Pete Buttigieg Wants to Make America Not Suck... Again?

Summary

Summary of "Pete Buttigieg Wants to Make America Not Suck... Again?"

Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know
Episode: Pete Buttigieg Wants to Make America Not Suck... Again?
Release Date: October 30, 2024

In this engaging episode of Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know, host Hasan Minhaj sits down with Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. Transportation Secretary, to discuss a wide range of topics from America's infrastructure challenges to the interplay between government initiatives and private sector innovation. The conversation offers deep insights into Buttigieg's vision for transforming American transportation and the broader societal implications of these efforts.

1. Ambitions for American Infrastructure

Hasan Minhaj begins by probing Buttigieg about his efforts to utilize government resources for significant projects.

• [00:04-00:12] Hasan: “You've overseen some pretty big incredible projects, and I feel like you're trying to use the government to do big things. Is this correct?”
• [00:10-00:12] Buttigieg: “Yeah. I mean, small things, too, that are.”

Hasan interprets Buttigieg's response as an attempt to "make America great again" through the infrastructure bill.

• [00:28-00:40] Buttigieg: “Uh, we're trying to make great American things again. I'm not big on. Again. I don't love looking for greatness in the past.”

Buttigieg clarifies that the focus is on creating new greatness rather than reverting to past achievements, emphasizing a forward-looking approach to infrastructure development.

2. The Cost of Subway Construction in the U.S.

A significant portion of the discussion delves into the prohibitive costs of building subway tunnels in America compared to other nations.

• [04:36-05:27] Buttigieg: “When I saw the condition of the Hudson River tunnels that link New York to New Jersey that were in bad shape before, and then Superstorm Sandy accelerated the damage to them... We looked this up... It was insane.”

Buttigieg highlights the staggering expenses associated with subway projects, citing examples like the 7 train extension to Hudson Yards costing $1.5 billion per mile and the Second Avenue Subway at $2.5 billion per mile.

• [05:28-05:38] Hasan: “Manhattan's 13 miles. Second Avenue subway cost $2.5 billion per mile. $40,000 per inch.”

3. Balancing Government and Private Sector Roles

The conversation shifts to the roles of government and the private sector in fostering innovation and infrastructure development.

• [07:19-07:50] Buttigieg: “What are the things that are best handled by the government allocating capital, and what are the things that are best handled by the private sector... the Internet was literally invented by the federal government and the private sector never could have developed something like the Internet itself.”

Buttigieg emphasizes the necessity of a strategic partnership where the government funds foundational projects like the Internet, which the private sector can then build upon to create products like smartphones.

4. High-Speed Rail Projects and Challenges

Buttigieg addresses the ambitious plans for high-speed rail in the United States, acknowledging both progress and obstacles.

• [08:24-12:02] Buttigieg: “We're working with private sector players who have built good rail on American soil... aiming to be done in 2028... We're doing the Las Vegas to LA... projects being discussed in Texas, Dallas to Houston, in the Pacific Northwest..."

Hasan introduces the concept of "high speed rail porn," referring to the idealized visions of high-speed trains, to which Buttigieg responds by outlining the realistic steps and timelines necessary to achieve such infrastructure.

5. Transportation Safety and Autonomous Vehicles

A critical part of the discussion focuses on transportation safety and the potential of autonomous vehicles to reduce fatalities.

• [20:03-22:09] Buttigieg: “We've achieved something as a country over the last few decades in aviation safety that I only wish were true on something like vehicle safety... We're pretty close to an event horizon where at least for a personal vehicle... that would be a huge development that will... potentially, over time, hundreds of thousands just in our lifetime.”

Buttigieg draws parallels between aviation safety and vehicle safety, advocating for the adoption of autonomous driving technologies to save lives, while also addressing public acceptance challenges.

6. Impact of Project 2025 on Transportation

The conversation turns to Project 2025, a policy agenda with significant implications for transportation and infrastructure.

• [25:11-26:02] Buttigieg: “They would pretty much get rid of all discretionary grants out of the Department of Transportation... getting rid of it would mean that so many of the best projects that we're doing in America right now wouldn't be happening.”

Buttigieg expresses concern over how Project 2025 could impede crucial infrastructure projects by eliminating the funding mechanisms necessary for their continuation and expansion.

