affordability and access to housing. DC had a great, I think, real progress. More houses per capita than Texas was building.

Or on something like safety, you know, a place like Boston. where one of the reasons it didn't work when Republicans tried to bring in Michelle Wu to a committee and kind of beat her up on public safety was the lowest murder rate in 75 years so she can explain like here's how we got that done but there's also a third set of answers that's also true that it has to do with all the ways

that when Democrats came to power they were still stopped by Republicans right and the question is is the answer to that that you just blow through the way Trump is well The truth is no Democrat in my lifetime has amassed that kind of power. What do you mean by that? Well, first of all, the total power over government, right?

Because the courts and the Congress are unwilling to constrain him even when they know he's doing something wrong. Okay, got it. Right. And that didn't just randomly happen. You're basically saying, like, Trump has everyone in line, really. Totally. It's not just amassing the power, but he has the power in line with him. Absolutely.

Yeah. Right. The problem is you say that, and then it starts to sound attractive. to some people. Like, great, all we need is to do that on our side. We just need to have somebody, some Democrat who's willing to break all the laws and have total control over, you know, all government. And then we'll do our stuff. And that's not the right answer. Because sometimes the rule of law is part of what we're trying to protect itself in addition to the things that it might shape or stop. But look, the appeal of the strong man is always,

I'm going to get results. I mean, Mussolini, you know, I'm going to make the trains run on time. But by the way, importantly, he didn't, he did not succeed in making the trains run on time. But he built that reputation. Yeah. And so the other thing we have to do is really talk in terms of concrete results and show that they're related. If you have a corrupt government, if you have a corrupt president who's making money on crypto or accepting jumbo jets from Amir's or whatever it is, that actually winds up

being related to the fact that your health care premium just went up because it means he's not accountable to anybody and he can just do things that make that happen. It's related to the fact you're under 65 and you're going in for a country. COVID shot and you can't get one. Like, I actually think that's the related, you know, obviously in the immediate sense, that's because RFK did that, change the eligibility for people. But in a way, that's related to an administration that doesn't think it has to answer to anybody.

And an administration that doesn't have to answer to anybody is also going to leave us weak and unprepared in the face of the things that we're actually, that are going to change everything. This is where I think about AI all the time. Like, we have an education secretary. who has given speeches referring to what she calls A1, which means she's unaware that the acronym is AI. Oh, no.

No, the person is just reading a speech and says like when A1 comes into our lives. We've got to make sure that we're dealing with like the implications of A1 in our schools, something like that. Which means she doesn't know what, that it's AI, which means she doesn't know that it stands for artificial intelligence, which means she's unaware of the most important development affecting U.S. education since the invention. of the pencil. And I think that's related to the corruption of the president because in a system of healthy checks and balances, the moment that happened, the president would be shamed into replacing that person.

They would be. Right? Yeah. So these things are related. The challenge for my party is to talk about them at the same time. It seems like an not an unscalable mountain, but it, you know, it's so interesting to hear these things. Here's what's always got me is when I look at South Africa and its issues

and many smaller countries in terms of like their GDP and what they actually have going, I go, man, I understand why this developing nation is experiencing what they're experiencing. What always shocks me is how America will have third world problems with the first world budgets. That always blows my mind. Like I'm shocked that the issues Americans have are the same issues that South Africans have with the budget that America has. I think there's one word that explains most of it, if not all of it, and the word is inequality. So there's so much research

that shows, even if you take two countries that have the same average GDP, the same general level of development, the one that has a higher level of inequality will have more, will have worse outcomes on everything from violence to public health, even on average. And you mentioned Robert Putnam, famously wrote bowling alone. He wrote another book, co-wrote another book that's less famous called The Upswing, which basically the whole book has written around a chart that is the level of inequality in this country. And you can see all of these, it kind of, if you start the clock in the 40s or even in the 60s, you see a comparatively more equal society.

And then you see it go more and more unequal. until you have this explosion of inequality that we're living with now. And you can correlate all these other developing world problems that we seem to have here around social instability and violence and health, all of them, get worse pretty much on the same trajectory as the inequality gets worse.

And then, of course, it becomes self-reinforcing because the more you have that economic inequality, the more you start to have inequality and power. And that can be used to reinforce the conditions that lead to the economic inequality. And this is yet another reason why I think we're not paying enough attention to AI. Everybody's paying attention to AI as tech. Yeah.

