The Broken Promise: Democracy, the Economy & What Comes Next with Pete Buttigieg

27:50Importantly, 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.

28:28I 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 a lot about artificial intelligence, right? Where I think most people left, right, or center are skeptical of a lot of these tech companies. Interested in AI, if only because we use it, you know, chat GPT 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.

29:09That'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 that yeah that actually is a fascinating idea to think about is like when does an issue suddenly become politicized 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 right 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 it, 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 it, and then I was like guys Donald Trump's not in the lab, it's not like he's there With his little vial and he's like Add two of these, four drops I think I got it, ooby doo doo No, he's leading a task force That is trying to get 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 were like well i of course i trust it and then now the flip happened the other way the other way around is like people were like i don't trust that vaccine i don't trust the Democrats and I was like what just happened here has it become so like red and blue that 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 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 The crowd was like boo And then he's like A lot of people don't like it But 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 It's mine Yes 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 spoiled it But he still goes He made it And I'm like What happened in that moment I love that you brought up the AI thing because it's like, when does a topic or an issue become politicized in America?

32:08And 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 at it, right? So if I run a major corporation and I'm trying 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.

32:49And then I would try frame it so that AI is in or out of the other party's wheelhouse. Does it sound like real to you or even familiar? I think that's right. And I think companies do that all the time. They figure out a way if you're running a clean tech company 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 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.

33:22I think also, though, a lot of this is downstream from culture, as they say, right? That the 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 left and right boundaries of what politicians get to do. That's interesting. And then sometimes it can come back out. So think about tech, right? 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 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.

34:10And, 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 White House than 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.

35:00So you've got really right wing, like MAGA right wing politicians. Josh Hawley comes to mind. Yeah. 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 vector for a lot of bad things to get into their 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 gotta find something that we can agree on what about this or put to put 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.

35:53Start 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 got to do something about that, right? We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Did you know that Apple Card is designed to help you pay off your balance faster with smart payment suggestions? And because fees don't help you, Apple Card doesn't have any. That's right. No fees. So if your credit card isn't Apple Card, maybe it should be.

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38:00what always helps a voter not feel helpless because sometimes people think of government in this big juggernaut that's gonna happen with or without you and you're just happy for smaller wins like for example in my country people our country pete you know what i mean

38:19I'll stand out of this

38:24Our 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.

39:01It is a great question. 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 US House, less than one in 10, less than 40 are actually considered competitive. Less than 40. Yeah. So even though we are, let's say typically a 55, 45 country in terms of which way the country feels, which part of the country supports.

39:44You 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.

40:18So big picture, we need to reform that. In the meantime, since that's not going to happen overnight, I think the best ways and 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, about smartphones or any number of things are happening either at a state or a local level.

40:53There was a much better chance of getting somebody's attention at that level. 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 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 is going to impact me. And they spoke with a kind of moral authority that young people have. And it got people's attention. And it changed 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.

41:35Another 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 power, assuming the elections take place appropriately. But in the meantime, time, some stuff that sounds very old fashioned, like getting in the streets or calling your member of Congress matters. So 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.

42:09And 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 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 kind of battlefield of ideas in politics is inside people's social circles and their families. Yeah. And I wonder if actually, because it's so easy for us to spout off on politics online, we're actually less likely to have a hard political conversation with someone we know or care about.

42:57But those are the people you can actually move, right? We know time and time again, we've seen it. 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 than 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 right and maybe you're not actually liberal you just live in a major metropolis yeah 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 well maybe i don't know how men dress i've been 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 what are your tools of resistance my wardrobe but this is what i mean so and 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 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 i know i have a personal you know feeling so and i'm i'll i will say i'm biased but i remember a time when a beard was considered the number one um 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 dude with the beard 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 that news anchor has a beard oh 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 yeah 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 and how it shifts in politics i wonder if you've thought about it on a local level versus a national level because you you are in an interesting position yeah you were a mayor as a mayor you're only trying to shape the lives 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 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 the big difference between what people need on the ground and what they're reading about is like national news.

46:44Totally. 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, before I became more of a national figure, I had equal approval rating among Republicans, Democrats, and independents in the city. Because they just wondered if I was going to get the trash picked up and are we going to grow the local economy? What were we doing about this blocking and tackling, basic things to take care of the city?