7. Long-Term Vision vs. Political Cycles

Buttigieg reflects on the tension between long-term infrastructure planning and the short-term focus of political elections.

• [27:38-28:28] Buttigieg: “Public policy is a long game... the stuff you're building... decisions of people for good and for ill... infrastructure work compels you to understand that public policy is a long game.”

He underscores the importance of durable, forward-thinking policies that ensure sustainable infrastructure growth beyond individual election cycles.

8. Attempt at Downtime

In a humorous closing segment, Hasan attempts to gift Buttigieg two minutes of uninterrupted downtime, which Buttigieg humorously fails to comply with due to his busy schedule.

• [28:44-30:31]
  • Hasan: “I want to give you something that is long overdue... Just 120 seconds of being.”
  • Buttigieg: “Wow... I can't do it. There's too many things going on.”

This lighthearted exchange concludes the episode on a playful note, highlighting the demanding nature of Buttigieg's role.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Buttigieg on Infrastructure Funding: “Uh, we're trying to make great American things again.” ([00:28])

• Buttigieg on Subway Costs: “We looked this up... It was insane.” ([05:27])

• Buttigieg on Government vs. Private Sector: “The Internet was literally invented by the federal government...” ([07:50])

• Buttigieg on High-Speed Rail: “It's gonna happen probably.” ([08:45])

• Buttigieg on Transportation Safety: “We're pretty close to an event horizon...” ([20:03])

• Buttigieg on Project 2025: “So many of the best projects that we're doing in America right now wouldn't be happening.” ([25:11])

• Buttigieg on Long-Term Vision: “Public policy is a long game...” ([27:38])

Conclusions and Insights

The episode provides a comprehensive look into the complexities of modernizing America's transportation infrastructure. Pete Buttigieg articulates a clear vision for leveraging government support to enable massive infrastructure projects, while also emphasizing the essential role of private sector innovation. He candidly addresses the financial and logistical challenges inherent in such endeavors, offering transparency about the costs and timelines involved.

Buttigieg also highlights the critical importance of transportation safety and the transformative potential of autonomous vehicles. His insights into Project 2025 reveal deep concerns about how political agendas can undermine long-term infrastructure goals, stressing the need for policies that transcend partisan divides to achieve sustainable progress.

Overall, the conversation paints a picture of a nation grappling with how to modernize its infrastructure in a way that is both ambitious and pragmatic, balancing immediate needs with future aspirations. Hasan Minhaj's probing questions elicit thoughtful and honest responses from Buttigieg, making this episode a valuable resource for understanding the current state and future direction of American transportation policy.

Transcript

[Host]

This episode is brought to you by Simplisafe. There's no safe like Simplisafe.

[Interviewee]

You've overseen some pretty big incredible projects, and I feel like you're trying to use the government to do big things. Is this correct?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah.

[Interviewee]

Okay.

[Pete Buttigieg]

I mean, small things, too, that are.

[Interviewee]

Good, but great things. Big, great things. You're trying to do great things again. So if I'm hearing this right, this infrastructure bill is trying to make America great again.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Uh, we're trying to make great American things again. I'm not big on. Again.

[Interviewee]

A return to greatness.

[Pete Buttigieg]

I don't love looking for greatness in the past.

[Interviewee]

Part two, the Return. More great, better, stronger, and greater. I mean, again, back in 2020, every.

[Host]

Brooklyn millennial I knew was dunking on Pete Buttigieg for being a teacher's pet. McKinsey, try hard. Who made his volunteers do this dorky ass dance.

[Interviewee]

What? 2024 peepu to judge.

[Host]

Dare I say Pete 2.024. Oh, he is meeting the moment. He has become the Democrats messaging messiah. Putting in so much camera time, my man is basically a twitch streamer. So I grabbed a little bit of that screen time myself to talk with Secretary Buttigieg about high speed rail porn, SpaceX, and why a mile of subway tunnel costs 10 times more than a Marvel movie. I also gave him something he hasn't given himself. 120 seconds of quiet, uninterrupted peak time.

[Interviewee]

Fuck you doing? Ladies and gentlemen, Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Thanks for coming with me, Shaz. In front of the ribbon.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Very good.

