Stephen Colbert: Self - Host

Quotes 

• Self - Host : ladies and gentlemen, my next guest tonight is a Road Scholar, navy veteran, two term mayor of South Bend Indiana, and currently running for President of the United States, please welcome back to the Late Show, Mayor Pete Buttigieg

  Self - Host : [after Buttigieg receives a standing ovation and sits down]  nice to see you again, thanks for coming back

  Pete Buttigieg : good to be back

  Self - Host : the last time you were here, people didn't know a lot about you at the time: you just got into the race, Mayor of South Bend, "Who is this guy?"

  Pete Buttigieg : right

  Self - Host : we had you on and when you left, I turned to my producer and I said "Wow, I really felt like that guy was giving me "real answers", what he really thought, he was "really there" because a lot of politicians can be very mannered, very "brightest". Now that you've been on the campaign trail, for a while, how "real" are you? Or your hand handlers are messaging you all the time?

  Pete Buttigieg : [jokingly]  it's all gone. No, I think it takes so much more work to be somebody they tell you to be and to be "myself." So far, that has worked out pretty well

  Self - Host : how long ago since you declared, do you remember?

  Pete Buttigieg : we started the committee in January, then in April we launched "officially"

  Self - Host : ok, so we're about five months in right now, how has the trail been treating you? Because it can be rough

  Pete Buttigieg : yeah, it's a lot of work but it's a lot of fun too, especially right now. So, this really when we're "building out" the "ground game." We were just in Iowa, opening twenty offices in twenty days and we're also going back enough where you start meeting folks more than once: you feel like you get to know them, like I was reunited with the kid who smacked me in the face recently

  Self - Host : [confused]  I'm sorry, what happened?

  Pete Buttigieg : so, we're opening offices in Cedar Rapids, and this woman looks a little familiar, she's got this little toddler in her arms, and she says "Do you remember my son?" She says "His the one who smacked you in the face", I say " Oh yeah, I do remember this actually." So I was on the rope line, shaking hands, after a speech, couple months ago, and you know when I meet a little kid, a good thing to do is give him a little high five, right?

  Self - Host : sure

  Pete Buttigieg : his not quite old enough for a hand shake, so you go for the high five

  Self - Host : sure

  Pete Buttigieg : so, I did that and just mis-judged, the kid was not quite old enough to get the high five concept, and so he just whacked me and then he was just old enough to kinda know from everybody reaction that was not the right thing to do, he just curled up, he was very shy, and his starting to cry and I was like "It's ok, it didn't hurt, you'll be fine." Anyway, so it was nice to be...

  Self - Host : [jokingly, impersonating what Buttigieg should've said at the time]  I'm an Afghan veteran, bring it!

  Pete Buttigieg : so, after this kid will have a good story to tell

  Self - Host : at a town hall last night, the CNN townhall on climate change, lasted seven hours, what hour did they consign you to?

  Pete Buttigieg : [after thinking it over]  I think it was like the fifth hour, I was really impressed with the CNN folks: just how well the crew held up

  Self - Host : how'd the audience held up for that long?

  Pete Buttigieg : I think they swap them out every now and then?

  Self - Host : [jokingly]  hosed them down and send them back in. Last night in the town hall on climate change, you called climate change a "sin"

  Pete Buttigieg : yeah

  Self - Host : in what way is climate change a "transgression" of God's laws?

  Pete Buttigieg : well, look I'm not out to impose my faith on anybody else but...

  Self - Host : [interrupts him, jokingly]  is this your Sharia law?

  Pete Buttigieg : I'm Episcopalian and we got...

  Self - Host : [interrupts him]  oh, you don't have Sharia law?

  Pete Buttigieg : our Sharia law is called The Book of Common Prayer

  Self - Host : gotcha

  Pete Buttigieg : there's a lot of stuff in there about the environment: there's a lot of stuff about stewardship and Creation. Also, to me environmental stewardship is not just about taking care of the planet, it's about taking care of our neighbor, we're supposed to love our neighbor as ourselves and the biggest problem with climate change isn't just it's going to hurt the planet, in some way, shape, or form. The planet is still gonna be here: we are hurting people, people who are alive right now, and people who will be born in the future. The way I see it, I don't imagine God's gonna let us "off the hook" for "abusing" future generations any more than you'd be "off the hook" for harming someone right next to you and with climate change we're doing both

  Self - Host : [after the audience applauses]  well, one thing that's sort of "interesting" to me is that as far as I can tell is that you are the candidate who is talking about their personal faith more than the other candidates on the Democratic side and the GOP has gone a long way over the last generation of trying to make themselves the "Christian party" or the "Party of Faith", where do you see faith "properly influencing" your "job" as a politician?

  Pete Buttigieg : well, I think democrats have been a little "allergic" in talking about faith and it's largely for a very "good" reason, which is we passionately believe, when you're running for office, or when you're in office, you have an obligation to treat people of any religion and people of no religion equally, it's a basic American principle

  Pete Buttigieg : [after the audience applauses]  but at the same time, as we see some of these figures on the religious right "embrace" behavior and I think policy but definitely behavior that "flies in the face", not just of my values but of their own, then it reminds me of parts of scripture where there's a lot about hypocrisy, and I think we have an obligation to call that out and to speak about how not just the Christian faith tradition that I belong to but pretty much any religious or non-religious moral tradition I've ever heard of tells us it's really important how we treat the least among us, the most vulnerable, the marginalized, that we are obligated to serve the poor, and to heal the sick, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, "stranger" by the way being another word for "immigrant" and what we're seeing right now in the White House is the opposite

  Self - Host : [after the audience applauses]  well, we have a debate next week, next Thursday night, we're live, afterwards to make jokes about whatever you said, give me something good please

  Pete Buttigieg : I'll do my best

  Self - Host : [after looking down at his notes]  you're polling at about five percent nationally, ok? People have said "Oh, there's the top three, there's Biden, and there's Warren, there's Sanders," and there's second tier, no offense, it's not me, their saying it, I think your top notch but...

