Beginning

Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg was born January 19, 1982, in South Bend, Indiana. His surname is of Maltese origin, and may be pronounced boo-tuh-jej or boot-a-judge.

Buttigieg’s Father and the Italian Communist, Antonio Gramsci

Pete Buttigieg is the only child of academics Joseph Buttigieg (died 2019) and Jennifer Anne Montgomery. His parents met when they were both working at New Mexico State University. His mother worked as a linguist and professor at the University of Notre Dame for 29 years. Pete Buttigieg may have inherited his interest in languages from his mother: He can speak – though not fluently — Norwegian, French, Spanish, Italian, Maltese, Arabic, and Dari Persian.

Pete’s father, Joseph Buttigieg, was a Marxist academic raised in Malta. He earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the University of Malta, a second bachelor’s degree from Heythrop College in London, and a doctorate in 1976 from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Binghamton. He became a U.S. citizen in 1979.

Joseph Buttigieg’s time as an English professor at the University of Notre Dame ended when he retired in 2017. His main areas of academic interest included critical theory and the relationship between culture and politics. He was also editor and translator of the multi-volume critical edition of Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, a project that was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. During his years as a prisoner, Gramsci, the founder of the Italian Communist Party and an associate of Vladimir Lenin, filled 32 notebooks (containing almost 3,000 pages) with his political and philosophical meditations on how Marxist theory could be applied practically to the conditions of advanced capitalism. The notebooks, which were smuggled out from Gramsci’s prison cell, were eventually published in Italian several years after World War II, more than a decade after Gramsci’s death.

Joseph Buttigieg’s articles about the Marxist theorist were translated into Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese. He also helped to found the International Gramsci Society, becoming its president.

The phrase, “The long march through the institutions,” referring to revolutionary change effected by incrementalism, accurately sums up the thinking of Gramsci, even though he did not use the phrase. In fact, it was coined by German student leader Rudi Dutschke in the 1960s, though it is widely misattributed to Gramsci, according to Joseph Buttigieg.

The senior Buttigieg “supported an updated version of Marxism that jettisoned some of Marx and Engels’ more doctrinaire theories, though he was undoubtedly Marxist,” Emily Brooks and Joseph Simonson reported in the Washington Examiner in April 2019.

Joseph Buttigieg was an adviser to Rethinking Marxism, an academic journal that published articles “that seek to discuss, elaborate, and/or extend Marxian theory,” as well as a member of the editorial board of Boundary 2, a journal of postmodern theory, literature, and culture. He addressed Rethinking Marxism conferences and other gatherings of high-profile Marxists.

In a 2000 paper for Rethinking Marxism that critiqued the approach of Human Rights Watch, the elder Buttigieg, alongside two other authors, referred to “the Marxist project to which we subscribe.” In 1998, he penned an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education about an event in New York City celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto. “If The Communist Manifesto was meant to liberate the proletariat, the Manifesto itself in recent years needed liberating from Marxism’s narrow post-Cold War orthodoxies and exclusive cadres. It has been freed,” Buttigieg wrote. “Equity, environmental consciousness, and racial justice are surely some of the ingredients of a healthy Marxism,” he added. “Indeed, Marxism’s greatest appeal — undiminished by the collapse of Communist edifices — is the imbalances produced by other sociopolitical governing structures.”

Communism expert Paul Kengor asserts that the elder Buttigieg was part of a group of leftist professors who focused on insinuating Marxism into American culture: “They’re part of a wider international community of Marxist theorists and academicians with a particular devotion to the writings of the late Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci, who died over 80 years ago. Gramsci was all about applying Marxist theory to culture and cultural institutions — what is often referred to as a ‘long march through the institutions,’ such as film, media, and especially education.”

Growing Up

Pete Buttigieg enjoyed a close relationship with his radical father, who was supportive of him when he came out as a gay man. In his 2019 memoir, Shortest Way Home, the son recalled that his father was a “man of the left, no easy thing on a campus like Notre Dame’s in the 1980s.”

Buttigieg did not grasp his parents’ political discussions when he was young but, he later wrote, “the more I heard these aging professors talk, the more I wanted to learn how to decrypt their sentences, and to grasp the political backstory of the grave concerns that commanded their attention and aroused such fist-pounding dinner debate.”

Admiration for Bernie Sanders

As a high school student, Buttigieg won a “Profiles in Courage” essay contest by writing about self-described socialist politician Bernie Sanders, who at the time was Vermont’s sole at-large member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Said Buttigieg in the essay, which cast Sanders as a heroic figure:

“Cynical candidates have developed an ability to outgrow their convictions in order to win power. Cynical citizens have given up on the election process, going to the polls at one of the lowest rates in the democratic world. Such an atmosphere inevitably distances our society from its leadership and is thus a fundamental threat to the principles of democracy. It also calls into question what motivates a run for office – in many cases, apparently, only the desire to occupy it. Fortunately for the political process, there remain a number of committed individuals who are steadfast enough in their beliefs to run for office to benefit their fellow Americans. Such people are willing to eschew political and personal comfort and convenience because they believe they can make a difference. One outstanding and inspiring example of such integrity is the country’s only Independent Congressman, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders.

