Secretary Pete Buttigieg Talks Infrastructure Bill Updates, Flight Delays, Inflation + More

That's right, well, Secretary Pete, thank you for joining us this morning. Thanks for having me on. How are you man? Pretty good in New York? Absolutely too. I mean, this is a really exciting time for the work we're doing. So how do you like the position? You know, since you started, how has it been for you? Stressful and non stressful? All gray hair tell us about it? Definitely more gray. I mean what I say is it's it's the best time but also one of the toughest times

for transportation. It's the best time because we're making investments that we haven't been able to do in my lifetime. The funding that's in the infrastructure package, So there's in my view, there's never been a better time to be in charge of transportation policy, and there's not a better

job to have in the federal government. The other side of the coin is we've actually been through more disruptions to the transportation system in the last couple of years than at any time, with the partial exception of nine to eleven, than any time since World War Two. We've had container shipping issues, We've had cancelations and delays in our airports. We've had a number of disruptions everything from

trucking and supply chains to passenger travel. But we've been working through those and the causes of those are mostly temporary. Most of it have something to do with the pandemic. So as we're tackling those issues, the investments that we're making, the repairs that we're making, the improvements that we're making to the transportation system, that's permanent. So the reasons that the job has been demanding are I think less enduring than the reasons to be really excited about about the work.

I love the job. It's definitely a complicated time for transportation. It's been almost must be a sucky jobs, says all must sucky job at this point, and the reason I say that is right when you going off is that's when everything started to happen, and things that you can't control, right, Like you mentioned cargo, you can't control that. You can't control what's going on in the world right now, and it has to be so difficult to try to fix it. Yeah, but that's part of what we sign up for when

we go into public policy, right. You want a job like this so that you can tackle. You come in with a list of things you wanted to do, and then there's all the things to get thrown at you. And that could be a labor issue in our rail system, it could be a pandemic, It could be an extreme weather event. It could be a terrorist attack. By definition, you don't know. But part of the job is to be ready for that and to help work through that.

You wind up dealing with a lot of things that you don't control, and it turns out you can take some of the things you do control and use those tools to help. So you look at something like the supply chain issue. Yeah, a lot of that global supply chain imbalance is caused by factories shutting down in China and then more ships making their way across the specific

than our ports are ready for. But it turns out there are things we could do, working with the ports, working with the companies, working with the tools we have to not exactly fix everything overnight, but make it better. Right now, there's less than ten ships I think, bearing down on the West coast this time. A year ago there there were about one hundred, and some of the work we did helped with that. It's been almost a year since the infrastruction law, that's right, Yeah, I signed

it in November. So what have the updates been? So one year in, we've been standing up all of the different programs that have created and starting to move the money out, something like one hundred billion dollars already moving in order to fix roads, fixed bridges, airports. We were just in Orlando. We're improving the airport there. We're just in Detroit. We announced a project there. We're putting one hundred million in to help Detroit take I three seventy five,

which cuts right through it. They destroyed a couple of neighborhoods when they built it, and it's just like a gash. It just kind of slices those mostly black neighborhoods. Apart from from downtown. We're gonna lift it up and turn it into a boulevard and use it to reconnect the community. We're doing a project in the Inland Empire Fontana, California, part of the region that doesn't get as much attention as La. You got kids who have to walk basically

on a highway. There's this road that has no gut or no curve, no sidewalk, and in order to get to high school, they're they're competing with cars and trucks, and we're funding an improvement that's going to fix that. We're doing the elimination of railroad crosses, literally hundreds and hundreds of projects, so getting those under way who has been the work of the last year. It's a five year bill, so the bill, the presence sign has five

years of funding. We're just through year one and it's really I mean, it's still the very beginning of a lot of what we're working on, but we're starting to see the results now. Secretary Pete, another issue always is this right making sure that black owned businesses also have access to getting some of those contracts to get these where it done. So where are we with that? Because I know that's something that's been needing improvement. Yeah, so a lot of a lot of work to do here,

a lot of progress that we've made. The first part is the contracts that we directly control out of the depart in a transportation So we set a goal for STB Small Disadvantaged Businesses of twenty percent. There's a more ambitious goal than we've been able to set before, and so far we're beating that goal. But I have to say for every dollar that we contract out of the department directly, there's about ten dollars that go out indirectly.