But I think we need to pay more attention to AI as a question of political economy because it can do one of two things. It can either create so much wealth that there is enough to go around and all of us could have a four-day work week and more money in our pocket. And it could alleviate inequality. Right. Both by finding the right way to share the dollars and cents, wealth that it creates and by taking the benefits of it in terms of like a level of tutoring

that up until now has only been available to a wealthy kid and now you just get it. That's the dream. That's the dream. That's one way things could unfold. The other way things could unfold is it makes these inequalities of wealth and power even more extreme. It concentrates the wealth into the hands of the people who have the means not just to start these tech companies, but to own the physical.

physical plant, you know, the computers and the land and the energy that goes into them. And they're making all the money. And, you know, more wealthy and established and powerful players have more control over the AI. And it unfolds that way. Like, one of those two things is going to happen. And the decision over which of those two things happen, in my opinion, is mostly not a technology decision. It's a political decision. So a set of policy decisions about what we do next. Yeah. It's similar to what they discussed a while ago in, it was either in Sweden or it was in Finland, one of the two. And they basically discussed taxing robots in a factory.

And people at the time, you know, especially outside of those countries, like, that's crazy. How can you tax a robot? And they went, no, no, no, nothing is crazy here. Because remember, we have to go down to the fundamental principle of what tax is trying to do and how it's trying to do it. Yes. Right. And when you start thinking of laws through that lens, you start to, to realize that every law is crazy until it's a law.

Yes. Do you know what I mean? It's a wild idea. Yeah. Like even the idea of weekends wasn't a thing. You used to work every single day of the week. And then at some point, unions fought and we're like, man, we've got to take days off. Now, the idea that you wouldn't work, that you would work seven days a week is now the crazy

idea. And so I think, I think that's the question is like, what are we able to do that seems crazy now? Yes. That could define the new normal tomorrow. And that sort of makes me think of all the, the, the, the, the, the, the, you know, the people running for office in some way, shape, or form, who are Democrats, who are very progressive and are doing really well, right? New York City right now, Zoran Mamdani.

Like, you can say what you want about the feasibility or not of his plans and ideas. Because everyone can poke holes in everyone's feasibilities, right? But the movement behind him, people on the ground, black, white, young, old, you name it, saying, well, not rich, but everyone else going, this guy I like what he's trying to do and you see them mobilized behind him you know you you see

the Democratic Party having some of its lowest approval ratings in years despite not being in power which is Ray in America but Bernie Sanders bringing out some of the biggest crowds he's ever brought out you know and we talk to him about it on the podcast

and I was wondering like from your perspective as somebody who's been in an administration has been very close to like the upper workings of the Democratic Party is there an internal reckoning with where the establishment Democrats sits and where it seems like the voters of the Democrats sit because it seems like there's a big disconnect there.

Like Andrew Cuomo for me is the worst example of it. You say, I'm a Democrat, you're a Democrat. Okay, let's go into a primary to see who the voters want. The voters say, we want Zoran Mamdani. You then go, all right, I guess I'm going to run independently. But it's like, wait, wait, what do you mean? that creates a distrust in a system as well because it's like, but you said you were a Democrat. No, no, no, I only said that when I thought you'd vote for me. Now I'm an independent.

So now you're an independent supported by Trump. Were you ever a Democrat then? Like when you're working, you know, internally, when you're having these conversations, is there a reckoning with where the Democratic Party is and where its voters are? Yeah, I think so. I mean, look, to be clear, there's not some like official meeting of all the Democrats that, or if there is, I'm not invited. So I think these things happen in like a more diffuse way. But yeah, I think that conversation has to happen. And I think it's playing out right now because there's a lot of kind of muscle memory in the Democratic Party about like, well, this happens.

So we've got to do that. And here's what we're used to. But I think what you're describing of going back to first principles and saying, okay, it doesn't have to be this way. What if we start from scratch? And I think the appeal of Mamdani and I agree with some of the stuff and I disagree with some of the stuff. But the point is he has aroused a sense of hope by saying we can solve these problems with big ideas. And the best leaders I see in the party, many of whom are on the left, but many of whom are more moderate. It's not only about how left you are.

But they have a level of imagination about what needs to happen that gets back to the first principles. See, the left likes to think that we're the intellectual ones. but I actually believe the right over the last like 50 years has been much more systematic about connecting like big ideas, bold ideas, sometimes crazy ideas through this process that gets them into the mainstream,

finds politicians willing to give them a try, pushes the Overton window, pushes the political system until eventually that happens. And that's why they're able to sometimes, I mean, demolishing, the right to choose in this country. That was a 50-year project on their part, right? The stuff in Project 2025, it wasn't just a laundry list of crazy policy proposals. It was the result of a whole kind of apparatus doing very big, deep thinking, most of which, of course, I think is horribly

wrong. But they were really thinking about these things in a very basic way. It feels like they have a room, and then the Democrats don't. Yeah, I mean, I think they are more. Like in a weird way, you just said, there's not one room world the Democrats meet, but it seems like the Republicans were like, hey, let's meet in a room. and have like this collective idea that moves us. But before we move on for that, give me an idea of like what you agree with on Zorn and what you don't agree with.