[Interviewee]

Yep. Three, two, one.

[Pete Buttigieg]

There we go.

[Interviewee]

Go to camera and say how good this podcast is gonna be for the American people.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Do you want the novelty scissors back? Yeah. Okay.

[Interviewee]

It feels like you're on a press blitz run right now, but then you're also dealing with, like, real stuff. Hurricanes negotiating with dock workers.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yep.

[Interviewee]

You're also married, you have two children.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yes.

[Interviewee]

How do you have time to do life stuff?

[Pete Buttigieg]

I have a husband who makes sure that time for the family is protected. I'd like to say I do that too, but he's definitely somebody who holds me accountable to that.

[Interviewee]

Do you skip washing legs? Uh, like in the shower?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Like, my legs.

[Interviewee]

Your. Your legs?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Uh, like quick, quick. That would be the first place I'd look for time saving.

[Interviewee]

Cause my thing is every other day.

[Pete Buttigieg]

I mean, I guess the soap is gonna run down there anyway, so it's gonna be clean.

[Interviewee]

Bingo.

[Pete Buttigieg]

I take the point.

[Interviewee]

Face, pits, cracks, triage, everything else.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Probably the right sequence. Yeah.

[Interviewee]

There's no way. Secretary Buttigieg is like getting in the shins. No way. No way. You have been Transportation Secretary for three years now.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah.

[Interviewee]

I want to play a game with you. Okay. It's called what country is this? What country is this? I'm going to show you photos of transportation infrastructure, and you guess what country this is.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Okay.

[Interviewee]

Okay, first one. What country is this?

[Pete Buttigieg]

I'm going to go uae, Dubai.

[Interviewee]

Correct. This is a subway station in Dubai. Okay. Airport.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Singapore.

[Interviewee]

Bingo. They have a straight up rainforest in the Singapore Airport. Okay.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah, that. That looks like one of ours. Yeah.

[Interviewee]

No, no, this is Bosnia in Herzegovina.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Okay. Okay. So not. Not where I come from.

[Interviewee]

Okay.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Because we got a couple like that.

[Interviewee]

You got a couple like this? Yeah.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah.

[Interviewee]

Cause I knew you were gonna think like. Is this Pittsburgh?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah. Okay. Bosnia, huh? Yay.

[Interviewee]

I wanna know how America went from a world leader in infrastructure and it really was this beacon of innovation and execution to now there are roads and freeways that look like the former Yugoslavia.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Well, you get what you pay for, right? So we went 30 or 40 years without really funding our infrastructure the way we need to. Everybody knew we should. Leaders from both parties said we ought to.

[Interviewee]

Yes.

[Pete Buttigieg]

The last president said that he would, and it never actually happened. It's a pretty straightforward cause and effect. I'm not saying all you need is funding, but if you don't have enough funding, you're not gonna have good enough infrastructure, especially if you're growing a lot. And obviously the US Went through a lot of growth and we didn't really invest to keep up with that. And I think that was part of also kind of a culture shift that started in the Reagan years where we didn't really invest just in shared things, common things, public things like transportation, assets.

[Interviewee]

Was there any simple factor statistic that you saw going into the job or getting the job that truly shocked you, that made you go, oh, yeah, holy shit, this is much worse than I thought.

[Pete Buttigieg]

When I saw the condition of the Hudson river tunnels that link New York to New Jersey that were in bad shape before, and then Superstorm Sandy accelerated the damage to them.

[Interviewee]

Yeah.

[Pete Buttigieg]

And found out that it represented basically the finest engineering of the Roosevelt, the Teddy Roosevelt administration. That's how long we'd had them, like 100 years. And then saw how much it was going to cost to do something about it and how long it would take even if we got the money, which we finally did. But it's still going to take into the2030s to complete that project, like, well into the2030s. You just. It's. And then, you know, you learn all the reasons why. That's true. But it's shocking when you learn how much it costs to build 1 mile of subway in our large. We looked this up.

[Interviewee]

It was insane.

[Pete Buttigieg]

And higher than it is in a lot of other countries, which is something we're working on.