“Sanders’ courage is evident in the first word he uses to describe himself: ‘Socialist.’ In a country where Communism is still the dirtiest of ideological dirty words, in a climate where even liberalism is considered radical, and Socialism is immediately and perhaps willfully confused with Communism, a politician dares to call himself a socialist? He does indeed. Here is someone who has ‘looked into his own soul’ and expressed an ideology, the endorsement of which, in today’s political atmosphere, is analogous to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Even though he has lived through a time in which an admitted socialist could not act in a film, let alone hold a Congressional seat, Sanders is not afraid to be candid about his political persuasion.”

College & Afterward

Buttigieg earned a bachelor’s degree in history and literature from Harvard University in 2004. He was awarded a Rhodes scholarship and studied politics, economics, and philosophy at Oxford University, where he earned a second bachelor’s degree in 2007.

From 2007 to 2010, Buttigieg was employed as a consultant by McKinsey & Company where he specialized in economic development, business, logistics, and energy initiatives for governmental and private-sector clients. He worked for the campaign of presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004, and in 2008 for Indiana gubernatorial candidate Jill Long Thompson. In 2009 he became a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

In 2010 Buttigieg ran for treasurer of Indiana and was defeated by Richard Mourdock, a Republican. In 2011 he won the election for mayor of South Bend with 74 percent of the vote, becoming, at 29, the youngest mayor of a city with over 100,000 residents. In 2014 he completed a seven-month tour of duty in Afghanistan while taking a leave of absence from his mayoral duties. He received the Joint Service Commendation Medal.

Mayor Pete

A self-described progressive Democrat, Buttigieg served two terms as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, from 2012-2020. During his tenure in that position, he removed the city’s first black police chief, naming a white replacement. The police department as a whole become less racially diverse while Buttigieg was mayor. As South Bend Police Department veteran Derek Dieter told CNN : “He took a passive approach with the police department. I’ve gone through four or five mayors, but this has taken a certain turn. Qualified minority officers leave, because there is no avenue of advancement or promotion.”

One of Buttigieg’s signature policy programs, the “1,000 houses” initiative, called for 1,000 vacant homes to be demolished or rehabilitated in 1,000 days, to ease the city’s housing crunch. But the initiative resulted in increased gentrification of black and Hispanic neighborhoods; asbestos contamination in many homes; a large number of undeveloped, empty lots; and escalating crime rates.

Coming Out As Gay

In the midst of his mayoral reelection campaign in 2015, Buttigieg came out as gay. He won the mayoral race with 80 percent of the vote.

Buttigieg and his husband, who was born Chasten Glezman but took the name Chasten Buttigieg upon marriage in June 2018, purchased a house in South Bend around the corner from Pete’s parents.

A Committee, a Caucus, & Two Directors’ Boards

Buttigieg ran for Democratic National Committee chairman in 2017 but pulled out before the vote. He was also president of the Indiana Urban Mayors Caucus and sat on the boards of directors of: (a) the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns, and (b) the Truman National Security Project.

Buttigieg on Capitalism & Socialism

In March 2019 Buttigieg told MSNBC that he thinks of himself as a capitalist but believes the system should be changed. Specifically, he stated that big business is a threat: “The biggest problem with capitalism right now is the way it’s become intertwined with power and is eroding our democracy.” Buttigieg was less critical of socialism, telling the network that socialism “is a word in American politics that has basically lost all meaning” and “has been used as a kill switch to stop an idea from being talked about.”

Buttigieg and Religion

“Buttigieg’s unapologetic harnessing of Christian rhetoric in defense of liberal political principles has caused a sensation,” Justin DaMetz wrote in The Washington Post in May 2019, describing Buttigieg as “very open about his Christian faith and his home in the Episcopal Church.” His “theology, much like his politics,” said DaMetz, “is vaguely center-left, full of a lot of catchphrases and platitudes, and appears not overly substantive.”

Buttigieg frequently cites biblical scripture as moral justification for certain policy positions. Some examples:

• Immigration & the Biblical Call to “Welcome the Stranger”: “I find a message in scripture that is very different from what the political right seems to want to talk about all the time, a lot about poverty, a lot about compassion, a lot about humility that I seek in my imperfect way to live up to, and that does have implications for how I will approach public office. If you belong to a Christian tradition or any moral or religious tradition that emphasizes making yourself useful to the oppressed and standing with the prisoner, and welcoming the stranger, the stranger by the way is another word for immigrant. Yes that has implications in public life and I won’t be afraid to talk about how my positions are informed by my faith.” (2020)
• Decriminalizing Illegal Border-Crossings: “[C]riminalization is the basis for family separation [at the border]. You do away with that, it’s no longer possible. The Republican Party likes to cloak itself in the language of religion. For a party that associates itself with Christianity, to say that God would smile on the division of families at the hands of federal agents, that God would condone putting children in cages, has lost all claim to ever use religious language again.” (2019)
• Minimum Wage: “In addition to confronting tech, in addition to supporting workers by double unionization, as I propose to do, some of this is low-tech, too, like the minimum wage is just too low. And so-called conservative Christian senators right now in the Senate are blocking a bill to raise the minimum wage, when scripture says that whoever oppresses the poor taunts their maker.”