In other words, we fund a transit agency like the MTA or a state department of transportation or a city that's rebuilding a bridge or an airport, and then they do the actual contracts. So we're working with them to make sure that they are inviting more businesses to the

table that haven't had a seat before. Black owned businesses have enormous potential right now to do all kinds of work, not just if they're directly involved in construction and engineering, but if you're involved in let's say accounting serving one of the companies that is doing the construction right there's

opportunity there too. So we're actually in the middle right now of the process of redoing the policy for dB disadvantaged business enterprises where there's a history of discrimination and we have legal authority to pay particular attention to creating opportunity there. You can go online. I know the website regulations dot gov probably does not sound like what a lot of people are excited to check out on Monday morning, but there is a chance right now through the end

of this month to weigh in. If you're involved with a black owned business or any kind of MB your dB and you've had an experience trouble getting certified, a problem getting a seat at the table, or you have a success story to share about how public work, maybe being part of a construction project help you build your business. Now is a great time to enter public comments about your experience through Regulations dot gov on our DBE rule, because that will be part of what we use to

make decisions about how to update the rule. Bottom line, nobody has a better track record of creating jobs and opportunity for people who have been left out in the past, including women in construction, including black building trades workers, than businesses who are owned by people who've been left out. The past, and I'm really excited about what we can do.

But it's not going to happen on its own. That's why we're putting a lot of effort and emphasis on it, and I think we're gonna have a lot of results. I just sat down with the National Association of Black Women in construction. They have incredible success stories about how they've created an opportunity, but also about what it's like trying to get a seat at the table. Last week

I was in Philadelphia, we had at meeting. We have a whole set of regional meetings that we're doing around the country basically to make clear, make transparent what the opportunities are actually going to look like. Because there's been a pattern in the past where you kind of had to already be in the business, already be connected, already be doing business with unit's a government to feel like you were in the know about what the next opportunity was going to be. So we're trying to make that

more transparent. So I don't have any illusions about the work ahead, but I think we're going to be really proud of the opportunities that we create if we stay very focused on it. Now, I saw you in Philly. How do you do that though, because you know, the conversation was about how do you diversify federal contract and black and brown people, So how do you go about doing it? So the first thing that we did just when we were there was talking about some of the

challenges they face. So for example, access to capital. If you're trying to get started or you haven't had these kind of big business opportunities, just being able to get capital funding or cash flow right, if you're a giant multinational corporation and one of your vendors takes two, three four months to pay, or now one of your customers,

then you can absorb that. If you're a small business and a lot of these businesses starting out or businesses that are just trying to break their way in, they

need prompt payment right, stuff like that. So we're talking about those direct issues that can be on an obstacle, but also we've got to have conversations with the prime contractors that are bringing on a lot of these black owned businesses as subs about how to be more inclusive and how to get some of these subs to be in a position where someday they can be the primes

we're talking to a lot of state leaders. I was at convening Friday in Florida with all of the state departments of transportation in their heads saying that you know, we're counting on you to create more of these opportunities.

So there's a lot of different pieces of it, but there's a lot of things that we're doing in parallel, including this DV role that that that I was just mentioning that we hope there's a lot of public input on because then we can actually update the formal processes around contracting, the way the directories are built, just even the expectation of the requirement that you check to see if there are any new minority owned businesses that could be doing the work that you're about to open a

contract for before you before you sign the contract. I was going to ask too, what you know, what the what the airlines? I mean, it's been horrendous. It's been horrible. People have been missing, you know, birthdays and weddings and funerals and families and what are we going to do to fix that. I've gotten better, though, yeah, I notice has gotten bet Over was still bad, like you know, and week and like she said, prices are high. So what are we doing to fix that? Are they finding

