Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh
Pete Buttigieg on Trump Tariffs, Taxing Billionaires, and Republican Gays
Wed, 23 Apr 2025
YERRR – former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg came on to talk about fixing America’s crumbling infrastructure, fixing the Democratic Party, & his political aspirations. He gets into policy, public perception, parenting, his coming out story, and what it takes to run for president. All that and more on this week’s episode of FLAGRANT. INDULGE. 00:00 Intro 00:32 White Lotus recap 3:11 Commercial space travel + Air travel is unbelievably safe 5:37 Taxing the ultra wealthy + Corporate tax avoidance 11:17 Tariffs are a tax + Reducing incentives to hoard money 15:05 Urban decay, Corporate profiteering & Wealth tax 23:12 What would Pete do differently with tariffs? 28:26 Finger-wagging, Compassion + Dems’ direction 33:59 AOC + Bernie messaging & Policies 38:14 DOGE is about power not efficiency 44:56 Huge transportation projects in NYC 48:50 Power play + Limits on power 54:00 Where do our taxes go? 1:00:47 Best results aren’t seen + Slow progression = bureaucracy 1:08:11 Perception of Dems’ states + Facts are debated 1:15:20 Stocks & politicians + Misunderstanding data 1:19:14 Willing to correct mistakes 1:22:00 NBA playoffs time 1:23:55 Echo chambers + Courting some controversy 1:32:28 What do Americans really need? 1:38:57 Right to choose and tax cuts + Address our feelings 1:41:31 What would Pete do? 1:45:46 Coming out, “Just In Case” letter + Radical Empathy 1:59:42 Reaction to coming out + White boy fun 2:04:40 Telling parents was not easy + Challenges 2:11:30 Fatherhood 2:19:20 Raising Black children 2:22:39 If Pete runs for president, what are the costs? 2:26:58 What drew Pete into public service? 2:32:46 Is America ready for a gay president? 2:34:53 How do keep the US at no. 1? A1 not AI 2:41:14 Addressing the wage gap + Poverty 2:46:17 Tax Cuts being passed right now Follow Us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/flagrant/about Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What insights does Pete Buttigieg offer on Trump tariffs?
Chapter 2: How do we address corporate tax avoidance?
You know, I think the dad has to sit with Chasten. My husband and I have been talking about this a lot. The dad should have to sit with, like, what he did. The guilt, yes. And there were so many parallels to what happens with Tanya where he's, like, floating, right, when he seems like he's dying or maybe sort of dead. Yeah.
I think just story-wise that otherwise, you know, I don't have a lot of notes for this year's White Lotus. I mean, it was incredible.
I guess the one thing would be does anything really happen to the ultra-wealthy?
maybe that's maybe that's what he's trying to showcase which is kind of what always they always get away with it yeah that's true yeah even the kid even the kid yeah um yeah because by the time they're on the boat it's like none of that even happened right yeah and then the poor security guards that are guarding the guy they die yeah yeah no one talks about them they were mean to what's his name yeah yeah
I'm okay with that. That's a good point. They were bullies, dude. You really fell in love with that guy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, dude. He had such a pure heart. Don't bully this guy. Yeah, that is true. And then the three women seem fine after witnessing a mass shooting. Like, they're just laughing.
Just on the boat, having a good time.
Yeah, yeah.
um but yeah in season one if you remember the guys the really rich kids like stabs the guy and then he's just in the airport 20 minutes later or whatever no questioning no nothing and i think that's kind of andrew's point is like i think the point of that show is the ultra wealthy one guy has his wife killed nothing seems to happen they just kind of get away with it but there is social mobility because belinda joins the club the second she joins the club what happens to her
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Chapter 3: What are the impacts of tariffs on everyday Americans?
Chapter 4: What does Pete Buttigieg think about taxing billionaires?
Chapter 5: How can the Democratic Party improve its messaging?
You're such a Doge. If Doge was actually about government efficiency, I'd be all for it. But it's not about that. No. What is it about?
It's about power. Look, I'll give you an example. Yeah. You're telling me people in government are concerned with power. I know. It's shocking.
This is insane. I know. Hot take. Truth bomb. It's being dropped on playground. No, but look at it this way. So, and yeah, when I was in government as mayor, when I had my kind of small government that I was running, we took whole departments apart and put them back together. We removed people who weren't performing very well. And by the way, that was hard.
Like one of the reasons I've always had a problem with this president is like he emerged kind of play acting, like firing people for fun. Right. For me, at least as like a young CEO, basically of a city government, other than dealing with violence and death, the worst part of my job was firing people. Like I hated it, especially because like they weren't.
It wasn't necessarily a bad person, but you had a person who was in a role that they didn't fit in and their department wasn't doing as well as I thought it needed to do to serve residents. I would have this very painful conversation where we'd sit down, I'd look them in the eye, and that sucked for most of all for them. But but anyway, we're not afraid to do that because you have to do that.
Yeah. But look at what happened when they came in. Right. If if this is actually about government efficiency, then the problem you would be solving, which is a real problem, is that in the federal government, it is too hard to reward your top performers.
So you could be somebody who could be commanding a multimillion dollar salary in the private sector, working on something wildly important, but there's just no way that you're getting, you know, you're in your particular pay grade, same as everybody else. And to remove your bottom performance.
Like, a lot of people who've been in and out of business and government will tell me, like, when I was in the private sector and the public sector, actually, like, the top 10% were pretty much the same, these amazing driven people. You know, the government ones weren't compensated as well, but they were purpose-driven.
But the bottom 10% was completely different because I couldn't do anything about the bottom 10%, right? So imagine if Doge had come in. And they had gone through every department and said, okay, we're going to create a way to reward the top performers. And we're also going to analyze either whose job description is no longer needed or their job performance is not there.
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