[Interviewee]

Yeah. Just here in New York, the extension of the 7 train to Hudson Yards, $1.5 billion per mile. Per mile?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yep.

[Interviewee]

Manhattan's 13 miles. Okay. Second Avenue subway cost $2.5 billion per mile. $40,000 per inch. The East Side Access Tunnel costs about $3.5 billion per mile. Jeff Bezos, only worth about 50 miles of tunnel. Doesn't even get you to Philly.

[Pete Buttigieg]

I hadn't thought of it that way, but yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[Interviewee]

Do you ever get sticker shock? Are you like, is James Cameron directing this?

[Pete Buttigieg]

So the question obviously is, like, okay, what does it take to get that down?

[Interviewee]

Yes.

[Pete Buttigieg]

And why is it the way it is? Right. And there's all kinds of reasons. I mean, part of why, for example, Second Avenue subway in New York is that it involves building around some of the most complicated and expensive real estate in the world. Right. So you could build that much subway line physically right in the middle of South Dakota, and it would not cost anything like that. It's not the cost of boring. The tunnel's actually already there. That's putting in the stations and buying and potentially tearing down buildings that are expensive. It's kind of those kinds of things. But there are some bigger structural things that I think we need to work on. We don't actually directly build Anything in the U.S. department of Transportation federally. We don't build the roads or the highways or the subways.

[Interviewee]

We fund states and cities.

[Pete Buttigieg]

It could be a state. It could be an entity like the mta. Right. A transit authority. It could be an airport. It could be a city. But we're working through a lot of those layers, and sometimes there are so many of those layers or so many parties are at the table, and they have competing politics, and they have competing priorities.

[Interviewee]

Do you think the government can effectively allocate this money? I mean, I'm just speaking for me as a voter and as a citizen.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Well, I think what we gotta figure out is what are the things that are best handled by the government allocating capital, and what are the things that are best handled by the private sector doing it? And I would take an analysis analogy from a different field, which is tech. Right. So in tech, consider the iPhone. I don't Think the federal government could have ever invented and manufactured an iPhone? I definitely would not want a smartphone invented by. I can just imagine that it would not be very elegantly designed. Right.

[Interviewee]

Should the smartphone brought to you by the DMV or something like that?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Only the private sector could create something like that.

[Interviewee]

Got it.

[Pete Buttigieg]

But the Internet was literally invented by the federal government and the private sector never could have developed something like the Internet itself. Sometimes a trillion dollar idea like nuclear fission or the Internet can only come about through publicly funded research. And then the multibillion dollar ideas like a smartphone are built on top of that. Right, Right. So I think similarly in the transportation infrastructure side, there's always a give and take between the things that industry should do and the things that the government has to do.

[Interviewee]

Can you give me a specific example of that?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah, I'll give you two. So, one, I think we are finally close to experiencing true high speed rail on American soil. We have funded a project that will connect Nevada to Southern California.

[Interviewee]

Secretary Puttigen, I mean, I'm not one to fact check, but I'm telling you this is not.

[Pete Buttigieg]

It's gonna happen. I'm telling you it's gonna happen.

[Interviewee]

I do not believe you.

[Pete Buttigieg]

It is.

[Interviewee]

And I'm not gonna be dishonest. I have such respect for your team and like for your office, but I'm telling you, I couldn't even hold a straight face.

[Pete Buttigieg]

It's going to happen probably. So a lot of things have to go right. But here's my point. We're working with private sector players who have built good rail on American soil. We're partnering with them to fund a line that will connect Nevada to Southern California that is aiming to be done in 2028 that they couldn't do on their own without federal support. And the second thing I would point to is EV charges. So we have federal funding that we're doing partly through the states, partly on our own that by the end of this decade will bring a lot of chargers online to help meet the President's goal of having half a million by the end of the decade. That's another example where we're not taking on board getting all the charges done. Private sector is going to do a ton of that. But we also know that there will be critical gaps in the network. So there really won't be.

[Interviewee]

The fundamentals are not profitable that the government has to come in or they're not profitable yet.

[Pete Buttigieg]

That's where we. By the way, this has happened before. Aviation, like the US Aviation system really wouldn't have worked if there hadn't been a lot of new deal public investments in getting a lot of airports up and running so that you had enough of a hub and spoke system so that airlines could function.