I'd love to know, because you were a mayor, you know? So you actually ran a city. So like give me something where you go like, oh, I agree with that. Yeah, so I think, first of all, just the focus on affordability. Like we have to prioritize that and make sure that you can afford to live in this city.

Makes a ton of sense. I think the stuff he's talked about getting mental health resources out to crisis situations. I don't think that means you get rid of the police. I think it means that you understand that the police are not the best, it's not even fair to the police to expect them to be the kind of first resort responders. Same reason police don't fight fires. It's like, yeah, right, right. It's like it's different.

Mental health crime is a different thing. Completely. And I think he's shown an understanding of that, right? Other things, I'm kind of skeptical of the like government grocery store concept. So you see, this is what I'm intrigued with. What is it about that? I'd love to know. Because there are sets of things that should be done by government.

and then there are things that I think should be done by the private sector and running a grocery store is a good example I think the government needs to come in where there are these big collective action problems

or foundation like basic research good example so my favorite example of this is the iPhone to talk about the deliver the division of labor I don't think

the federal government could ever like design and sell a smartphone that you and I would want to buy. Like, I think only a company could do that to drive that level of innovation and use the competitive pressures of capitalism to fashion a product in that way

that eventually becomes affordable for people. That's just, that's what companies do well. But if the federal government hadn't literally invented the Internet, which no company or even consortium of companies could have done, like that took taxpayer-funded, public research to do. If there's no internet, there's no smartphone.

So the areas where I believe government needs to lean in more are areas where there's some reason to think that it will only work if government leans in. I think that's true to a point in health insurance. I'm not somebody who believes we should abolish any private health insurance, but I do think there needs to be a public option, a public, a public, We called it Medicare for all who want it, like not Medicare, whether you want it or not. But like, especially if people are going to keep changing jobs, like you need benefits that aren't just dependent on your company that you work for, right? But I'm not somebody who believes like every hospital and every health insurance system should be somebody who works for the government.

Other situations, and this is why I was an aggressive regulator of airlines, I don't think we should have a government-run airline. Some countries do. I don't think that works. But I also don't think the market for airlines is exactly like a healthy, normal competitive market. It's got huge barriers to entry. It's got all these things that help to explain why you only have a handful of airlines. So the answer to me was, okay, this should be done by private companies, but the government should very energetically lean in and regulate those companies so that they can't abuse their customers.

And my sense is that when it gets to groceries, which is a highly competitive and very, very low profit margin business, you're not going to find some like market inefficiency because like grocers are have these like monopoly, especially in the city context, right? Where there's so many different, so many different competitors. What I do believe in is making sure you have the right kind of subsidy structure so people can afford. school. I can afford food. I just don't know that I would route that through the plumbing of a government owned and operated store. But look, he wins. He gets the opportunity to like demonstrate. Again, what I loved about being mayor was some ideas were popular in my city, some of them were unpopular in my city. I was willing to attach myself to certain ideas and live and die by whether they worked. And the great thing is you actually get a chance in local government to show versus tell that this is going to work. And he can humble his critics if he's right

and do these things. Don't press anything. We've got more. What now? After this. It's funny. I think there's a part of me that agrees with you. And there's a part of me that disagrees with you

in terms of the government and its ability. I think of it through the lens of, I don't know, let's start with some of the bigger utilities. You look at the United Kingdom, like the railway. I don't think I'm crazy when I say that the UK's railway system has become more expensive, less affordable, less predictable, less, you know what I mean, when it became privatized. And I'm not an economics major, but from everything I've read,

fundamentally, if you look at what economics tells you, you know, you're trying to make as much money as possible, you're trying to get the profits, that you can. The argument is at some point it gets down to zero. And I mean, you, like, really, you're a brain in this world. I've seen your resume and everything you've studied. But it feels like corporations and the way they exist is sort of at odds with the public good. So let's go back to the iPhone, right? I don't believe that a government couldn't make an iPhone. I actually don't believe that. I think governments and the way we see them now could not make an iPhone. because, to your point in what we said earlier,

they've become bloated, they've become slow, they've become corrupt, etc. But I don't think, to me, I go like, I don't think that means a government could not make an iPhone. I just think it means that the way some of the governments around the world operate now, they would not, right? So here's an example. Let's look at Brazil right now.