47:21And so I guess to your question, I would say it's in one way easier, in 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 people could see and they'd be like, there's a hole in the road. What are you going to do about it? 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 and much more of a contest of given these facts, what are you going to do about it?

47:57It was the good, the bad, and the ugly. And the ugly was we had, because we'd been a factory town, We had acres of collapsing auto factories everywhere 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 Donald Trump talks about American cities, he's clearly just using his imagination. This is not based on any experience of what it's actually like. Yeah. Or maybe it's a social media feed because I think we take for granted how much that man is on social media.

48:31Totally. 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 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 is 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.

49:05So 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 than 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.

49:46Like 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 made me stop and think but the point is you would think about it now i have a feed and what does the feed give me gives me two things here's this person i already like doing something that looks good yeah it 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.

51:11And 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 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 uh 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 yeah so in places where there were still church choirs and community bowls and clubs whether it was coffee or debates social clubs he found was the biggest correlation between how the thing worked and then when he brought it to america he almost instantly found it was it was true where people had bowling clubs is where they generally were less polarized and where they had more community and they they they moved in unison in a different way didn't mean 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 you see that hole in the road what's been going on another person goes like well i heard this guy mayor pete says he's gonna 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 yeah 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 uh covid played a big part in exposing people's vulnerabilities.

53:54You're not wrong. I think the rise of the political strongman, which in most cases would be called a dictator before, has become more prevalent. We see it now with countries that we won't mention their names and we know India, South Africa. So we know those countries and the strongman 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. He probably doesn't even know there's a pothole in this street, but I do.

54:30But people have looked at the world now. Like I said, people would have assumed before that a Putin, a Zelensky, a Trump, or Ramaphosa, 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.

55:11Like 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? 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 JD 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.

55:51But the fact that we even have that word is telling. Because I don't know what you could do to be un-French or un-South African or un-Jandies. No, 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.

56:35Right. 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. um and so i i just think it it's too easy of an out to say uh what can we do um we're in charge like we the people collectively are in charge what threat does the strongman pose to those ideals like it almost feels like everywhere we are spoken about a strongman people have voted for and entertain 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, by the time everybody wakes up and sees that they're gone, it's too late.

57:26And this happens. I mean, when strongmen 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.

58:02At the end of the day, they will not help you be able to afford to buy a home. They will not help you get healthcare. 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 strongman, 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.

58:37Do you get what I'm saying? Yes. So there's people in South Africa. If I can't have it, no one will. 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, 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.

59:06And 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. Yeah. 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 healthcare. 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.

59:39And 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. They go, we voted for this guy and here's Keir Starmer and here's this, 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.

1:00:18They'll tell you about healthcare. 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 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.

1:00:44I'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 gonna do the thing and whether or not you support donald trump or not you can't deny that people see that and go it is possible he does the thing that he said he's gonna do and it may not have the effect that people have promised and he may not help the people he said he's gonna promise and your taxes are gonna are gonna it creates the impression of being decisive and that's exactly what i mean and so i wonder if like the democrats internally are Are you guys having a conversation about how there is a perception that you just don't like do a thing?

1:01:24It 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 healthcare or pay more in your premiums. Like now people are paying more in their premiums 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.

1:01:52But 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 pause 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.

1:02:30Why do they have some of the worst housing crises in America? like why do they have some of the highest house homeless populations why do they you know what i mean so it's like i think that's the thing that a lot of people but 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 i'm not in all the states but some might ask you they might go like but but 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 the levers?

1:03:07Why 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, sometimes we just get in our own way. I mean, I saw that with a kind of a proceduralism, a kind of a fetish for process. 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 transportation secretary. The process is more set up to stop a project from going wrong than to make sure the project happens, period.

1:03:42So 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 were 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 a mayor, Mike Johnson, who has gotten extraordinary results on housing.

1:04:20Yeah. 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. Yeah. 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 has to do with all the ways that when Democrats came to power, they were still stopped by Republicans.

1:05:03Right. 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. So 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.

1:05:37Right. 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 strongman is always, I'm going to get results. I mean, Mussolini, I'm going to make the trains run on time.