In 2020 Buttigieg was harshly critical of Vice President Mike Pence, whose tenure as Indiana governor overlapped with Mayor Buttigieg’s in South Bend. He questioned “why an evangelical Christian like Mike Pence wants to be on a ticket with a president caught with a porn star” — a reference to President Donald Trump, who allegedly had a sexual affair with porn star Stormy Daniels.

Buttigieg also questioned whether the terms “Christian” and “Republican” should be considered synonymous, Alex Morris wrote in Rolling Stone in November 2019. During one of that year’s presidential primary debates, Buttigieg condemned the Trump administration’s immigration-and-border policies, falsely characterizing them as policies that cruelly ripped young children from the arms of their migrant parents and placed them into inhospitable “cages”: “The Republican Party likes to cloak itself in the language of religion. But we should call out hypocrisy when we see it. And for a party that associates itself with Christianity to say that it is OK to suggest that God would smile on the division of families at the hands of federal agents, that God would condone putting children in cages, [that party] has lost all claim to ever use religious language again.”

Israel & Iran

At the annual J Street conference in October 2019, then-presidential candidate Buttigieg said the United States needs to “have mechanisms to … make sure U.S. taxpayer support for Israel doesn’t turn into U.S. taxpayer support for a move like annexation” or for “settlement construction” that would be “incompatible or at best detrimental to what we need to see happen” in the region.

In a June 2020 foreign policy speech, Buttigieg called for the imposition of financial penalties against Israel if the Jewish state were to “annex” Jewish communities in Judea/Samaria.

During the same speech, Buttigieg also said that there were “increasingly disturbing signs that the [Benjamin] Netanyahu government is turning away from peace,” and he blamed Netanyahu’s policies for Palestinian “suffering” and the “humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” He never uttered the words “Islamic,” “Islamist,” or “jihad”, and called for “redirecting” resources to combat the purported crisis of growing white nationalism. Moreover, he claimed that it was “in our national security interest” for the U.S. to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, which he lauded for being “as close to a true ‘art of the deal’ as it gets.”

President Biden’s Secretary of Transportation

On December 15, 2020, President-elect Joe Biden selected Buttigieg as his nominee for Secretary of Transportation. Of his nomination, President Biden said: “Mayor Pete Buttigieg is a patriot and a problem-solver who speaks to the best of who we are as a nation. I am nominating him for Secretary of Transportation because this position stands at the nexus of so many of the interlocking challenges and opportunities ahead of us. Jobs, infrastructure, equity, and climate all come together at the DOT [Department of Transportation], the site of some of our most ambitious plans to build back better. I trust Mayor Pete to lead this work with focus, decency, and a bold vision — he will bring people together to get big things done.”

On February 2, 2021, the U.S. Senate confirmed Buttigieg in an 86-13 vote, making him the first openly gay individual to be confirmed to a U.S. president’s cabinet. He was sworn in as Secretary of Transportation the following day.

According to Fox News: “[D]uring his [Senate] confirmation hearing, Buttigieg left the door open to raising the federal gas tax to pay for repairs to America’s crumbling roadways, pledged to help put in place new federal automotive fuel economy standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and defended Biden for revoking the Keystone XL pipeline permit, saying job losses will be offset by creating new green jobs.” Buttigieg told senators: “I think all options need to be on the table. As you know, the gas tax has not been increased since 1993, and it’s never been pegged to inflation. And it’s one of the reasons why the current state of the Highway Trust Fund is that there’s more going out than coming in.” The country needs “a solution that can provide some predictability and sustainability,” said Buttigieg, adding: “In the long term, we need to bear in mind also that as vehicles become more efficient and as we pursue electrification, sooner or later there will be questions about whether the gas tax can be effective at all. In the short to medium term [a solution] could mean revisiting the gas tax, adjusting it, and/or connecting it to inflation.”

Buttigieg seemed unconcerned about the regressive effect that hiking the gas tax would have on low-income people. Questioned by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) at his confirmation hearing, Buttigieg admitted that such a tax increase could disproportionately affect the poor. “Certainly one of the concerns with the gas tax is it’s likely not as progressive as the federal income tax, for example,” he said.

Several Republican senators criticized the Buttigieg nomination. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said through a spokesperson that he voted against the nominee, because he had a “lack of experience on most transportation issues” and marched “in lockstep” with Biden’s “radical energy policy.” Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee said she was concerned that the nominee would “put the administration’s environmental goals ahead of some very basic changes to federal policy that would lighten regulatory load on county and city mayors trying to get transportation projects off the ground.” And Sen. Rick Scott of Florida wrote on Twitter that he was opposing Buttigieg because the nominee favored raising the tax on gasoline “to support government’s wasteful spending.”

Buttigieg’s Staged Bike Ride to the White House

On April 1, 2021, CNN reporter DJ Judd shared a video showing a team of Secret Service agents unloading Buttigieg’s bicycle from the back of an SUV, and Buttigieg — who routinely has voiced his concerns about carbon emissions and climate change — then riding the bike a short distance to a White House Cabinet meeting while a security detail consisting of at least two SUVs followed him all the way to his destination.