me airlines? And right, so what do we do? Yeah, so it did get better, but it was tough over the summer. We got big holiday seasons come up that are going to test whether these improvements are going to hold. There's three sets of things we're doing. First, finds, so airlines are required to do things like offer you a refund, give you a refund if your flight gets canceled, and a lot of the airlines that were slow to do that, or they drag their feet, or they didn't do it

at all. So we're subjecting them to find because we enforce that rule that that you got to get a refund. That's part one. Part two though, is the rules themselves need to be tougher, So we'll enforce the rules that are on the books. But we need to raise the floor. So that's another thing that we have in the process right now. It takes a while, it's a it's a very ponderous legal process. You got to go through a lot of comment periods. But we've got that open right

now on things like raising the floor. How long of a delay counts as a serious enough delay that the airline's got to give you a refund, so we're on that. And then the third part that has really helped is actually much simpler than the rulemaking process. It's just transparency. So we set up a website that makes clear which airlines will do what when you get stuck with a delay, For example, will they give you a voucher for a female?

Will they book you on another flight? Will they book you on another flight even if it's only on another airline that there's a free flight, things like that. And I wrote a letter to the CEOs of the airlines said, look, in a week or two, we're going to put this website up, So now would be a good time to fix your problem. Yeah, now it would be a good

time to up your game. And they did. We went in two weeks from zero out of the top ten airlines to nine out of the top ten airlines that will offer you at least offer you food or hotel or something like that. So, in addition to the enforcement side, which is very powerful but takes a long time sometimes to line up the pieces legally, we found that just transparency and we're going to add other things to this. You can check it out on our website transportation dot com.

It's a passenger dashboard, just to give you the information so you can make a decision when you're thinking to ask for Sometimes you don't know it exists. I know, you know what I learned when my bags get delayed coming. Yeah, if it takes more than twenty minutes, you get Miley's credit there you go, right. So I always will go and I'm like, okay, my bag to forty minutes to come out, and I'll go right online and I get it immediately, right, But you have to go in and

ask for it, right, yeah. Yeah, And you have to know that and that that doesn't follow any of this protocol. That's not given nothing back. So i'd invite you to check the dashboard. I don't want to pick winners and losers here, but it's really interesting. You know, we got a little green check marks, a little red exes on who does what and uh, look, some airlines have decided we're going to offer less customer service and we're going

to be really cheap. And as long as everybody knows that going into it, if you're empowered to make a decision, that's fine. But what we can have happened is First of all, we have to have a floor where I don't care how cheap the ticket is. There are certain things you can do to a passenger, like leave them completely stuck and not offer them a refund. But also as you're making those choices, we've got to make sure

it's transparent. We got to make sure it's clear, and we have more work coming up on things like like these fees, these little extra fees that aren't part of the airfare, but you wind up paying for them, and that's part of the cost to try ailing on a certain airline. It's they got to be upfront about that. What was causing these flight cancelations and delays. So yeah, like a lot of things in our economy, part of it had to do with staffing, hiring, being able to

find people. What's frustrating about that, I think for a lot of us is we put billions of dollars into saving the airline industry and one of the conditions was you can't fire people if you're taking this federal money. Now, they they lived up to that, but they let a lot of people go into early retirement, including pilots that are hard to replace. It takes a very long time to qualify a pilot, both in general and then specifically

on any given type of aircraft. Right, So when the demand came back, and we're glad it did, I mean, it's a good thing. It's a good sign for our economy that so many people want to fly, but it came back faster than they were prepared for, and our messages you've got to be We're glad that demand is back, but you've got to be prepared to service and tickets that you're selling. You're collecting money on this. Another thing

that we've talked about is scheduling, realistic scheduling. So if you know that you don't aren't going to have the staff on this route, don't schedule has many flights, and we've been pushing them a lot on that, and I think that's that's gotten better and that's one of the reasons we aren't seeing the cancelation rate. So before, you know,

we were seeing three to four percent. That doesn't sound a lot, but the difference between one or two percent where we are now and four percent is the system starting to break down because it just can't ever exactly like you said, but the prices are so expensive now, prices through the roof soces for the inflation. So how do we come on bad inflation now? Because people are