1:06:04Which by the way, importantly, he didn't, he did not succeed in making the trains run on time, but he built that reputation. 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 Amirs or whatever it is, that actually winds up being related to the fact that your healthcare 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 COVID shot and you can't get one.

1:06:40I actually think that's related. Obviously, in the immediate sense, that's because RFK did that, changed the eligibility for 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.

1:07:17Oh no. No, the person who's reading a speech and says like, when A1 comes into our lives. Yeah, we got to make sure that we're dealing with like the implications of A1 in our schools, something like that. Secretary of Education. Which means she doesn't know what 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 uh 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 a not a not an unscalable mountain but it you know it's it's it's so interesting to hear these things here's what here's what's always got me is when i look at south africa and its issues and many small smaller countries in terms of like their gdp and 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.

1:08:40I 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 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 is written around a chart that is the level of inequality in this country.

1:09:25And you can see all of these 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 in power.

1:10:03And 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.

1:10:48That's the dream. Right? 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 plant you know the computers and the in the land and the energy that goes into them and they're making all the money uh and you know more uh 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.

1:11:23And the decision over which of those two things happen, in my opinion, is mostly not a technology decision. It's a political decision, 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 how can and they went 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 all right and when you start thinking of laws through that lens you start to realize that every law is crazy until it's a law yes do you know what i mean it's 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 were like man we 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 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 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 the movement behind him yeah people on the ground black white young old you name it saying well not rich but everyone else going this guy yeah i like what he's trying to do yeah and and you see them mobilize behind him you know you you see the democratic party having having some of its lowest approval ratings in years despite not being in power which is rare in america but bernie sanders bringing out some of the biggest crowds he's ever brought out you know and we we talked 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 of the democratic party is there an internal reckoning with where the establishment democrats sits yeah and where it seems like the voters of the democrats it 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 gonna run independently but it's like 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 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 like what when you when you're working you know internally when you're having these conversations.

1:14:23Is 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 like, 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 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.

1:14:59What 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 about, 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.

1:15:54And 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 where all the democrats meet and 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 the 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.

1:16:38So like, give me something where you go like, oh, I agree with that. Yeah. So I think, uh, I mean, first of all, just the, the focus on affordability, like we have to prioritize that and make sure that, that you can afford to live in this city. Makes a ton of sense. I think the stuff he's talked about, uh, getting, uh, 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, uh, uh, 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 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 what so you see this is what i'm intrigued but what is it about that i'd love to know because there are sets of things that should be done by government um and then there are things that i think should be done by the private sector Okay.

1:17:31And 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 division of labor. I don't think the federal government could ever design and sell a smartphone that you and I would want to buy. 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 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 there's some reason to think that it will only work if government leans in.

1:18:45I 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, we call 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.

1:19:20Some 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?

1:20:09Where there are 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, 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 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.

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1:21:59it's funny i i 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're trying to make as much money as possible.

1:22:46You'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 you know i've seen your 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 and what we said earlier, they've become bloated, they've become slow, they've become corrupt, etc.

1:23:20But 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 in south africa and in in southern africa uh mpesa 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 right 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 else 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.

1:25:05They 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 UN, 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 pay to connect to the internet? It's a private company.

1:25:41And 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.

1:26:14But 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 store owners yeah you as eugene own a 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 the purchasing power the purchasing power but also the power 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 gonna buy drugs from pharmaceutical companies they can't come in with the same like oh your insulin costs No, the government goes like, what are you doing?

1:26:58And that's what I mean by like the feasibility. I think sometimes we might think of it as can the 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. And maybe I think you and I might read the grocery case differently because I'm just thinking about so much of the business is about engaging like all of these.

1:27:26different suppliers to get all 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. 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. I think Chattanooga was the first place to do it. And it turns out even just the existing isps there's prices magically come down that's what i'm talking about that they threat they they face some kind of competition right but that's because there's that local monopoly no no no then we are no no then i think we are closer so yeah i'm not saying 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 yeah you really just cannot expect market forces to do much good right versus the ones where you we have more experience with like competition driving prices down and you know um like i found it wild that during covid the government couldn't pay people in america into their bank accounts that was that was just wild to discover about america i was like 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 you know 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 seems like pretty basic thing most people in most developed countries can do this you go you file your taxes south africa you can file your own taxes yeah 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 as the middleman yeah who figured out how to block getting that done right and they're having their way in this administration so yeah i'm i'm not going to be the person to say that like 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 different no i understand what you're saying i think you clarified it let's talk a little bit about um the world the geopolitics and as we wrap this up i want to i want to know where you see yourself moving in the future as you know pete looks at the future of america and 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 on like a blacklist brazil's 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 sort.