Buttigieg Quietly Takes Paid Parental Leave During Supply Chain & Ports Crisis, After Adopting Two Infants

From mid-August through mid-October 2021, Buttigieg secretly — with no announcement by the White House — went on paid paternity leave so he could spend time with his husband, Chasten, and the two babies whom they adopted in early September. His leave coincided with during a major supply chain and ports crisis that was causing great harm to the U.S. economy. As the Daily Caller reported on October 15:

“In recent weeks, the Biden administration has grappled with major supply chain disruptions that have led to food shortages and price increases, as well as concerns that retailers may not be able to stock shelves for the holiday months. The White House announced on Wednesday that the Port of Los Angeles would operate 24/7 for the foreseeable future to unload cargo ships circling off of the coast. Amid the disarray, some conservatives have questioned Buttigieg’s decision to take more than two months off, noting that the nation’s ports and interstate trucking are within his purview.”

In response to critics who charged that Buttigieg’s paternity leave caused him to neglect the responsibilities of his job as Transportation Secretary, Buttigieg, in an October 2021 interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, said: “Now, look, even though I have been on paternity leave . . . when you take a job like mine, you understand and accept that you’re going to have to be available 24/7, depending on what’s going on, and you’re going to have to engage. And I did, even if that meant taking a phone call or making a decision from a hospital room.”

But according to a January 2023 report by the government watchdog group, Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT), Buttigieg, during his paternity leave, had denied a request by Republican Senator Chuck Grassley for a phone call during his paternity leave. Wrote PPT:

“However, documents obtained by PPT in a FOIA lawsuit with DOT tell a much different story. Contrary to the Secretary’s explicit claims about taking phone calls, DOT [Department Of Transportation] rebuffed a request by Senator Chuck Grassley for a phone conversation with the Secretary during his paternity leave. While the supply chain crisis was raging, the Senator sought to discuss resolution of an issue involving a massive, $1.2 billion bridge project that was nearing completion. Secretary Buttigieg’s office spurned the Senator’s appeal for a call by stating, ‘Unfortunately, the Secretary is currently on leave due to the birth of his twins,’ and suggesting ‘perhaps we can aim for a meeting when the Secretary returns from his leave.’  Records show the Secretary had been on leave for nearly six weeks at this point. No prospective dates or times were offered, however, and Secretary Buttigieg’s calendars reveal that he did not return from his paternity leave until weeks after Senator Grassley’s request.”

Moreover, PPT found that Buttigieg had failed to formally delegate his essential duties as Transportation Secretary to anyone:

“The lack of a formal delegation of the Secretary’s authority also appeared to cause some havoc. Although the Department regulations assign authority to the Deputy Secretary to take some actions, they leave authority for other tasks and responsibilities unclear. As a result, the Secretary’s leave evidently created turmoil within the Department. In one incident about a week after his leave began, attorneys across the Department were forced to engage in a frantic conversation beginning on a Friday night and continuing through that weekend to resolve an issue of delegation of authority around a large loan program. Another heavily redacted conversation showed DOT attorneys were forced to determine the status of authority within the Department to make legally mandated reports to Congress.”

Buttigieg Says People Should Buy Electric Cars in Order to Deal with High Gasoline Prices

On November 28, 2021, Buttigieg told MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart that the Biden administration’s “Build Back Better” (BBB) legislation would include financial incentives designed to persuade people to stop using gasoline-powered vehicles and switch over to electric vehicles (EV). “I’ll give you one example,” he said. “It [BBB] contains incentives to make it more affordable to buy an electric vehicle, up to a $12,500 discount in effect for families thinking about getting an EV. Families that once they own that electric vehicle will never have to worry about gas prices again. […] The people who stand to benefit most from owning an EV are often rural residents who have the longest distances to drive. And underserved urban residents in areas where there are high gas prices and they’re lower income. So they would gain the most by having that vehicle.”

At the time when Buttigieg made these remarks, the average cost of new electric vehicles in the United States was $51,532, nearly $30,000 more than the average compact car.

Buttigieg Announces the National Roadway Safety Strategy

On January 27, 2022, Buttigieg delivered a speech announcing the launch of a new initiative known as the National Roadway Safety Strategy. Below are some key excerpts from the speech:

• “We have for years been averaging almost 3,000 deaths per month on our roads. Added up, in the last decade we’ve lost more than 350,000 lives on America’s roadways…. This is a national crisis. When it comes to roadway deaths, we have a crisis that’s urgent, unacceptable – and preventable.”
• “When we look deeper at the numbers, we notice two things. One, it is disproportionately impacting some Americans more than others: people of color, Native Americans, low income communities, people in rural areas, [are] more likely to die on our roads.”
• [T]oday, we are proud to launch the National Roadway Safety Strategy, a true first. It represents a comprehensive plan to significantly reduce injuries and deaths on America’s roadways.”
• “[W]e are so fortunate in this moment to be able to meet the moment with unprecedented safety funding, and vital new programs impacting safety, thanks to President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. That law creates a new Safe Streets and Roads for All program, providing $6 billion to help cities and towns deliver new, comprehensive safety strategies, as well as accelerate existing, successful safety initiatives. It will protect not only drivers but all road users, including people who walk, bike, or use a wheelchair…. The infrastructure law also increases funding for the Highway Safety Improvement Program by over $4 billion.”
• “The National Roadway Safety Strategy… also makes our existing safety programs more ambitious and more coordinated – tools like our vehicle ratings system, our guidance for design of roadways, and our requirements for state driver licensing agencies.”
• “Today we commit that our goal is this: zero. Our goal is zero deaths; a country where, one day, nobody has to say goodbye to a loved one because of a traffic crash.”
• “[T]he decision — to commit to that goal in a serious way, at a national level — changes the way cities and towns design roads, it changes the ways companies build cars, and it changes the way people drive them…. We are going to team up with the governors, mayors, county executives, local leaders, the ones who actually design and maintain so much of America’s road systems…. And we will be working with the technology and auto industries.”
• “[T]he final thing I want to address, maybe more important than any piece of technology or policy, is that we need a national change in mentality. It is time for a transformation in how people think about road safety. Together, we can act to change the culture and expectations…. And that culture change can also motivate change among drivers, who need to put down their phones, take their foot off the gas – and of course, drive sober.”