And this could change. That's why I say, I'm not an expert, but this could change. Brazil right now, on a government level, has rolled out a digital payment system that works in the country, right? And basically what they've done is they've made it so that everybody in the country can have a bank account just having a phone.

We've got similar products in South Africa and in Southern Africa, Mesa and Nigeria and those places. Yeah, but this is not run by a company. It's the government. And what they did is they said, we are going to be your bank and your banker. We're going to make sure,

that you have access to banking, which is one of the worst things you can do to a person when they're not banked. They just kicked out of a system. They said, we're going to make sure that doesn't happen to you. You sell things on the beach. You have a little, you know, you sell food, whatever it is. You now have a bank. You now can build credit. You now have something that you can work towards. But we will manage that as a government. And the most impressive thing that they've done is they've basically made it that almost every single transaction is free. you pay me I pay you that doesn't cost you anything

because they've come to realize and we should all know this the costs that a lot of banks tell us about are basically false you know what I mean now I'm not saying they were always false there was a time when it cost a lot of money to send money to somebody out to butt about

but we've got systems now that can do these things for you right but now because of what Brazil has done they've created a whole new market and now the legacy players who are companies they have a choice to make they either get in line and offer a competitive deal

or they're just not going to have customers. When I look at what companies have done, look at South Africa and most parts of Africa, right, we pay some of the highest data rates in the world. And we've seen time and time again with every study that's done, whether it's the world trade organization or the UNW.

People who do not have access to the Internet have exponentially less upward mobility because it's the world we live in now. but then who sets the price of the data? Who chooses how much you paid to connect to the internet? It's a private company. And the government can say, oh, it should be within. It should be within.

But we've seen what companies can do. You've seen what airlines can do yourself. You know what I mean? And so I don't think that governments can't do it. And I think governments should be in the business of doing it and doing it properly. Because New York, for me, as an example, I try and ask these questions to random people just to see what they'll tell me. But one of the most interesting answers, a grocery store owner gave me in New York was he said,

I don't think Zoran Mamdani's local grocers are going to do well as a business in any way. But he said, but I do like that if the government becomes the owner of grocery stores, they can step into the fray of grocery stores and pricing and monopolies in terms of like the suppliers. And they said they can fight an outsized fight that we can't as grocery stores. You as Eugene owner grocery store, You as Mayor Pete own a grocery store, you can't really do much. But if the government owns a grocery store, the same way if the government owns... It's the purchasing power.

The purchasing power, but also the power, good luck screwing over a government and getting away with it in that way. You know what I mean? If the government says we're going to buy drugs from pharmaceutical companies, they can't come in with the same like, oh, your insulin costs for... No, the government goes like, what are you doing? And that's what I mean by like the feasibility. I think sometimes we might think of it as, can the government? government run a business or not run a business well, I don't care if a government can run a business for profit. But I do like the government being involved in an industry so that the

industry can't just run off and go crazy. You know what I mean? I think to me a lot of it has to do with the kind of business or the kind of industry. Oh yeah, completely. Don't get me wrong. So, and maybe I think you and I might read the grocery case differently because I'm just thinking about so much of the businesses about engaging like all of these different suppliers to get all of these different things on a shelf and the way supply chains work and the way retail works and then the margins being as tiny as they are. Yes. But to your point, I mean, an example that's not unlike what you're describing with the payment system is something I've seen cities do that I do think makes sense, which is creating a municipal competitor to Internet service providers.

Yes, yeah, this is exactly what I mean. I think Chattanooga was the first place to do it. Yeah. And it turns out even just the existing ISPs, there's prices magically come down. That's what I'm talking about. The moment that they threat, they face some kind of competition. right? But that's because there's that local monopoly. No, no, no, then I think we are closer to it.

So, yeah, I'm not saying that like government can't do well in a tech context. I'm just looking for the things that are more like networks or platforms or utilities or something where you really just cannot expect market forces to do much good. Right. Versus the ones where we have more experience with like competition driving prices down and, you know. Like I found it wild that during COVID, the government couldn't pay people in America into their bank accounts. Hmm.