[Host]

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[Interviewee]

I don't know if you've seen this. This is a meme that's been floating around the Internet. Okay. This is a high speed.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah.

[Interviewee]

Okay.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah.

[Interviewee]

This is pornography for transportation. It is a dream. It is a fantasy. People have said it's creating unrealistic expectations for the youth, but it's all over the Internet and we have to deal with this. Please tell us what we need to do to make this a reality.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah, I mean, look, this is what we're working on, right? It's not going to be a network overnight. I mean, the way you do this is you start putting in the pieces. We're doing the Las Vegas to la. We're doing another north south one in California. It's going to take longer, but we've invested a lot in that. There are projects being discussed in Texas, Dallas to Houston, in the Pacific Northwest and in several other locations where there's a lot more work to be done.

[Interviewee]

You know my pitch how this would get done overnight? Just like this.

[Pete Buttigieg]

What's that say?

[Interviewee]

We're using trains for war. It could get done overnight if we fought wars with trains. If you want to stop the terrorists, we got to build this train. You tap in the military industrial complex.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Woo.

[Interviewee]

Hyperloop would have happened. Trains for war.

[Pete Buttigieg]

I could try it in Congress.

[Interviewee]

Just say, if we don't do this, the terrorists win.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Next time I'm testifying in the House, I'll say that.

[Interviewee]

What makes that meme so sad is there's actually a feeling that we feel like we don't deserve it. It seems like such a pipe dream that as a society we don't deserve it. And there was this quote, very famous Margaret Thatcher quote that I think about deeply. And obviously Thatcher and Reagan were two peas in a pod. She says, quote, there is no such thing as a society. There is only individuals and families. To me it feels like we're living inside of that quote. All the things that you mentioned, ev charging, high speed railroad, affordable railroad, all of these things are part of a greater society. And what has happened with the American dream is that it's kind of ossified and corroded. So it's all about radical individualism. And is there a guiding principle that is a counter to that kind of nihilistic worldview?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Look, the problem with that, it's kind of self fulfilling, right? If you come in with that worldview and you start undermining the ability of public institutions to deliver, then people notice that their institutions aren't delivering, probably because they've been starved for resources. And then they become cynical about those institutions and then they become unwilling to vote to have those institutions have enough resources to deliver. It's a spiral, right? But there's an equal and opposite virtuous cycle you can get going. Of course we live in a society. The moment you step on the subway, you know you're in a society because you are having a common experience with people who you don't know and who have radically different backgrounds than you, going to similar geographic places to do different social or economic things. Whatever everybody is going about their day, whatever you're doing, going to work, going to church, going to meet a friend. And that's true if you're in a big city on a subway. But it's True. If you're on a bike path in rural Michigan, where I live, transportation, very literally, but also, like, symbolic or connects us. Right. And it reminds us of the fact that our experiences are not just things that happen in isolation. Like, we travel together with total strangers all the time, whether it's on a subway or on a freeway or on a sidewalk. And our individuals and our individual families interact with each other in our culture, in our society, in our economy, and definitely in our transformation.

[Interviewee]

Do you think there's an incentive for it? Say libraries didn't exist? Try pitching the idea of a library in 2024 to any company. They go, this is not profitable. How could we have this be in every. And they get to keep the books forever. And anyone can use it, and just people can use the Internet there. And who's paying for this? Why are we doing this? It wouldn't exist. It simply wouldn't exist. But to me, those are these little moments, the train, the library, where you're like, no, we are part of something greater, a greater collective that's beneficial to everybody.

[Pete Buttigieg]

So there is this kind of instrumental thing where if we take care of shared things and get them right, whether we're talking about national security or whether we're talking about drinking water or whether we're talking about transportation, that helps you. But also, when you start talking about things like libraries, we're also talking about not just something that is useful to us as individuals and as families, but also something that helps speak to the purpose of everything else. Right. Like, I think it was John Adams who had this quote about, I must study politics and war so that my sons may be at liberty to study things like literature and history. I'm not saying, oh, wow, John Adams.

[Interviewee]

Thought his kids were going to become improvisers in one generation and be like screenwriters.