not making much Now, I'm like, this is ridiculous. Well, this gets to the bigger story, right, of all the different things where prices are high, and part of it is that the costs are higher. I get that. I mean, obviously one of the biggest expenses for an airline is fueled, right, But that's not enough to explain all of it. So part of what's happening, same with gas itself. Right, You look at the price of oil and the price we're actually paying at the pump, and the spread between those

two things is higher than it used to be. And so we also have to have a conversation about a lot of corporate profits that are getting fatter on the margin there. And that's that's a big part of what's happening across the economy that we need to talk about when it comes to inflation. Because we've got some friends in Congress, for example, on the other side of the aisle who love talking about inflation but refuse to offer any solution. Can you still call those people friends? I'm

being polite. It's a lot of fascism in there right now? Can you call those people friends? When the democracy look, I think we need to call something what it is, and when somebody is threatening democracy, we need to call that out. I also think, I know that there are a lot of people definitely in Congress, in the Republican Party who are horrified by what's happened to their own apart speak out because they're afraid, because they don't vote

like they are fraid. No, And so you know, my job as a policymaker is to sit down and work with them on anything where they're willing to do the right thing, which they did. On infrastructure for example, we had you know, a lot of Republican Senators and a handful of Republican House members come over and vote with Democrats and work with the president on it. And what are the solutions to regulating these corporations pack is getting

fatter while everybody's paying more and not come at any Yeah. Well, on something like energy, we had an idea. President put forward an idea called use it or Lose it, which is basically, if you're sitting on these permits at these leases but you're not doing anything to produce energy, then at a certain point you don't get to keep sitting on it. That didn't go very far, largely because it was blocked by the allies that the big oil companies

have in the House in the Senate. We've got to have more again, more transparency about the practices of some of these companies, and we got to keep working toward a tax code that's fairer when it comes to these things. But again, the people who will talk about inflation all day don't necessarily back any of those things that would make a difference. We think that the best thing we can do for inflation is created breathing room for people. Right. That's why we cared so much about cutting the cost

of prescription drugs. Thirty five dollar insulin. We could have had that and student Loanda absolutely right. That creates some breathing room when you're facing these higher prices on groceries, gas, you name it, even for gas itself. Right. It's one of the reasons why we're pushing to make electric vehicles cheaper. I'm not saying everybody can go get an EV tomorrow, but part of how we can give people alternatives is

to make sure everybody can afford an EV. Some of the people who are beating us up over EV's being too expensive. Voted no on a bill that would have made them cheaper. That did make them cheaper. So we've got to look at who actually has ideas and proposals to create that breathing room because prices are going up here. Prices are going up around the world. By the way, It's not like this is a US thing. You know, you go to England, Germany, I'm they're pushing ten percent

on their inflation. Now, there are a lot of sit you know that many of the analysts the banks predict that it's going to go down, but we're not comfortable with that until it happens. It's why we're pushing to create a little more space, a little more room, and lower the everyday cost people are basing on everything from healthcare to housing to transportation. I think that defaults. You was saying that the parent that COVID might get really bad coming up this winter. Are you guys preparing for

that too. Look, it's it's got this seasonal quality to it, right, I mean, this is still where this is. I guess our our third time now dealing dealing with it, and so we don't know everything. We know that we're dramatically better protected than we were before. So the level of loss of life that used to come with the COVID surge is different now with so many people being vaccinated and hopefully boosted. It's it's definitely a time for people

to get that booster if they're eligible. But yes, we got to prepare for that because you know, another thing that can happen even if you aren't going back to the days when there were a lot of mandates and shutdowns and that, yeah, exactly, you still you're still out sick,

it can't come to work. And if you're you know, back to the airline example, if you have just barely enough flight attendants and barely enough pilots to fly the schedules, if there's no disruption or no complications and you have you know, even five percent of your availability go down because people have to take the five days, ten days whatever while they're sick with COVID. That's going to affect the system. So we are working to try to get ahead of that. It was good to see you without