Opposing “Permanent Solutions to Immediate Short-Term [Energy] Problems”

During a March 2, 2022 appearance on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour, Buttigieg stated that President Biden would not authorize the completion of the Keystone Pipeline as a means of countering the skyrocketing price of crude oil amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Anchor Stephanie Ruhle said: “I want to stay on gas for another moment. You’re absolutely right, the president does not set the price of gas, but he can influence it. And while releasing some strategic reserves matters, given how much has been released, it is really just a drop in the bucket. Are there things, and I realize this is controversial, it has huge environmental impacts, could the president possibly consider authorizing the Keystone Pipeline? Or working something out with Iran?” Buttigieg replied: “Look, the president has said that all options are on the table. But we also need to make sure that we are not galloping after permanent solutions to immediate short term problems, where more strategic and tactical actions in the short term that can make a difference, like what you have with the strategic reserve, which exists partly in order to respond to situations like this. The president has laid policies that are going help cushion the impacts of any volatility in energy markets in the future by building up more of a diversified and homegrown energy base for this country.”

Asserting That Americans Can Avoid High Gas Prices by Buying Electric Vehicles & Using Public Transit

On March 7, 2022 — as gasoline prices in the U.S. were skyrocketing against the backdrop of Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine — Buttigieg advised Americans to purchase electric vehicles. “Clean transportation can bring significant cost savings for the American people as well,” he said at an “Accelerating Clean Transportation” event. “Last month, we announced a $5 billion investment to build a nationwide electric vehicle charging network for the people from rural to suburban to urban communities can all benefit from the gas savings of driving an EV.”

As of November 2021, the average price of an electric vehicle was $56,437 — 6.2 percent higher than it had been in November 2020.

Buttigieg also touted the Biden administration’s newly announced $3.7 billion boost in funding for public transportation, including an investment in fleets of electric buses. “Transit gets riders where they need to be efficiently and affordably with far less pollution to thrive,” said Buttigieg. “And it’s even good for drivers of cars, because it means less congestion and traffic on our roads. And transit is even better when it’s clean transit with modern electric buses that don’t pollute at all.”

Using Private Jets Despite His Repeated Calls for Limiting Carbon Emissions

In April 2022, President Biden dispatched Buttigieg to lead a presidential delegation of legislators and fellow administration officials to the Invictus Games, a multi-sport competition for ill or injured soldiers and military veterans. Despite Buttigieg’s repeated calls for the restriction of carbon emissions, he traveled with his husband on military aircraft to the Netherlands in order to attend the games. The watchdog group Americans for Public Trust (APT) questioned whether Buttigieg’s travels raised a “double standard,” in light of the fact that former President Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Tom Price, had essentially been forced to resign amid reports that he had cost taxpayers over $1 million by using government-funded private jets and military aircraft for various purposes.

On December 12, 2022, the Daily Caller reported that Buttigieg, during his tenure as Transportation Secretary, had flown at least 18 times on taxpayer-funded private jets in the course of carrying out both governmental and personal activities. According to APT, Buttigieg had “blended personal and official business” while using the private flights, having received, on one of his trips, an award from a Canadian gay-rights organization for “advancing LGBTQ rights.” “Everyday Americans face flight cancellations and long wait times because Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has completely mismanaged air travel,” said APT Executive Director Caitlin Sutherland in a statement. “Yet, he gets to avoid all that by taking taxpayer-funded private jets to destinations with readily available commercial airline options.” “For someone so holier-than-thou on reducing emissions, Buttigieg sure doesn’t seem to mind the pollution caused by his literal jet-setting,” Sutherland added. “This is hypocrisy at its finest, and these troubling expenses to taxpayers must come under immediate scrutiny.”

During the January 5, 2023 broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s Special Report, host Bret Baier asked Buttigieg: “Here’s the other criticism, you’ve been a big advocate for the environment, the administration’s climate change policy. What do you say to people who ask, is it environmentally responsible to fly on private government jets when commercial options are available?” Buttigieg replied:

“Well, when we’re making a decision about what kind of aircraft to use, we weigh a lot of things. That’s one of the things we consider. So is saving taxpayers money. Now, I fly the majority of the time in economy class on an airliner, just like everybody else. … But there are cases where we use an FAA jet, a jet that’s assigned to my department. I’ll give you an example. I went to Wisconsin recently. This was last year, I think. … We saved taxpayers $2,000 by using the FAA jet instead of buying those airline tickets.”

But Buttigieg’s claim that the use of private jets could save taxpayers’ money, did not square with the aforementioned case of Tim Price, who was accused of wasting public funds by using that mode of transportation.