That was just wild to discover about America. wait, what? Yeah, and look, sometimes the answer to these things is also related to corporate power. So another thing that the Trump administration has killed is direct file. The last administration was where he was kind of a pilot. Some people had it. Some people didn't, but it was growing where you could just file your own taxes. It seems like a pretty basic thing. Most people in most developed countries can do this. Even in developing. South Africa, you can file your own taxes. Developing even. And here, you can't. Is that because we, the American people, couldn't figure out a way to make that possible? No. It's because there are companies that make

a lot of money is the middleman, who figured out how to block getting that done, right? And they're having their way in this administration. So, yeah, I'm not going to be the person to say that innovation only happens if you let the private sector do anything it wants. Yeah. I just, I think I draw the line on that balance a little bit differently. No, no, no, I understand what you're saying. I think you clarified it. Let's talk a little bit about the world, the geopolitics. And as we wrap this up, I want to know where you see yourself moving in the future as, you know, Pete looks at the future of America. And, you know, America looks at itself in the world.

There's no denying that Donald Trump has completely upended how America sees the world and how the world sees America. You know, allies are no longer like ally allies. Yeah. You know, countries like India are on like a blacklist. Brazil is on a blacklist because they are prosecuting somebody who tried to stage a coup. Canada is always, you know, in an adversarial relationship or a moment with the, it just feels like America isn't the.

you know, that rock that it once proclaimed itself to be and I think how many countries saw it. When you look at the geopolitical landscape right now, what do you think the future of America is if this carries on for the next like four years? Like if it just keeps going the way it's going,

what do you think it does to America that Americans don't realize? And what do you think it, like how do you think it affects the world in a way the world hasn't yet thought of. I mean, I think it's going to take a lifetime to, even in a best case scenario, it will take a lifetime to establish some of the trust that has been blown up between other countries in this country by the Trump administration.

And I also, I think we have to face the fact that the whole world system that we have all inherited has been showing its age for some time. Yeah. Like this emerged out of the power dynamics. and the values that were most prominent or had their greatest moment of privacy immediately after World War II, right? And like the last of the people who experienced World War II as adults are passing out of this world right now.

Like we're just in a very different world. And so it's another example of a realm where I don't think we're saying like let's just try to get Trump out, come in, and stitch back together all of these systems and alliances and international institutions the way they used to work and hope that'll get us through another 80 years. Yeah. I think the future is one where we reconnect with the importance of values as well as interests in American policy.

And that's part of what I think is at stake for the rest of the world. So my view is leadership matter. leadership by people, but also leadership by countries. And somebody will be leading the way things unfold for the next 5, 10, 20 years in the world. And I really want that not to be people like Putin or people like Xi Jinping. I want that to develop on terms.

It's not that I want the world to look like and think like America, but I think there are the American values that are most worth defending are most worth defending because they also express. universal values. I think there's the most credible thing about what we did do and we set up the institutions we did, like the UN, in that period. So what does it actually look like? I mean, we can't be, we have this America first mantra, but it's really kind of like an America

alone. Yeah. I would like to see a vision that's about America in first place, meaning America strives to compete and outdo every other country, which means we care about what the other countries are doing. And when they're ahead of us on something, we try to learn from them, catch up, and get back in first place. But it's not by having our, it's not by stepping on people's faces as we go, because that really does amount to America alone. And in ways that we can't even guess sitting here in 2025,

like that will make every American less safe, I think. let's say you were president and you're stepping into the White House is post-Trump. There's been another election. Things have gone well. Let's say you're president and you look at this world that lies out there. I want to ask you like sort of what you would do

and there's policy and things change and whatever. What I'm, what I find myself myself most interested in is does America and do American leaders ever think about how to grapple with the world that they have created

that they're now fighting against? And the reason I ask it is like this. Putin is a great example. You can't talk about Vladimir Putin without talking about how Putin becomes Putin and you can't talk about how Putin becomes Putin without looking at how Russia the way we know it becomes Russia.

You can't talk about how Russia becomes Russia the way it does without talking about how America worked towards Russia. Now, I'm not excusing Putin in any way, shape or form, but I'm going, man, when you look at the Cold War and how America played it, a lot of it was like bullying in a way that didn't bring Russia along, and then you look at like, you know, the G20 and you look at all of these decisions that America made, and you're like, ooh, it doesn't seem like America made a lot of the best decisions to bring Russia along, right? Because America at the time was so paranoid about communism.

It cost aside all of its values. You know, America was like, we'll give anyone money anywhere in the world if they're going to help us fight communism. We'll prop up dictators. We will overthrow leaders as long as it stops communism. And it's like, oh, well, if you're going to give up your values when it suits you, then are they your values? And so, like, that's one example, you know.

Another one I think of in the world is I go, you know, we talk about like issues now. I was thinking the other day, I was like, America doesn't have a particularly good track record of sort of like helping the movements that society would agree are the movements that are worth helping. Like, apartheid was a good example. I'm not saying you were there, by the way. I'm not pointing at you like, you did it. No, but like, I was thinking the other day, I was like, America didn't do a good job during apartheid. Yeah. It's not like America was like, we're going to help you.