Demings in Orlando. Yeah, she's terrific. Yeah, And you know a lot of people run up for the Senate don't feel they're getting support from from Democrats. I don't know if that's why you was down in So I was there on the official side talking about the airport and improvements. So she we were with two members of Congress, her and then Darren Soto, who represent that area, and I

thought it was very important to be with them. First of all, there were things they thought it was important for me to see, and she wanted to make sure that I met with the workers, and I met with the leaders of the airport, of the economic development folks, the tourism, I mean, think about Orlando, right, that's part of the countrys been a mess iel. Glad you guys fixed that because let me tell you something. People have been missing flights Orlando. Yeah, so Florida actually has more

demand than they did before the pandemic. Yeah, it's it's it's and and there's some airspace challenges so Florida. I don't want to get too I don't want to geek out here, but but if if you look at the national airspace in Florida, you have more storms than usual, right, including the hurricane. Part of why we were there was to look at the hurricane damage, and you have just a lot of traffic, and you have military operations because there's so many military bases there, that can mean that

you have to change air traffic and space launches. This is actually they're actually we're getting to where there were enough space launches, commercial space launches that that can start to have an effect on the system. So we're working through that anyway. Yeah, so so Valdemic's is one of the members of Congress who supported this infrastructure law, and now we're getting the funding out to places like Orlando

where they're building a new terminal. Um. Yeah, I can't talk about that while I'm while I'm wearing this suit, but you can't. You can't officially. The thing with the Hatch Act is I can do one at a time. So if I'm at a campaign event, I can. I can campaign. If I'm here as a secretary, than I can't.

But but you know, it's definitely fair game to talk about where we agree with the votes that people have taken as members of Congress or as members of the Senate and the good policy that's going on including that, because what we're what we're seeing right now is a lot of folks who voted no on the infrastructure deal.

The Republicans who did not join the Republicans who voted yes with the Democrats on getting this stuff done are still there to take credit when when we actually announced that that we're building the bridge, or we're fixing the airport, or we're doing the thing. It's really striking to see that.

And so I do think it's important just to keep keep reminding people that, you know, the things that happened on the floor of the House and the Senate, that the present size, those have consequences, and you know, we're here for a very specific reed. We're able to say yes to these projects for this very specific reason that

the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was passed and signed. And you know this is this is something that people need to bear in mind when they're asking, Okay, is my government doing anything at all that that I expect of my government to deliver for me? So if republic with that saying, with Republicans take over the House and Senate, how hard did they make your job? So look, my job is to work with whoever's in the House and Senate try

to get stuff done. I'll say that the legislation that Republicans in the House and Senate have proposed so far is not in line with what we're trying to do. For example, one of the things they've they've put forward, or they seem to be aligning on as a strategy, is that they might be willing to have another crisis over the debt limit where there's a threat of shutting down or even defaulting unless there are a number of cuts in They could even affect things like Social Security

or medicare right. So at a policy level, again I'm not talking about campaigns, but at a policy level, that's a pretty big disagreement. The pressure mounting for you and regarded the twenty twenty four because I know you said you didn't want to do anything else in government other than this, But the Democrats have a very weak bench, and I see how you move like you know, you'll come to places like the breakfast club, you'll go to Fox News like you're talking to a big swap of

the American public. So it is it growing louder for Secretary Pete to run in twenty twenty fourth president? I mean, look, I already have a job, and we already have a president. So the best thing I can do is support this president that I really believe in in the agenda and the vision that the administration has, and as long as he trusts me to do this work on transportation, try

to deliver on that. I mean, look, every job I've had, and I'm not trying to be cute about the politics, I know there's a lot of political chattery that goes on, but every job I've had, especially in public life, the best thing you can do is just try to be good at that job, and then whatever you want to do next, you're going to be better off if you've delivered.