Launching a $1 Billion Pilot Plan for “Racial Equity” in Roads

On June 30, 2022, Buttigieg, who had previously declared that “there is racism physically built into some of our highways,” initiated a $1 billion pilot plan — the so-called Reconnecting Communities program — to address what he saw as racial segregation created by roads in cities and neighborhoods across the United States. “Transportation can connect us to jobs, services and loved ones, but we‘ve also seen countless cases around the country where a piece of infrastructure cuts off a neighborhood or a community because of how it was built,” said Buttigieg when announcing the program in Birmingham, Alabama. “This is a forward-looking vision,” he explained. “Our focus isn’t about assigning blame. It isn’t about getting caught up in guilt. It’s about fixing a problem. It’s about mending what has been broken, especially when the damage was done with taxpayer dollars.”

Calling for Racial Equity in Government-Infastructure Labor Forces

At a National Association of Counties conference on February 13, 2023, Buttigieg told those in attendance that federal-government infrastructure projects should be carried out by teams of workers whose racial and ethnic backgrounds reflect those of the neighborhoods surrounding the project sites. Ignoring the fact that federal contracts already required that a percentage of such projects be reserved specifically for minority-certified businesses, he said: “We have heard way too many stories from generations past of infrastructure where you got a neighborhood, often a neighborhood of color that finally sees the project come to them but everyone in the hard hats on that project looking like, you know, doing — doing the good paying jobs don’t look like they came from anywhere near the neighborhood.”

Policy Positions

Buttigieg believes that:

• all women should have an unrestricted right to abortion-on-demand at any stage of pregnancy – subsidized by taxpayers, in cases of economic hardship;
• public and private employers alike should be legally required to implement affirmative-action hiring and promotion policies that give preference to African Americans and women, as compensation for historical injustices;
• the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is an excellent statute that can serve a strategic stepping stone toward the eventual implementation of a government-run, single-payer healthcare system;
• more guns in the hands of private citizens inevitably result in higher levels of crime, thus the availability of firearms should be restricted by whatever means are effective;
• restrictions on immigration are basically racist because they tend to prevent Hispanics and other non-whites from entering the United States;
• social services should be available to all U.S. residents regardless of their immigration status;
• illegal aliens should be offered amnesty if they have been productive members of society;
• voter ID laws are racist and are intended to suppress voting by nonwhite minorities;
• an ever-increasing reliance on “green energy” sources such as wind and solar should be put in place, along with the phasing out of fossil fuels, the imposition of carbon taxes, and the raising of vehicle CAFE standards;
• federal spending on infrastructure projects and job programs is crucial to the success of any economic recovery program; and
• the nationalization of banks and corporations is preferable to federal bailouts of those entities.

Buttigieg Quotes About Various Issues

• Abortion/Hyde Amendment: Buttigieg favors the repeal of the Hyde amendment, which prohibits the use of federal money to fund abortions. “I think the federal government has become too much of a pressure against women’s reproductive freedoms,” he says, “and we need to make sure that even though a lot of decisions are being made in the states, we have that leadership from the top of the federal government.” (2019)
• Equality Act: (a) “I think one of the big things that we’re looking at, of course, is the Equality Act. I live in a state where it is still–not in South Bend because we took local action, but in most parts of my state it’s still perfectly legal to be fired for who you are, and I think we need better legislation, civil rights legislation that takes care of that.” (2019)

(b) “Even if the Supreme Court upholds the idea that the Civil Rights Act applies to discrimination against, for example, same-sex couples in the workplace, we’ve still got a long way to go when it comes to other forms of discrimination, for housing, public accommodation. That is why we urgently need an Equality Act. I will fight for that, and I will sign it the moment that it hits my desk.”

• Systemic Racism: (a) “I think we’ll know we’re getting somewhere when this is not regarded as some specialty issue that candidates of color talk about or that we only talk about when addressing voters of color. This is a conversation that, frankly, white America needs to have too, because white America needs to face the roots of these inequities and the fact of systemic racism all around us. It’s the air we breathe.” (2019)

(b) “Systemic racism has touched every part of American life, from health to homeownership. If you walk into an emergency room and you are black, your reports of pain will be taken less seriously. If you apply for a job and you are black, you are less likely to be called just because of the name on the resume. It’s why I’ve proposed that we do everything from investing in historically red-lined neighborhoods to build black wealth in homeownership to supporting entrepreneurship for black Americans.” (2019)

(c) “It’s not enough to just take a racist policy, replace it with a neutral one and expect things will just get better on their own. I have proposed the most comprehensive vision to tackle systemic racism …, marshaling as many resources as went into the Marshall plan that rebuilt Europe … to make sure that we’re not only dealing with things like the overincarceration of black Americans, but also black solutions, entrepreneurship, raising to 25% the target for the federal government to do business with minority-owned businesses, investing in HBCUs [Historically Black Colleges & Universities] that are training and educating the next generation of entrepreneurs.” (2019)

(d) “[T]here is no question that systemic racism has penetrated to every level of our system, and my city [South Bend] was not immune. I took a lot of heat for discussing systemic racism with my own police department, but we’ve got to confront the fact that there is no escaping how this is part of all of our policies.” (2020)