[Pete Buttigieg]

No, the quote actually goes two generations deep. By the end, they were into stuff like porcelain, which I guess is like one of the fine arts you would study back then.

[Interviewee]

Gotcha.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Obviously, it didn't quite work out that way generationally. But the point is, the more we take care of that in our generation, the more, like, a future generation gets to focus on, like, things that are like, a higher calling, including culture and thinking literature, you know, the kinds of things that libraries thought totally.

[Interviewee]

When you look at history, was there an innovative spirit within the government in the mid 20th century? Whereas for me, it feels like right now in the 21st century, it starts from the private sector leading the way in terms of innovation, and government has to slowly keep up that's kind of the brand.

[Pete Buttigieg]

That's the thing. That's the brand. Right. Is the private sector does the clever thinking and the government kind of plods along. I would say it's more understanding which pieces each sector does better. I mean, again, the literal invention of the Internet, typically what happens is those things mature and then the private sector can do more with them. Space program is another example. Right. Commercial space activity is one of the biggest growth areas that our department is, is dealing with now. And it's great that there's commercial players doing more and more of that, but that never could have happened if you didn't first have a federal program.

[Interviewee]

There's this thing that when you get interviewed, a lot of people are, well, how much time is it going to take? And you keep saying, listen, guys, it's going to take time. Are we doing anything to try to build faster in America? 1, and then number two, how should voters and the public realistically look at how long it's going to take?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah. So this is one of my favorite subjects. I'll try to be concise about it.

[Interviewee]

Yes.

[Pete Buttigieg]

But part of it is, what are we, as a traveling public, willing to accept? So, for example, I've had a lot of conversations with my German counterpart. They're doing a massive rail upgrade in Germany that will expand capacity. They've needed to do it for a long time. They've made the difficult decision to do it more quickly by having service go completely offline for certain parts of their rail system. You just got to take a bus for a while.

[Interviewee]

Oh, wow.

[Pete Buttigieg]

It's just literally not there. Got it. And over the course of about five months, they're going to do what otherwise might have taken years. I just don't think that would work. There'd be a mutiny in this country. There'd be mutiny. But I do think we should ask ourselves, okay, what level of disruption are we willing to take in order to have a project go more quickly, in order to have it go more efficiently? We're never going to do it like China. To be clear, the reason they can build so quickly in China is, first of all, very different labor conditions. And secondly, if Xi Jinping wants to build a railroad or a road through your house and you don't want it there, too bad. Right? We don't do that. We have done that, by the way, in the US what has happened historically is that things were built, and usually they were built through whatever community or neighborhood had the least power to resist or reshape that plan.

[Interviewee]

Right.

[Pete Buttigieg]

The fact that we're not doing that, which is a good thing. Right. The fact that we take account of communities does mean you have to take more time to figure out how to get it right and do those trade offs.

[Interviewee]

So don't you feel like a little espresso shot of dictatorship would help us though, a little bit? And by the way, your espresso shot.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Of just a little.

[Interviewee]

And I'm not talking about full on capital dictator, but I'm talking about a benevolent dictator like a Lee Kuan yew like Singapore 1959-1990. What a run. Yeah, what a run.

[Pete Buttigieg]

I would say any kind of dictators just not going to be our speed.

[Interviewee]

I want to pivot to elon Musk and SpaceX. SpaceX, fun fact actually falls under your purview with the FAA. As we've seen in our lifetime, SpaceX has been a step function when it comes to space and satellite innovation, no doubt about it. Is it safe to say that it is working from a cost efficiency and results standpoint?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Well, I think they're working as a business, obviously. But our job isn't to sit there and say like, is your business efficient or not? Right. Our job is mainly to make sure that it's safe.

[Interviewee]

Got it.

[Pete Buttigieg]

So whether we are regulating Boeing or.

[Interviewee]

SpaceX or Boeing's an example of it not working, in my opinion, that's where I'm going.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Well, yes and no. Right. So obviously profound problems at Boeing, but we also see those problems because we have such an intense level of scrutiny and expectation. Anytime you have a breakdown like that, you have to look at how regulation should have been done better as well as the behavior of that company. But my overall point is we've achieved something as a country over the last few decades in aviation safety that I only wish were true on something like vehicle safety. And what I mean by that is enough people to fill a Boeing 737 died today on our roads and it happened yesterday and it's going to happen again tomorrow. It doesn't even get a headline.