  Pete Buttigieg : [jokingly]  I think some of them are saying its "Tier One B", where they're at

• Self - Host : [laughs]  oh, really? Spoken like someone who did a lot of outlines in school

  Self - Host : [after Buttigieg laughs]  so, you're polling at five percentage nationally, how do you "cut" into it? What ways do you do you think you can make an impression in a debate? How do you go in? What's your strategy?

  Pete Buttigieg : well, now I think there are still an awful lot of us but...

  Self - Host : [interrupts him]  only ten in the debate

  Pete Buttigieg : exactly, so now that it's starting to wind down, people are starting to look for the contrasts and I think it'll be important for me to "convey" how I'm "different" from the others, how I'm "like" the others, and how I admire them. It'd not just a matter of style, it's also a matter of "approach", which is why I'm not making the same "promises" as some of the candidates to my left are, I share their goals, and believe we can do it in a way where we bring Americans together: the idea of "Medicare for all who want it", is that I agree we should have universal healthcare and I agree that we should have a public alternative and that the public alternative will be "better" but I think it's best to allow Americans to choose that and vote with their "feet" instead of ordering a hundred million Americans to switch and expecting" that to "work out". So, these are some of the contrasts that I think will be important to bring to the "surface" in the debate and also just explaining how I'm "oriented" in moving the country forward because I think we've gotten "stuck" in repeating in some of these debates that basically have been "drawn out" as long as I've been alive. If you start to start the clock in the early eighties...

  Self - Host : [nods]  yes?

  Pete Buttigieg : when I was born, that's about the time when a lot of things slowed down or stopped in this country from wage growth for most Americans to progress on a lot of issues of equity to the "new" issues emerge like climate change, we haven't done anything. So, we can talk all day about who's plan has the exact right year for which target, we're gonna decarbonize, obviously, I think mine's the best but so does everybody else. The real question is what's it going to take to actually get it done this time? And that I think it's the matter of "breaking" from the past and bringing a different "approach" to rallying Americans not necessarily through ideological centrism but through enlisting Americans through the values that we share to get "something" done before it's too late

  Self - Host : so, when you say "ideological centrism", not necessarily "ideological centrism", are you saying not to get too "pigeonholed" into the two things that the press seems to be talking about right now? "Their either incrementalists or your radical change, where do you "fall" in that "artificial split"?

  Self - Host : [jokingly]  I demand that you "pigeonhole" yourself

  Pete Buttigieg : so, I view myself as a progressive, that's how I view myself philosophically. I also think there's more to "this" than just "this" left to center "line." So when I talk about the fact that we need to reform the Supreme Court or if we want to start calling ourselves a "democracy", we ought to pick our President by just counting up all the votes and give it to the person who got the most

  Pete Buttigieg : [after the audience applauses]  I don't think you have to be "particularly" left or center to believe that

  Self - Host : uh huh

  Pete Buttigieg : but I do think it's a bold initiative in addition to the things we've been talking about a lot as a party, like the need for a higher minimum wage, or the need for "action" on gun safety, or climate change, that we have to do those profound things and I don't know if that will always line itself up on a left/right spectrum. The important thing is let's talk about what we actually have to do as a country, so that a generation from now, we're not talking about yet another generation that lives through school shootings, right now the Gross Domestic Product is going up and life expectancy is going down, that shouldn't even be possible and shame on us if the generation from now is having the same debates over the same issues and nothing's actually changed

  Pete Buttigieg : [after returning from commercial break]  you're the only candidate from what I understand on the democratic side who is an Afghan war vet?

  Pete Buttigieg : that's right

  Self - Host : ok, the US is presently negotiating with the Taliban on a pull out and my understanding is that there is some indication that there are some tentative agreements already, are they "trustworthy" in your opinion? Can you negotiate with the Taliban? And how would you want us to get out?

  Pete Buttigieg : well, I think the important thing is to make sure we have a deal that works for our "interests", that is "enforceable" so do I trust the Taliban in terms of thinking they're a nice or great group of folks? I do not

  Pete Buttigieg : [after the audience chuckles]  but when you're making peace with somebody, your making peace with your enemy: that's what it is to come to the table, to me the real problem is the Afghan government, the legitimately elected Afghan government has been on the sidelines in this process, and I think they need to be very much in the middle of it. At the end of the day, we've got to leave and this is the one thing that the left, the right, the Afghan government, the international community can agree on is that we're leaving. The question is are we going to leave well? Or are we going to leave poorly? I think that we gotta do is to get whatever assurances what we need on keeping the American homeland safe, but without getting sucked into a generation of "guaranteeing" all the things that needs to go right with the Afghan government

  Self - Host : for so many years, one of the "cries" on the side that didn't want us to leave Afghanistan was "You can't actually say you wanna leave or else they won't negotiate, from a position of strength against the Taliban". Do you think it's a mistake to say that ahead of time that we wanna leave?

  Pete Buttigieg : well, definitely, if "we" for example, allow it to be decided by the American political calendar and I'm a little worried that's what's happening with the current Administration but again I think the understanding is that we've gotta go: we do have leverage, based on the timing, the manner of our departure, as well as the fact we're gonna have some kind of special operations, or intelligence capability, no matter what. That's part of the leverage that helps us get a "political settlement" but we have to get the "political settlement", we have to leave: it is September of 2019, that means you could be eighteen, you could be old enough to enlist, a couple weeks from now and not have been alive on 9/11. It won't be that long before we get news of a casualty in Afghanistan, an American, who was not alive on 9/11, unless we do something different