• Reparations: When asked if he supports reparations to compensate African American descendants of slaves, Buttigieg replied: “I support H.R. 40 which is the bill that has been proposed in Congress to establish a commission to look at reparations, but we shouldn’t wait for that commission to do its work to do things that are reparative. Remember we’re not talking about a gift to anybody. We’re talking about mending what was broken. We’re talking about the generational theft of the wealth of generations of African Americans. And just crossing out our racist policy and replacing it with a neutral one is not enough. The United States must act immediately with investments in minority-owned businesses, with investments in health equity, with investments in HBCUs and on the longer term a look at reparations so that we can mend what has been broken.” (2020)
• Marijuana Legalization: “I am calling for us to take up reforms that end incarceration as a response to possession and make sure that we legalize marijuana and do it retroactively with expungements to correct the harm done in so many cases of incarceration, disproportionately of black and brown Americans where the incarceration did far more harm than the offense it was intended to deal with.” (2020)
• Racial Inequities in the Criminal Justice System: (a) “There’s no difference in America between blacks, whites and Latinos for using drugs or dealing drugs. But if you are African-American, you are almost four times more likely to be arrested and incarcerated. So much comes down to privilege. We have a criminal justice system that treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent. We can demonstrably show that there are 17,000 people unjustly incarcerated in America.” (2019)

(b) “My community is in anguish right now because of an officer-involved shooting, a black man, Eric Logan, killed by a white officer. And I’m not allowed to take sides until the investigation comes back. It’s a mess. And we’re hurting. And until we move policing out from the shadow of systemic racism, whatever this particular incident teaches us, we will be left with the bigger problem of the fact that there is a wall of mistrust put up one racist act at a time, not just from what’s happened in the past, but from what’s happening around the country in the present. I am determined to bring about a day when a white person driving a vehicle and a black person driving a vehicle, when they see a police officer approaching, feels the exact same thing.” (2019)

• Felon Voting Rights: “I do believe that when you are out [of prison], when you have served your sentence, then part of being restored to society is that you’re part of the political life of this nation again. And one of those things that needs to be restored is your right to vote.” (2019)
• Death Penalty: (a) “The death penalty has been one of many examples where racial discrimination has played out. It’s time to join the ranks of nations that have put the ugliness of capital punishment behind them. And while I’m pleased to see states taking this step, and I believe the federal government can and should take this step [abolishing capital punishment], too, at the end of the day it is the kind of thing that deserves to be in our Constitution.” (2019)

(b) “As we work to end mandatory minimums for nonviolent offenses, here too we must be intentional about fixing disparities that have deeply unfair racial consequences. It is time to face the simple fact that capital punishment as seen in America has always been a discriminatory practice and we would be a fairer and safer country when we join the ranks of modern nations who have abolished the death penalty.” (2019, at the National Action Network)