[Interviewee]

Wow.

[Pete Buttigieg]

We got a 3 or 4% improvement over the last year. That's off of 40,000 a year. But we don't have the same culture that we do around commercial aviation where the only level of crash fatalities we're going to tolerate any given year is zero. So when we said zero is the goal for vehicle safety, we got torn apart by columnists saying this is like an absurd pie in the sky goal. And I'm thinking if we can have in a typical year hundreds of millions of People get on an airplane, fly through the air at nearly the speed of sound, miles above the ground, propelled by the way, by flammable liquids the whole way. Right.

[Interviewee]

It's wild.

[Pete Buttigieg]

And arrive safely. Surely we can do that in other modes of transportation. Now this brings me to SpaceX or any commercial space in general. Right. This is a much newer thing for the FAA to be dealing with than commercial aviation, which has existed in some form for about 100 years. Right. And we used to license like maybe one launch a month and now it's more like one a week and it's getting faster and faster. And I'm not just talking about space tourism, I'm talking about these satellites.

[Interviewee]

Yeah, the satellites and the renewable. You're talking about the renewable rockets as well. That Falcon 9 launch.

[Pete Buttigieg]

So let's be clear, these are fascinating and extremely impressive achievements.

[Interviewee]

Yes.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Our job is to make sure that they're safe. In order to get to space, you have to go through the national airspace, which is the most complicated commercial airspace in the world, the US national airspace, with 40,000 FAA guided flight operations going on any given day. Right.

[Interviewee]

Am I thinking about this the right way? Where I feel like innovation this way vis a vis SpaceX, Falcon, all the Falcon launches the innovation this way vertically from ground to sky has been unbelievable over the past 20 years. But innovation this way, laterally, just in terms of high speed trains and super high speed trains, has somewhat stagnated. Am I thinking about this the right, am I seeing it the right way?

[Pete Buttigieg]

I don't disagree. I think there are some very important innovations happening on Surface. The most important, even though it's not happening quite as fast as was hoped, it's still happening, is the AI function of driving. Right. Because we're pretty close to an event horizon where at least for a personal vehicle, where the robot's probably a better driver than you are or than I am, that's probably already true. Or we're very close to it.

[Interviewee]

Yeah. My brother in law did a ride in San Francisco. They have this and he does the full ride with his kids. With his children. And I'm like, you're crazy. He's like, I'm telling you, I'm not.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Remember, the average driver thinks they're better than the, the average driver. Right. So we all are more comfortable if we think we're in control. My point is, given the murderous track record of human drivers killing about 40,000 people a year, if we actually get through that event horizon, that is a huge development that will literally, if you just run out the Numbers mean potentially, over time, hundreds of thousands just in our lifetime.

[Interviewee]

Yeah, I know.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Hundreds of thousands of.

[Host]

Prevented what you're saying.

[Interviewee]

Logically. Totally right, Secretary, but. And you are a very logical person. But there's something about. I can accept vehicular manslaughter because Tyler had one too many and he ran me over, but there's something profoundly evil about a robot doing it.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah, that's the problem.

[Interviewee]

That makes it, like, unacceptable. This shall not happen.

[Pete Buttigieg]

This is a real issue. So, I mean, first of all, we got to be very conservative about this because it is new technology, and we don't want bad things to happen, but doubly so, because public acceptance, even if it's four times safer than a human driver, sure. We wouldn't really accept robots killing 10,000 people a year, even if human beings are killing 40,000 US drivers.

[Interviewee]

That's a wild thing.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Anyway, my point is, I know that's not as sexy as, like, going to Mars, but in terms of the human lives at stake, I would argue that's maybe a bigger and more important leap.