No. When apartheid was fully in, like in full force. America was like, yep, it seems pretty good to us. They welcomed South African leaders. None of their visas were blocked. None of them were restricted, no sanctions. America was one of the last to even like entertain the idea of sanctions, right? And then when apartheid ended, the Clinton administration, just so we're clear, there's not like a Trump or anything.

The Clinton administration gave out thousands of visas to white South Africans only. Only to help them escape, I guess. guess because they were like, what's going to happen to them? But it's like, wait, wait, wait. You were rescuing the oppressors? That's a weird one. The Titanic is sinking and you fly in and you rescue the iceberg. Like, wait, what just happened here?

That was good. That was so, so, so. The iceberg. See what you did there. No, but I mean, like, I think of it in all of these instances. I go like, even now with like Israel, Palestine, I'm like, man, you know, week one after October 7th, people are going, well, you know, Israel, I mean, they've got to defend, week 10, well, week 100. And then people are like, man, at what point? And then like, most recently, we see a strike that happens in Qatar. And we don't know the inner workings of things. So I'm not going to assume anything. But I wonder if there's like a misalignment there between how America portrays itself. and how America acts in the world. You know, like, even World War II is an example.

America for a long time was like, ah, man, that's not of our business. That's none of our business. People were like, yeah, but the Jews are being persecuted. America's like, yeah, but that's none of our business. And then when Pearl Harbor happens, America goes like, all right, now it's our business. Right.

And now again, please don't get me wrong. I'm not diminishing America's contribution in the fights for democracies time and time again. But I wonder if, as a president, say you would step in, and would you be able to grapple with the inconsistency in how America applies its values in and around the world in fighting for freedom or not fighting for it? I think not because we're Americans, but because we are people. We are inconsistent in our affinities and the stories we tell ourselves and the commitments we come to. I also think that we

can be imperfect in our fidelity to our ideas at home or abroad. And those ideas are still the right ideas and they're still the ones that ought to guide us. And I think that's true at home as we question like how much is our democracy, even a democracy right now? It doesn't mean we're on the wrong track trying to be one. It just means we're further away from one than we wish. And I think that's true for America's conduct around the world. All of that is definitely the experience of America and the countries that have had to deal, or the peoples who have had to deal with America, as at best a very flawed bearer of the flag of liberty and freedom and freedom around the world. And at the same time, I think that our belief in that, however

imperfect, however we haven't always been true to it at home and abroad, is the most important fact about us. And so I think leadership in America has to do the, the work of trying to center us in that while we're being buffeted by all these other things. So there were a lot of folks who were queasy about various countries in the course of the Cold War that we supported, but really believed it was still somehow the right thing to do for reasons of hard security. I think a lot of that was wrong. But that balance, nobody can claim that that's ever going to be easy.

but what we no longer have is the excuse of not knowing how it can go wrong. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's true. So the next president or just the next generation of American leadership arrives with the benefit of a lot of hindsight. And I say this belonging to the generation that was really shaped by 9-11 and also by the Iraq War. I mean, that definitely shaped my understanding of politics. Yeah.

I also shaped my life because I wound up serving in the Afghanistan War. and honestly that was another example right where for 9-11 it was the first time for a lot of people that a chain of events had happened somewhere else actually was visited upon us concretely and shook everybody out of this idea that that was just you know that we weren't going to be pulled into the consequences of what was happening abroad some of which we had had a hand in getting to be the way it was because it's a world that we made I would like to believe if we get get it right, if we have the right fidelity to the values that actually matter, we do this next time around if people are still returning our calls as a country with more of a partnership, with more of an actual partnership with other states and peoples that are sincerely committed to those same values. And that around that we can build an architecture of values but also security. Yeah.

That actually works. But that's going to be really, really hard and it's going to be that much harder because the level of trust people have for America has been laid so low by what people are seeing from both our conduct toward other countries and just the way things are going at home right now. Yeah, because when I, let's say when I look at a situation like exactly what you're saying, looking at the relationship with others, other countries, their representatives and their people, again, I don't know the inner workings. So I'm only saying what I've read and what I've seen.