1:30:06When 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 how do you think it affects the world in a way that 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 sometime.

1:30:57This emerged out of the power dynamics and the values that were most prominent or had their greatest moment of primacy immediately after World War II. Mm-hmm. Right? And the last of the people who experienced World War II as adults are passing out of this world right now. We're just in a very different world. 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.

1:31:40I 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 matters, 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.

1:32:29I think that's the most credible thing about what we did do when 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. um 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 yeah 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 won't ask you like sort of what you would do there's policy and things change and whatever what i'm what i'm what i found 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 like 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.

1:34:19You 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 cast aside all of its values.

1:34:53You 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 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 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 yeah it's not like america was like we're gonna help you no when when apartheid was fully in like in full force america was like yep 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 this is not like a Trump or anything.

1:36:05The Clinton administration gave out thousands of visas to white South Africans. Only. Only. To help them escape, I 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 because see what you did there no but i mean like i think i think of it in in all of these instances i 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 a different 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 but i wonder if there's like a misalignment there between how america portrays itself and how america how america acts in in the world you know like even world war ii is an example america for a long time was like ah man that's none of our business right that's none of our business yeah people were like yeah but these 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 let's 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?

1:37:57I think not because we're Americans, but because we're a 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.

1:38:34All 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 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 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.

1:39:26I 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. 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. It also shaped my life because I ended 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 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.

1:40:27I would like to believe if we 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 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.

1:41:10Yeah, because 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 host 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 if you if you are in power if you're a leader in 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?

1:42:26You know, like how far would Israel have to go for you as a president to say, I can't say that you are 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 next. 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 it, we are the most important country to that country.

1:43:05Yes. We are the most important country to Israel. 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 US 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 you want to call it, there's going to be more than pretty please. We are going to find ways to shape your behavior.

1:43:45I think that's what leadership needs to do. And I don't know who the next leader in the US 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 want it annihilated is not annihilated.

1:44:30and 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 yeah and we're going to think of more than just uh saying this is unfortunate 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 you know 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 any 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 better idea i found it particularly interesting that a lot of the language the u.s uses now with israel is similar to the language it 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 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 i that's something that i think and that's where 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 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 the wrong phrase but how do you make sense of that disconnect?

1:46:48Is 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? I'm saying you're the collective. Well, look, I think part of it is 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's military capabilities, whether we're talking about Hezbollah, right?

1:47:44So 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 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, this was not like a theoretical thing. Now, I'd say even today, it's not a theoretical thing, but it's obviously more offstage because of the power that Israel has exerted to not only defend itself, 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.

1:48:33It'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 things 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. Because it turns the relationship into to 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.

1:49:23That's the thing. So many, and this is the ultimate example of it, but so many things, international relations in here at home are freighted with layer upon layer that if I mentioned this and say, okay, but what about that and if it's that 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 uh 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?

1:50:02And 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 um i won't ask you if you're going to run for president because i've learned in america you will 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 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 budaj the mayor pete budaj the secretary of transportation and then we meet pete budaj 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 is there anything that's shifted you is anything that's changed your perspective slightly and and what would that thing be and and how would it change the path that you would pursue because we all change something changes us along the way i'd love to know you know now you've been in an administration for instance yeah um 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.

1:51:57But 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, that's authoritarian or that's fascist, like we, you know, um, everybody's like paralyzed by that.

1:52:46We're 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.

1:53:02I think that the other thing I would 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 the financial picture, which is not as sexy to talk about fiscal policy, but I think sooner or later will require us to completely redesign our tax code as a country. Which is 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.

1:53:47There's a sense of more fairness. But I guess what I'm getting at more than saying like, oh, I think this like border policy, 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 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 uh 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, Sanaz Yamin, and Jess Hackle.

1:54:44Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random Other Stuff by Ryan Parduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now?

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