[Interviewee]

Let's talk about Project 2025, the no nut November of government policy. Among other things, it proposes to ban pornography, restrict abortion, eliminate the Department of Education, end student loan forgiveness, roll back LGBTQ rights, promote oil and gas. What aspects of Project 2025 would impact the Department of Transportation?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Well, if I understand the proposals correctly, among other things, they would pretty much get rid of all discretionary grants out of the Department of Transportation. That's the part of our infrastructure funding where we go through applications from communities saying, we want to build this new bridge. It's going to help connect a community that's not been connected. Or we want to do a resilience project to move our port above, higher, above sea level, sea levels rising, or we want to put in a bike lane, or you name it, like, all kinds of wildly important projects that we do, and this would just get rid of it. And if congressional Republicans were to go that path, which I think has been laid out in this policy document in Project 2025, so many of the best projects that we're doing in America right now wouldn't be happening.

[Interviewee]

Right.

[Pete Buttigieg]

And the thing that kills me is even the members of Congress who voted no on creating these programs are very enthusiastic on using those programs to benefit their communities. So, you know, the projects they're funding are good projects.

[Interviewee]

Yeah, right.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Because they do press release. They do letters to me saying, pick this project. They do press releases. If I do, I don't know. I think it's wildly out of the mainstream of what most Americans, regardless of what party you belong to, expect from our transportation policy.

[Interviewee]

Do you also feel a frustration, the fact that just depending on the way party structure works, that all of this momentum could be for naught?

[Pete Buttigieg]

Sure, yeah.

[Interviewee]

At the turn of an election.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah, of course. Although we try to do. We try to make things durable. Right. Like good projects, get them underway. But my point is something like the child tax credit.

[Interviewee]

Yeah.

[Pete Buttigieg]

They passed a child tax credit and the next year child poverty was down by like half. Because it's a tax policy, It's a stroke of a pen. People's economic circumstances change. It just happens. Whereas getting the results on the stuff we're talking about, the individual projects, let alone the network effects, like getting the ball rolling on high speed rail or having a truly built out EV charging network, which really to do at the scale that we want to do, that the President wants us to do, is at the end of the decade, kind of at the soonest. Right. To really be fully articulated. So that's a frustration on one hand. On the other hand, it creates a discipline that I think is really helpful. Because so often in politics and public policy, you're thinking about basically four years up to four years. Right. And if you don't see some kind of reward for doing something in four years, politics would tell you it's not worth doing two years for a lot of people.

[Interviewee]

Sure, Right. Long term thinking is not incentivized when you have two to four years.

[Pete Buttigieg]

But I live in a long term world. Right. Like if we get it right or if we screw it up on something like how a bridge ought to be built or where a new deepwater port might belong, people will be living with that in the 2100s, which I hope and expect my kids will live to see. Right now we're living with decisions of people for good and for ill. People now are living with decisions that were made 40, 60, 80 years ago. And we're making those decisions so rightly understood. Doing infrastructure work compels you to understand that public policy is a long game. Because the stuff you're building, the things you get right and the things you don't get right will play out in a way that people will be able to look back on and physically see.

[Interviewee]

Sure.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Like point to when you walk to.

[Interviewee]

Grand Central or when you look up.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah.

[Interviewee]

Like, wow, 30 years from now, by the way. That's. That's a moment when I walk through Grand Central, I feel like I'm part of a society. I can't look up.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Yeah.

[Interviewee]

Whereas when I take a bus or I'm on the subway, I can't help but just look down. I'm like, don't look up. You will get stabbed.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Still part of a society.

[Interviewee]

I want to end by giving you a gift. Okay. I want to give you something that is long overdue. Two minutes of downtime. No hurricanes, no bridge collapses. Nobody tweeting you about flight delays. Just 120 seconds.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Wow.

[Interviewee]

Of being. I'm gonna light the scented candle here. I'm gonna start with just two minutes of. Just no talking. Cause I know you have to run to another appearance.

[Host]

Jason Tatum begins defense.

[Pete Buttigieg]

I can't do it. I can't.

[Interviewee]

Are you serious?

[Pete Buttigieg]

There's too many things going on.

[Interviewee]

You lost a minute and 20 seconds.

[Pete Buttigieg]

If I'm awake.

[Interviewee]

Oh, my goodness. Grace, you couldn't.

[Pete Buttigieg]

There's too many things going on.

[Interviewee]

Secretary Buttigieg, thank you so much.

[Pete Buttigieg]

Cheers.

[Interviewee]

Thank you.