You have a delegation of negotiators who are in Qatar, right? They're there to negotiate, whatever it is, but they negotiate. Israel kills them, bam, and says, yeah, we killed them. This is not even like a, I'm saying. They said, no, we killed them. I found myself going just on a basic level, and maybe I'm a very stupid, simple person, it's possible. I went, if you kill negotiators, isn't that the opposite of wanting,

to negotiate. Like, you know what I mean? That's, like, this is, that's kicking the guy in the pit in Sparta. It's like, yeah, that's the guy who's come to deliver the message and you won't get peace without. Yeah. And so I was thinking to myself, I was going like, okay, so if you, if you are in power, if you're a leader in that type of situation, at what point does an ally stop being an

ally or how do you define the allyship of another country? Is it when their interests are completely aligned with yours? Or is it when their actions are completely. unaligned with yours, you know? Like, how far would Israel have to go for you as a president to say, I can't say that you're our ally anymore? But I think what happens, and, you know, that happened as we're taping. Like, I think that's just hitting the news.

So I don't know all of the, we're still learning what happened in that strike, but everything you just said makes sense to me about what it means to blow up negotiators. And it feels like every few days or every day, there's another example of this. Right. So I think the job of leadership is to say, okay, if this is our ally or whatever you want to call, we are the most important country to that country. Yes. We are the most important country to Israel. Right. Right. What does it actually look like to draw a line between saying we have a foundational commitment to this country being able to defend itself from people who are committed to its annihilation, which I think is the bedrock of the U.S. relationship with Israel, to have fidelity to that. And also say, when you do certain things, we're not going to sponsor you to do that. And to say, as your most important ally friend sponsor, whatever we want to call it, there's going to be more than pretty please. We are going to find ways to shape your behavior.

I think that's what leadership needs to do. And I don't know who the next leader in the U.S. will be, or for that matter, the next leader of Israel, or what kind of leadership. the Palestinians or the Arab states will have, and I actually think the further this goes, the more important the ultimate role of Arab states will be in whether there is any form of a two-state solution that's even possible or whatever is about to happen next. But I do think that is an example where there are certain things that we still bear fidelity to because there are reasons, not just tactical, strategic reasons, but moral reasons why the United States has decided

from the beginning to be there to make sure that a country whose neighbors wanted to annihilated is not annihilated. And of course, that is born out of the circumstances that were present in the world at the time that the Jews sought that homeland. And at the same time, say, just because that is true and however unshakable that is,

this is not on, we're not on board with this. And we're going to think of more than just saying this is unfortunate, it, but actually do something to change it. It's so difficult. And you know why it's so difficult is because humans bear the brunt, like civilians bear the brunt of the decisions of a few men, just generally speaking. As I've been watching what's happening in the now, I'd like to go back and try and read

different times to see if there's any correlations or anything that gives me a certain insight because when things are happening now they're happening now you have to react to them you don't have perspective you don't have hindsight sometimes when you go back you read something and it's a lot more clear you never know what fully happened but you have a bad idea i found it particularly interesting that a lot of the language the u.s uses now with israel it's similar to the language it's used with south africa during apartheid it would say i mean we we have to let these people defend themselves and we have to assure ourselves that the africana is safe and do you do you know what i mean It's interesting how defending the implied threat against these oppressors was more important than defending the actual threat that was happening to the people at the time.

And that's something that I think, and that's why it's funny enough, I think, when we come back to voters and people, when you look at like the Democratic base, I'm not saying Kamala Harris lost or didn't lose because of one specific thing, but there's no denying. There was a huge swath of the voting population, democratic voters, especially young people. people who said, yo man, we don't want our country. We don't want to be aiming in this direction. This is not what we're aiming. This is not what we see America doing. And it was interesting that the democratic leadership didn't seem to come on board with that. It felt like that was the 70-30 split, but just within a Democratic Party where they were like, no, we're not on board with this completely. How do you maybe bridge the divide is the wrong phrase? But how do you, how do you make sense of that disconnect, you know, where, is it because young voters or voters in the Democratic

Party don't know as much as the people, the leaders do? Or is it because you see the situation differently? And not, I'm saying you, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, look, I think part of it is what, what was going on during the time that your understanding of these events was formed, right? So if you're our age or younger, definitely if you're the Gen Z people who are watching this, including, by the way, many Jews, young Jews. who are watching this saying, I want no part of that. You have only experienced Israel

as the dominant regional hegemon, and especially in the last two years where they have decapitated or neutered those entities that are most threatening to them right now, whether we're talking about Iran, whether we're talking about Hamas' military capabilities, whether we're talking about Hezbollah, right? So you see this extremely powerful country where there, I think, is a generation of democratic leaders who only knew or largely knew Israel as the underdog, where this wasn't just some like offstage thing that was invoked as why, and by the way, Netanyahu skillfully does this, invoke these offstage threats as something that will legitimize anything, including things like starvation that absolutely nothing can legitimize.