• Cutting the Prison Population: “The federal government can lead by example with what we’re doing in the federal system. We should also be engaging states, pressing them, and helping them get resources to do this the right way. At the federal level, it’s going to take a commission gauging how we can best use clemency power to help unwind incarceration that’s not meeting the intended goal and doing more harm than good.” (2019)
• Incarceration for Drug Crimes: “The point is not the legal niceties. The point is that we have learned through 40 years of a failed war on drugs that criminalizing addiction doesn’t work. Incarceration does more harm than the offense it’s intended to deal with. This is not saying that these substances are OK. It’s saying that a situation where jail is the closest thing they’ll ever get to inpatient treatment, shows a profound failure in our country’s mental health and addiction treatment system.” (2020)
• Free & Low-Cost College Tuition: “College affordability is personal for us…. I believe in reducing student debt. If you can refinance your house, you ought to be able to refinance your student debt. I also believe in free college for low and middle-income students for whom cost could be a barrier. I just don’t believe it makes sense to ask working-class families to subsidize the children of billionaires. The children of the wealthiest Americans can pay at least a little bit of tuition.” (2019)
• Carbon Tax (as a form of wealth redistribution): “I’ve proposed that we assess a carbon tax. And I know you’re not supposed to use the T word when you’re in politics, but we might as well call this what it is. There is a [environmental] harm being done, and in the same way that we have taxed cigarettes, we’re going to have to tax carbon. Now, the difference with my plan is that I propose that we rebate all of the revenue we collect right back out to the American people on a progressive basis, so that low- and middle-income Americans are made more than whole. I’m proposing that the carbon tax is something whose incidence is on the polluters, not on the American people, especially lower-income people.” (2019)
• Twenty Years Till Climate Catastrophe: “Science tells us we have 12 years before we reach the horizon of catastrophe when it comes to our climate.” (2019)
• Ending Reliance on Coal: “The U.S. needs to lead the way in the global exit of coal-fired power. I will quadruple clean energy research and development in the U.S. and enact additional policies to support the deployment of renewables, storage, carbon capture and energy efficiency in homes and building retrofits. The U.S. will work through global institutions to reduce and end global fossil fuel subsidies, many of which have unfairly favored coal, starting at home.” (2019)
• Supreme Court: “I’m not talking about packing the Court just with people who agree with me. What I’m talking about is will depoliticize the Court. I’m not wedded to a particular solution but I am committed to establishing a commission on day one that will propose reforms to depoliticize the Supreme Court because we can’t go on like this.” (2019)
• Reversing the “Citizens United” Supreme Court Decision: “It’s going to require Democratic reform so that dollars can’t outvote people. If the only way that we can establish as a matter of American Constitutional law that a corporation is different than a person and that spending money to influence an election is different than speech, the only way we can clear that up is with a Constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United, than that’s what we’re going to have to do.” (2019)
• Electoral College: “[W]e’ve got to repair our democracy. The Electoral College needs to go, because it’s made our society less and less democratic.” (2019)
• Path to Single-Payer Health Care: (a) “I would call it Medicare for all who want it. You make it available on the exchanges, people can buy in. If people like us are right, that will be not only a more inclusive plan, but a more efficient plan, then it will be a very natural glide path to the single-payer environment. But let’s remember, even in countries that have socialized medicine there’s still a private sector. It’s just that for our primary care, we can’t be relying on the tender mercies of the corporate system.” (b) “A single-payer environment is probably the right answer in the long term, but I think any politician who throws around phrases like Medicare for all has to explain how we would get there. What you want to do is you take something like Medicare, you put it on the exchanges as a public option, and if people like me are right that that is both good coverage and more cost efficient, then more and more people will buy in and it will be a very natural glide path towards the single-payer environment.” (Both quotes are from 2019.)
• Health Care for Illegal Aliens: “Our country is healthier when everybody is healthier. Remember, we are talking about something people are given a chance to buy into. This is not about a handout. This is an insurance program. And we do ourselves no favors by having 11 million undocumented people in our country be unable to access health care. But, of course, the real problem is we shouldn’t have 11 million undocumented people with no pathway to citizenship. It makes no sense.” (2019)
• Health Care Coverage for Gender Reassignment Surgery: “Yeah. I believe that’s [gender reassignment surgery is] part of health care. We provide health care to people who are incarcerated. The bigger issue is that too many people are incarcerated. We need to treat everybody the same, if you regard this as part of health care. People try to turn others against this around the issue of cost, but the spectacular costs of incarceration have very little to do with things like gender reassignment.” (2019)
• Military Spending: “We need to re-prioritize our budget as a whole and our military spending in particular. It’s not just how much, although we certainly need to look at the runaway growth in military spending. It’s also where. Right now, we are spending a fraction of the attention and resources on things like the artificial intelligence research that China is doing right now. If we fall behind on artificial intelligence, the most expensive ships that the United States is building just turned into bigger targets.” (2019)
• Three-Year Sunset for Wars: “We have got to put an end to endless war. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from Afghanistan, it’s that the best way not to be caught up in endless war is to avoid starting one in the first place. And so when I am president, an authorization for the use of military force will have a built-in three-year sunset. Congress will be required to vote and a president will be required to go to Congress to seek an authorization. Because if our troops can summon the courage to go overseas, the least our members of Congress should be able to do is summon the courage to take a vote on whether they ought to be there.” (2019)
• Immigration & the Biblical Call to “Welcome the Stranger”: “I find a message in scripture that is very different from what the political right seems to want to talk about all the time, a lot about poverty, a lot about compassion, a lot about humility that I seek in my imperfect way to live up to, and that does have implications for how I will approach public office. If you belong to a Christian tradition or any moral or religious tradition that emphasizes making yourself useful to the oppressed and standing with the prisoner, and welcoming the stranger, the stranger by the way is another word for immigrant. Yes that has implications in public life and I won’t be afraid to talk about how my positions are informed by my faith.” (2020)
• Decriminalizing Illegal Border-Crossings: “[C]riminalization is the basis for family separation [at the border]. You do away with that, it’s no longer possible. The Republican Party likes to cloak itself in the language of religion. For a party that associates itself with Christianity, to say that God would smile on the division of families at the hands of federal agents, that God would condone putting children in cages, has lost all claim to ever use religious language again.” (2019)
• Minimum Wage: “In addition to confronting tech, in addition to supporting workers by double unionization, as I propose to do, some of this is low-tech, too, like the minimum wage is just too low. And so-called conservative Christian senators right now in the Senate are blocking a bill to raise the minimum wage, when scripture says that whoever oppresses the poor taunts their maker.”
• Guaranteed Income: “There’s an experiment in Stockton [California] where they’re distributing payments to people to make sure that that income floor is lifted. There are too many Americans who couldn’t find even $400 in an emergency to get them through that. I’m not yet sure that that’s the right way to go, but it’s the sort of bold policy we should contemplate, especially if it’s connected to work. Maybe we ought to broaden our definition of work. If you are taking care of a parent or raising a child, isn’t that work?” (2019)
• Iran Nuclear Deal: (a) “Walking away from the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between Iran and 6 countries] was a strategic mistake. We didn’t develop the deal as a favor to Iran; we did it because it was in our national security interest. I would revive P5+1 diplomacy and direct US-Iran dialogue to pursue follow-on agreements that extend the timeframe of certain nuclear restrictions, cover Iran’s missile program, and address its role in regional conflicts, all in return for targeted sanctions relief.” (2019)

(b) “Another thing I would never have done is to get us out of the nuclear deal setting off a chain reaction that has destabilized the regional security framework and the politics of that area. We need to have a completely different approach. We’re going to have to do something new. The point is that we never should have left it in the first place.” (2019)

Further Reading

“Pete Buttigieg” (Ballotpedia.org; Votesmart.org)