And delivering, you know, to our earlier conversation is hard as hell, but also incredibly rewarding when you're working on stuff like are you concerned with more celebrities coming up as being president that doesn't necessarily know politics, that really doesn't know what they're doing. We have another situation like in Donald Trump. Yeah, it's we're seeing a lot of this, right. Look, I think there's something to be said for outsider enter. I was. I was. I came into national politics as

an outsider, a different kind of outsider. I was involved in policy as a mayor, but I was not part of Washington. And I don't think you have to be you know a Washington lifer to be effective. Um, but I do think you have to care about public policy. I mean, you see some people now who just don't seem like they care. And I think Kanye's running in twenty twenty four. God, okay, great, why not? Look In the end, I think what people most want to know is what do you care about? And who do you

care about? And when I'm coming to work every day, the focus that we have is the person who's stuck at the airport because because their online didn't take care of him. The person who lives ridiculously far away from from where they work and relies on transportation because that's what it takes in order to live somewhere you can afford. Or the person who is paying way too much in order to live where they can get to work because

they don't have a good transportation option to do otherwise. Right, And we're thinking about them and how we can make

life a little easier for them. I'm thinking about somebody who is talented and skilled, maybe doesn't have a college degree, but has a lot of skill that needs to be put to work and can make six figures if they get a shot at the building trades but because because nobody in their family ever has Maybe maybe there it's a working mother and it's not obvious to her how to get the childcare so that she can work a construction shift that starts at six in the morning but

pays really well and could help her raise her kids. Like people like that, and I think the look I work in a building full of people who are deeper on every aspect of transportation policy than I am, because

they've been doing it their whole lives. I think of myself as a policy guy, but my job is to connect up the priorities of the people who sent us here to do this work with all of that machinery of government that's designed to deliver better answers, whether it's a better design subway line or a more affordable way to drive to work or a light rail, you know, whatever it is. So I think that's the biggest question we have to ask about anybody who is in public services.

What do you care about? And then, yeah, do you understand how to use this machinery of government, which it turns out, I mean, I spend a lot of time just navigating my own agency. It's really complicated, But can you use it in order to get things done. What about as a transportation secretary, Let's just say when the hurricane Ian was about to hit Tampa and everybody knew

it was coming, but some people couldn't get out. Let's just say you couldn't have access to transportation or didn't have the financial ability to be able to take yourself and your family out of the area. Would that have anything to do? Let you do a little bit. Yeah,

So we try to help on situations like this. Just Friday or Thursday, I went up with the Coast Guard and we looked at the impacts on the bridges, for example, over there, and we were able to release about fifty million dollars of funding to help or to get to work on getting those bridges ready. But what we're really focused on doing is, you know, before it comes to that, before you you're you know, twenty four hours out from the hurricane making landfall. Have we invested in things like

evacuation routes to make it easier. So we have a part of the President's infrastructure package called Protect and it's about seven billion dollars for resilience so that we can either build build a bridge that's going to be more sturdy if there's a storm, or design things in a different way, because one thing that's happening is you got

climate change. You got more and more impacts, and you'll have a road that gets washed out or destroyed, and then they'll fix it just the way it was, and then we'll get destroyed again and then they'll fix it just the way it was. Right, we need to do something better or smarter. In the West, it means wildfires. I saw part of I seventy in Colorado was like

a climate change double whammy. First you had a drought, then you had a wildfire, and then there was nothing holding the hill, the mud on the hillside in place. Then you had a flood. I guess a triple whammy. And then that meant that there's this mud slide that took imite out of out of service. And that's a road that's critically important for supply chains because you're going through those mountains. There's no other there's no other way

to go. You don't have an alternative. So we're investing in things that will help communities be ready for when disaster strikes, as well as trying to be there afterwards. Question when you do interviews right, and you're not allowed to talk about things like the midterms. How does that help Democrats in the midterms? Well, look, I think the good policy is good politics. Like, if we're doing things that makes sense and we can explain it, then people

will appreciate that. And in that way, there's no difference, or there's not a lot of difference between coming out on a campaign trail and saying I think you should vote for this person, which is not what I'm doing today, and what I am doing today, which is saying, here's what we're working on as an administration. Here the policies we think are good. Some folks voted for it, some folks vote voted against it, and this is what we

believe in. It's odd, but is there for a very good reason, right, I mean, the reason we have these rules is so that you don't go out using the powers of the federal government and push a political outcome on people. So I respect it. Shouldn't you go isn't at the whole point? Look, we can take we can take a different I can go put on a different hat later when you know my flight wasn't paid for

by the taxpayer, and and talk about politics. But it's it's I think it's okay to have those things be separate. I think the important thing, though, is that I don't ever want to say something in one context that I

would be embarrassed to have repeated in another context. So it's also just really important that we're consistent and we're clear about what we care about and what we believe in last question, do you feel like Democrats are rising to the urgency at a moment because we know it as a real threat to democracy, and like the midterms are right around the corner, but it doesn't seem like there's a sense of urgency coming from the Democratic Party about it. I think we have a sense of urgency.