But back then, that was a real, this was not like a theoretical thing. Now, I'd say even today it's not a theoretical thing, but it's obviously more off stage because of the power that Israel has exerted to not only defend itself. Yeah. But to do things that I think most observers, including people who care about Israel's future, would say, are not helping you defend yourself. It's not helping the hostages. And it's not only incredibly destructive of life when you have starvation or these bombings that we're seeing or so many of the other. that are going on. But it's also destructive of a moral fiber that has connected these two countries that really is as important as the strategic relationship. And that could be the most

lethal thing of all. Right. Because it turns the relationship into a partisan cause or something that there's a generational split. And that is just catastrophically bad, I think. But to get to where your question began, I think the next round of American leadership will just be about what will it take to make things get better. That's the thing. So many, and this is the ultimate example of it, but so many things, international relations in here and home are freighted with layer upon layer that if I mention this, you say, okay, but what about that? And if it's that, well, what about that? All of which is true. Yeah. And in this case, it goes back not just to 1947, it goes back thousands of years, right? And it's all true. And no,

one moment, no one generation, least of all like a child or a family living in Gaza or for that matter living in Israel, can or should have to bear the weight of all of those layers. All we can do is say, okay, what can we do that would make it better? And I think a new generation of American leadership will be willing to do things to shape the choices of an Israeli government in ways that neither an older generation of Democrats nor Republicans were willing to do. But across all of this, I still come back to the idea that the real challenge is to have fidelity to the values that even if we're not that good at living up to them, much of the time, the values are still there and they're still worth it. And our attachment to those is everything. So let me ask you this finally before we let you go.

I won't ask you if you're going to run for president because I've learned in America, you'll always say no or you'll give me, like a vague answer, not you. Politicians just do that here. They go like, well, I think right now I'm focused on dropping my kids off at school. Yeah, and my life. And I think what we need to look at right now is the midterms and building a world where we can, I know how this goes. I know how this goes.

So I won't ask you that. What I would ask you instead is this. Pete Buttigieg, the mayor, Pete Buttigieg, the secretary of transportation. And then we meet Pete Buttigieg now. what do you think you've seen in the world in America and in your communities that has changed how or what you would run on if you were to run again? You know, so when you look at yourself back, I mean, now, what has it been, 10 years, maybe more, and then you look at it now, is there anything that's shifted you?

Is there anything that's changed your perspective slightly? And what would that thing be and how would it change the path that you would. pursue. Because we all change. Something changes us along the way. I love to know, you know, now you've been in an administration, for instance. Yeah. I mean, I could point to any number of like tactical or policy questions where I think about it differently or I'm more attuned to why things are harder than they look or I think we should just blow something up instead of trying to keep working with it in our bureaucracy or something like that. But I think the biggest thing that's changed is that things that we used to talk about as a matter of rhetoric,

are here now and so it's not enough you know words like authoritarianism or fascism I think when I was first definitely when I was first running for president those words are out there as kind of the end of a conversation

like look at this stuff that's going on like that could I mean that that might be authoritarian and then it started happening and now we're in a moment where we have to be much more clear-eyed about what it means to deal with that. In other words, if we just say, that's authoritarian or that's fascist,

like, you know, everybody's, like, paralyzed by that, where actually I think the project increasingly is, like, find out who's really good at dealing with fascism and learn from them on how to beat it, right? And that's just, like, a different project than the one I thought I was part of, even five years ago. I think that the other thing I would say, say is I still thought as recently as five years ago that there was more we could do within

the structures that we inherited, within the kind of policy frameworks that we inherited. And now I just think all of that's being blown wide open, either because you have whole departments being burned down like the Department of Education, or because like the financial picture, which is not as like sexy to talk about fiscal policy, but I think sooner or later will require us to completely redesign our tax code as a country. There's not a bad thing, actually, Because that could be a chance to have a system of taxation where we actually get more trust that our government is actually doing good things with the money that we pay into it. There's a sense of more fairness. But I guess what I'm getting at more than saying like, I think this like border policy, you know, I disagree with what I used to think five years ago.

It's more that I think the framework we're in needs to be replaced. in a way that I think, you know, Trump has clearly exposed, but I think Democrats need to come to terms with. And we're just into a new world in terms of what that means for what leaders need to do. Well, as always, man, I enjoy having a conversation with you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for being so candid.

Thank you. And, yeah, man, thanks for sharing your beard. I appreciate it. Thank you very much, for real. Thanks for having me. What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Senaziamin, and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer.

Our development researcher is Marcia Robiou. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random Other Stuff by Ryan Paduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now. You know,