STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We hear some speakers inside that convention. President Biden spoke last night as Vice President Harris watched.
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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Selecting Kamala was the very first decision I made before I - when I became our nominee, and it was the best decision I made my whole career.
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INSKEEP: The featured speakers later this week include our next guest, Pete Buttigieg. He is secretary of transportation but is off the clock this morning for his political activity, speaking in his personal capacity. Mr. Buttigieg, welcome back.
PETE BUTTIGIEG: Thank you. Thank you for having me on.
INSKEEP: So it's easy for me, as a layman, to see this convention as a symbolic handoff. More explicitly, really, than some conventions, you have Biden and older figures in the party passing it on to a different generation. Do you see it that way?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, there certainly is that sense of passing the torch after President Biden's really extraordinary - I would say world-historically rare - act of opening the door to a new generation just because it was the right thing to do. But I think you also heard, regardless of which generation they belong to, all these figures from the Democratic Party talking about the future - whether it's President Biden talking about what he still wants to accomplish and why it's important for Vice President Harris to carry that on forward, or any of the speakers we saw last night, from previous nominees to new and emerging Democrats who make us, I think, very excited and very optimistic about the future of this party.
INSKEEP: I want to ask about a contrast there. You do have former presidents at the Democratic Convention - both Clintons, Obama, Biden himself. You have former presidential candidates - whereas, at the Republican Convention, if I'm not mistaken, there were no former presidents or candidates. George W. Bush, for example, didn't show up. Mike Pence didn't show up. I think if you asked former President Trump about that difference, he might say, that's great. I want it that way. I'm against all those corrupt people who don't like me. But how would you describe the difference?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, the reason that would be an unconvincing answer from Donald Trump is that it's not just people who came before him in the Republican Party who wanted nothing to do with him. It's a lot of his own people. As you mentioned, Mike Pence, his own vice president - I don't think they are on speaking terms. Many members of his own cabinet have denounced him or, at the very least, are avoiding campaigning with him or endorsing him. Some of the harshest criticisms of him, including that information about how he treated and discussed our troops, came from somebody who was his own chief of staff. I can't think of another time in American history when a president's own staff and cabinet members have gone out to warn the world that he is unfit to return to office and should not be brought back.
INSKEEP: I guess we'll just note - Trump has denied making that statement about soldiers, but John Kelly, his former chief of staff, said on the record that that was, in fact, the quote.
BUTTIGIEG: Exactly.
INSKEEP: Let me ask - should we expect a Harris administration, should she win, to continue, fundamentally, the same direction as the Biden administration? And if not, what will change?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, of course, she'll have her own strategy, approach and priorities, but I do think a lot of the most successful policies of the Biden-Harris administration will continue to be developed. And certainly, the results are something that will be important to carry forward. I'm thinking about the job growth at a level that's unprecedented in the history of the modern presidency. I'm talking about things like the reduction in crime - something I think Americans, many Americans, still aren't aware of - how much crime has gone down, compared to how it went up under Donald Trump.
So many other areas in which it is very clear that this policy approach - that's not about the size of government for its own sake, but using the tools of government to help solve problems for people - is the right one. But there's clearly a lot of unfinished business - things like making sure that $35 insulin that the administration was able to get for seniors is available to everybody, making sure that every American can have paid family leave, and so many other items on the economic agenda that she's laid out.
INSKEEP: Harris has said she wants to raise taxes on corporations, going up to a 28% rate, which is higher than it is, although lower than it used to be. Why raise it?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, yes, it's still lower taxes than we had in earlier periods, but you've got to have enough to fund the important things that are helping propel our economy forward. And I think most Americans get that the wealthy and corporations are not paying their fair share. Because of that tax rate and the way most of our wealthiest people book their income, in effect, they are paying a much lower tax rate than most teachers or firefighters. This would help true that up, and they would still be very, very wealthy.
INSKEEP: Here's something that I think Harris is not directly addressed. She has changed some of her positions since she ran for president in 2020 - or leading up to 2020. She was for Medicare for all - isn't anymore. She was against fracking - is now in favor of it. As someone who has worked with Vice President Harris, how do you think about her change - or evolution, if that's the word?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, I think your time in government and just the evolution of the situation around you means it makes sense to continue developing your policies. I don't think any of us locks in amber or freezes what we would have said or thought years earlier, especially given how much change and dynamism there is - not just in the administration, but just in the world around us right now. But she's very clear about her plans, clear about what she'll do. And this isn't just theoretical because she has been such a key leader in the Biden-Harris administration, delivering a very clear and, I would argue, very consistent policy approach.
INSKEEP: I want to ask about one other thing. If people don't know about this, Mr. Buttigieg, they should. You, as a Democrat, appear often on Fox News. You take a lot of hard questions. People often say you're impressive there, and that you make the Democrats' case in a place where it otherwise wouldn't be made. Should Vice President Harris do as you have done and expose herself to hard questions somewhere, which she largely has not since becoming the candidate?
BUTTIGIEG: I think she's planning to engage media more and more in the weeks ahead. In the early weeks of this campaign, she's been very focused on bringing the party together, preparing for this convention. Every candidate develops their own style and the different ways of reaching out to voters. That can be through media. That can also be through good, old-fashioned retail politics. It can be through digital means, increasingly, and I think you're going to see all of the above.
INSKEEP: You must find some value, though, in standing up for tough questions.
BUTTIGIEG: I think so, especially because there are a lot of viewers out there tuning into conservative media like Fox News who may literally have never heard about things like the manufacturing job growth going on right now in the American industrial Midwest, where I grew up, or the fact that energy production was lower under Donald Trump and is higher right now, or the fact that crime went up under Trump and down under Biden-Harris. I do think it's important to get that message out and take it to anyone who will listen, and I think that's what you'll see this campaign doing for the next 77 days.
INSKEEP: Pete Buttigieg is secretary of transportation, speaking today in his personal capacity. Thanks very much for the time. I enjoyed it.
BUTTIGIEG: Thank you. Likewise. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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