I think that the concern is how do we make sure to let me put it this way, Sometimes when something is sometimes something can be so big that it's hard to make it out and you actually have to break it down into something smaller, if that makes sense. So what I mean by that is that the stakes for our country right now, in terms of our own democracy, in terms of our future, in terms of our standing in the world, they're so enormous that if you try

to talk about it that way all day. Climate too it's it's so exhausting that that I think it can actually shut people down a little bit. On the right, right wing media does it all day. Well, they say that the democracy is about to be over, but they blame democrats. That's that's true. And one of the things that I think is really important is that facts still have to matter. We have to make sure that there

are actives actually such thing as true and false. And you look at what happened last January, you look at what's happening right now with people denying the legitimacy of elections that actually happened where you know, part of how democracy works is when you lose, you admit it. Yeah I've lost. Losing sucks, you don't enjoy it. But part of your job is to acknowledge that reality. Because the whole idea of democracy is rules and policy choices that we all have to live by, and that means we

all live by things we don't always agree. That's the whole that's the whole concept, right. But I don't think there's any confusion about what's at stake. I do think there's there's a need to connect all these big picture questions to very concrete things and I think actually right

wing media sometimes is a little better about that. I have a TV in my office where I got it kind of splits into four quadrants, and I can see the three big cable networks, and I'm usually watching one broadcast, and every time I glance up at it, or almost always, what you see on Fox is more of a story from a specific place that is meant to make you angry about this big picture fear real or imagined, and it just puts you in a different state of mind, whereas we I think on my side of the aisle,

tend to prefer to talk in terms of the concepts the ideas right, And I do think there's some work to do there, But that's part of what I love about my job, because there's nothing abstract about saying, Joe Biden signed this bill, and you're getting a better airport, right, or if you like this new subway stop that's coming to your neighborhood. It's there because Democrats with a few Republicans helping out in Congress, in the House and in the Senate, voted on this bill, send it to the

President's desk, and he signed it. In my department implement right like this is happening in your life. This isn't like some conceptual debate about conservatism or free market princess. This is like, we're fixing this problem. And I see the number one issue is the economy. Yeah, when it comes to the elections coming up, and so we can see who's voting for and against people to have more money in their pocket. Well, that's the thing I mean, I mean, let's look at the choice. And again I'm

saying that's not election wise, but legislation wise. Look at the choices that are being made. Right. So, the last administration, their number one economic policy was tax cuts for rich people, and they did it. It's one of the promises they kept. They didn't keep a lot of promises right then drain the swamp and they didn't build the wall. But they kept two promises, and those two promises represent two things

they really care about. They kept their promise to cut taxes for the rich, and they kept their promise to take away the right to choose. Those are two things they said they would do. They took power, and then they did it. And what we're doing is working to keep promises. And I know there's some unfinished business in terms of promises that we've made. But we promised to get an infrastructure built on and we've done it. We've promised to act in ways that would reduce child poverty.

We've done it. We promised, the President promised to get people back to work after we lost millions of jobs. More people are working in the private sector now than at any point in American history. So I guess you could say both administrations back to back have come in with a set of promises. People should think about which promises are kept. But like you said, democrats are terrible

that messaging. I mean, you didn't say that verbatim, but you essentially said democrats are terrible that I think we think in ways that we got to work a little harder to to um the second message. But it's okay. I can tear you, Pete. That's what you're working on. It's okay to say that. Look, I hear you, I hear you, right, Thanks yours, We appreciate it, and thank you for always stopping through. That's pleasure with you. Thank Secretary Pete. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning,