if we're heading to the little girls and boys room to do just that. my thanks to the panel. thank you so much for watching. i apologize if anyone was offended by our language. >> me too. >> that does it for our hour. i'll see you back here monday for "deadline: white house" at 4:00 p.m. ♪ [ cheers and applause ] i'm chris matthews live from the klondike theater at fresno state at a special "hardball"

town hall event. not since barack obama has a candidate has someone ignited so much buzz so fast. he's 37 years old, a graduate of harvard a rhodes scholar, a naval officer deployed to afghanistan and a mayor of a small city in indiana, population 100,000. pete buttigieg. he says his eight years leading south bend, indiana, gives him more experience to be president than donald trump had. he gave me a tour of his hometown which a decade ago was cited as one of america's ten dying cities, the same year buttigieg was elected mayor. >> how are you doing? >> hi, pete. >> so you don't mind being called pete by this guy? you don't have to say your honor? >> that's my man. he's my mayor. >> it would many funny if i insisted on it. >> in south bend, they just call him pete, the hometown mayor who is suddenly a national celebrity. >> say hi to mayor pete. >> when you wake up in the

morning do you feel mayor? >> yeah, because the first thing you're doing is checking to see what happened overnight. if it wasn't something worth weigh you up over, there's stuff you still want to know about. >> a crime report? >> i get incident reports and a monthly look at where the numbers are. >> the city was in a decades-long decline. it called the business district a blighted ghost town. today investment in pouring in. there are new condos, parks, restaurants, even a nightly light display along the river. one of the mayor's proudest achievements, smart sewers. >> this little thing here contains a piece of equipment that can communicate wirelessly. it's linking to a sensor that goes down to that pbc tube and that is giving you a level reading on what the level reading is here. so if you know that one is getting close to topping out, you can reroute to other places avoiding an overflow. >> i bet donald trump's never had one of these experiences. >> i doubt it.

>> so there's different parts of even this building, which is just one part of the complex. >> the mayor took me to the site of the old studebaker plant which closed in 1963. at one time it employed 24,000 people. >> the company basically folded. almost overnight. they had some problems in the '50s, labor issues, business problems, and then the word went out one december day in '63 and the whole city changed. people thought the city was dead. pretty quick after that, we started losing population. down by the '90s we were down about 30,000 people from our peak. >> how are you doing? >> the mayor transformed the site in a technology hub, also a site for nonprofits. the city still faces challenges. the jobless rate among african-americans is almost twice as high as for whites. one of the mayor's policies, demolishing vacant homes, faced early pushback from community activists. >> so what's your plan to help

the neighborhood because you're demolishing everything? what about building and repairing? so that's when we came up with 500 homes in 500 days. >> we lost a quarter of our population. plus the housing stock, you know, eventually becomes a little different than what people want and need in terms of demand. you got houses built in the '40s and '50s. smaller lot sizes, small house sizes. people want something different. >> i'm a proud son of south bend, indiana, and i am running for president of the united states. >> buttigieg wants his record as mayor to power his presidential campaign. he told me he's proud of where he comes from. >> rust belt. >> you know, a lot of my fellow industrial midwesterners want to ban that from the vocabulary. i think we should own it and transform it what it means to be the rust belt. a sort of pride. took it in the gut because of the changes that happened and figure out a way to grow and

adapt to the future. >> i think trump promised to bring it back. >> he did, but he promised to bring it back by returning to the past. and that's not just -- [ inaudible ] [ cheers and applause ] >> and now the biggest star to come out of south bend, indiana, since rudy, mayor pete buttigieg. [ cheers and applause ] >> how are you doing? hi, everybody. >> whoa. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you. >> all right.

pretty good. pretty good. thank you. >> thanks for having me. >> let's get into business now and the issues that matter to the news business but the real people out there who are here. the shootings in florida and virginia, virginia beach this week. 20 -- 12 dead. 12 dead. you've come out for a national licensing plan. how would that work? we have almost 400 million guns in this country. how do you license them? >> that's the thing. if you have to have a license to have a car, it doesn't seem that unreasonable that for deadly weaponry we should do the same. most americans are fine with this. most gun owners this shouldn't cause any problems for them. just as we lack universal background checks. in most states we lack red flag laws for domestic abusers are help with situations where somebody poses a danger to others or to

themselves can far too easily get a weapon. it's making our country less safe. i'm fine with this being something that is harmonized at the federal level and managed at the state level. kind of how we do i.d.s suitable for flying federally, but issued at the state level. it's got to be up to a certain standard nationally for it to work. >> the nra, as you know, has been wildly against this since i was born practically. they talk about gun registration is the enemy. they'll round them up next. would it be by serial number? how would it work? everybody with a gun calling the atf to register? how would it work? >> look, i think the most important thing is what we do going forward. retoe retro actively is going to be tough. i have a couple of antique rifles i brought back from afghanistan. you couldn't fire them in you tried. i don't know how to go about registering those. >> what about a person who owns a shotgun? should they register it? >> i think at the point of sale. >> but they own them. >> i got to register my car. >> we own 400 million guns now. >> so let's get it right going forward.

>> so that future guns get registered, but not the ones we have now? >> look, let's figure out a system -- >> have you changed on this because i thought you said awhile ago you believed in the licensing of all guns. >> look, think we can start on a go forward basis and actually have a system that we can use to look at what we can do retroactively. but at a minimum, if we're not doing it at the point of sale, we can begin. >> how many would like to see that? [ cheers and applause ] how many don't like the idea of registering guns? come on. >> all right. >> there's a few. >> a few honest people. >> let's talk about the guy leading in the polls, joe biden, over the weekend. you made a mention about the fact that basically the -- that you couldn't go back to the norm. >> yeah. >> that we can't go back to the '90s any better than we go back to the '50s because the democrats were rejected.

people voted for, in the electoral college, at least, for trump. >> here's the thing. people have seen democratic and republican administrations letting them down basically for as long as i've been alive. there is a sense our economy and our government are twisted, are tilted, are not working for us and it was incredibly upsetting. at a time when most americans, by the way, agree with democrats on most issues, to see us basically cast out as though we represented the system. if we don't demonstrate that we understand the need to transform the systems that we're living in, not just tinker around the edges, not replicate what we're used to. i guess the point is if we have a campaign where the theme is let's go back to normal -- >> that's what biden wants. you're suggesting biden would do that. >> i'm not going to talk to anybody else's campaign strategy. >> yes, you are. this is an indirect shot at biden. come on. does anybody think he's talking about biden? thank you. >> there's like 24 of us. i don't know which ones are pursuing --

[ cheers and applause ] >> all right. so you think you can get an unanswered shot from biden when you say some people want to go back to obama/biden and to hillary but i'm not going to name them. come on. >> my point is -- >> this is honesty here, okay? >> this is a lot bigger than one candidate or even one cycle. i believe we're in a moment between periods of american history. every 30, 40, 50 years, you come to one of these hinge points, the beginning of the reagan era was one. and the reagan era has lasted all the way until now. it's constrained how democrats and republicans have behaved since they got into office. the problem is it didn't work. the whole idea, and democrats bought into this, too, was that rising tide lifts all boats. as long as we make sure there is growth, everything will take care of itself. the problem is you start the clock right around the time i was born. what you find is the rising tide rose, but most of the boats didn't budge. most people's median income didn't move, and i think that sense that the system overall has failed us helps to explain

why, you know, in -- around here in this part of california, certainly around where i live in the industrial midwest, a lot of people who are under no illusions about the president being a good guy, okay, they're under no illusions about his character, but they decided to vote effectively to burn the house down. >> yeah. >> to send a message, and that's exactly what we got. so we got to demonstrate that we are speaking to the fundamental concerns. >> okay. >> that made it possible. >> that's a powerful message, mayor. i want to ask everybody if they agree. do you believe the politicians at the national level of both parties have been out of touch? [ cheers and applause ] let's go to a local person right off the bat. jacquelin lowe. where is jacquelin lowe? there she is. thank you. fourth generation walnut farmer here in fresno, california. jacquelin, go ahead. >> good afternoon, mayor pete. >> hello. >> welcome to fresno and thank you, "hardball," for coming to fresno. [ cheers and applause ]

>> thank you. >> my name is jacquelin lowe and i'm a fourth generation farmer. and my family farm currently raises walnuts in the san joaquin valley. president trump's policies on tariffs and trade are absolutely devastating our opportunity to sell our products overseas. >> right. >> particularly in asia. now, you are in fresno in the heart of the san joaquin valley, one of the richest agricultural areas in the world, and we would like to know what are your ideas on trade policy and tariffs as they relate to farms and ag policy and agriculture industry? >> thank you. first of all, thank you for being here and thank you for raising that issue. i hope we get a chance to try your product some time. i bet that when i do, one of the things i'll come away believing is that anybody in the world

ought to be able to enjoy it. you ought to be able to sell it to anyone in the world. the san joaquin valley helps feed not just america, but the world. the products that are grown here are world-class and yet what we're finding is because of a short-sighted, i can't even call it a strategy, i can't even call it a policy, it's a pattern, it's a pattern of poking people in the eye to see what will happen. but when you don't have -- look -- [ applause ] >> i completely get the idea if china is doing something unfair, i get the idea of standing up to them. if there are trade deals that are not benefitting us enough, i get the idea of adjusting them to make sure that it's fairer -- fair trade. but that's not what we're seeing right now. what we're seeing right now is basically politically motivated gamesmanship and it's coming down on your back. >> yes. >> it's harting farmers, it's hurting workers, it's hurting consumers. i wonder how consumers are aware

that the projection is we all on average will pay 800 bucks more a year starting now because of these tariffs. and by the way, a tariff is a tax, so if you ever believe the republicans don't raise taxes, that's what they're doing right now. [ cheers and applause ] >> let's go to -- mayor, another guest -- >> thanks very much. >> calvin flemming, sir, go ahead. >> hi, mayor pete. happy pride. >> thank you. >> as a gay dad who adopted my two sons through foster care, i wanted to find out what your plans were to fix the broken foster care system. hint, i hear you and chasten are looking to grow your family. [ applause ] >> well, first of all, thank you for making such a positive difference in the lives of your children, and i believe that we have been seeing the consequences of grossly

underresourced foster care systems. you know, each state does it differently and most every state is letting kids and families down. so we need to have a process that will hold states to a higher standard. yes, it's okay that states can have some independence on this, but it is not okay for children to be kicked around from home to home, for wait lists to be infinitely long. by the way, it would also make a big difference if it were harder for agencies to discriminate against same-sex parents who can provide loving families. [ cheers and applause ] and as for our plans, chasten's right here. he's a very patient person. >> no pressure. >> obviously i've made a couple of professional decisions that are kind of complicating our pathway to parenthood, but we can't wait and maybe you can give us some advice down the

line on that. >> thank you. >> mr. mayor, thank you. i wanted to ask you -- i wanted to talk to you about a follow-up to calvin. >> yeah. >> and what he raised there. and i think there are other questions there along those same lines. >> with your candidacy, we're at kind of a new frontier. we had a catholic president when i was growing up. this is not just political talk. soon after he was elected president, his religion never came up again. it wasn't relevant. bigger things. we were fighting the russians. cuban missile crisis and things like that are much more important. the first african-american president. i growing up thought, wow, this might be a challenge for the country. michelle obama was enormously popular as first lady. 70%-something popularity. >> she was really good at it. [ applause ] >> so chasten's here and i think -- i want you to talk about the people, not like mike pence, who are never going to vote for you, for all kinds of reasons. partisan and otherwise. >> hey, there is hope for everybody.

[ applause ] >> what about the people who honestly say gay couple in the white house, let me think about that? what do you want to say to them? they just want to think about it? >> i would ask them to think about what kind of president i would make and how i would serve them. that's what we did in south bend. when i came out, it was relatively late certainly compared to chasten. and other people i knew. i was already mayor. i had been through this deployment and it prompted me to realize you only get one life and i got to get on with the personal life and that means coming out. it happened to be an election year and we weren't sure what the politics of it would be. i mean, mike pence was governor of our state at that time. south bend was democratic and quite socially conservative. i got re-elected with 80% of the vote because people just cared about what job i was doing for them as mayor and i trust americans to do the same thing nationally. [ applause ] >> one of the reasons -- i'm a student of people like kennedy. >> right. >> i have to tell you one of the reasons he won the west virginia primary is he did it the way

you're doing it, very direct, very open, very clear and let them make up their minds. i think it's wonderful the way you're doing this. anyway, we're going to come right back, we're going to talk about another lighthearted topic, impeachment. [ cheers and applause ] ♪ limu emu & doug mmm, exactly! liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. nice! but uh, what's up with your partner? oh! we just spend all day telling everyone how we customize car insurance because no two people are alike, so... limu gets a little confused when he sees another bird that looks exactly like him.

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mayor and 2020 presidential candidate pete buttigieg. thank you. thank you. >> thank you. >> right there. your question, sir? >> all right. thank you. welcome to california, mayor pete. >> thank you. >> my name is keith, and i just want to let you know i'm starting to feel a little discouraged and feel like all the work i did in -- all the work we did if 2018 really didn't matter and i'm also starting to lose confidence in our house democratic leadership. and i want to know if you support speaker pelosi's slow, cautious approach towards the impeachment inquiry or not and why. >> thank you. first of all, i believe that the president deserves to be impeached. [ cheers and applause ] i would also say, even though i have revealed myself to be ambitious in that i am a young man running for president, that

i also would think twice before offering strategic advice to nancy pelosi. [ applause ] because i think part of what's happening here is to a lot of people impeachment means removal from office, but it's really a process, right? and it's the only process we've got left because the doj has said you can't charge a sitting president, and i don't think it makes a lot of sense to suggest that the president is above the law, but basically it means the only place we can have a procedure, the only place we can have a due process, the only way we can go through the steps of evidence and so forth, as long as he is in the oval office, is in congress in the form of an impeachment proceeding, which i think is what we're going to have to do, but in order to do that, it better be an air-tight process. so i do recognize while we're still trying to get information, the investigations are ongoing, there are witnesses yet to come before congress, that there may be some strategic wisdom in following that sequence. i'll leave that to congress. what i will say is that no one

ought to be above the law, that it matters that there is a majority. [ applause ] >> mayor, i've got a follow-up and it's -- it's the -- it's to sort of nail you down. >> yeah. >> if you were voting in congress right now on impeachment, would you vote to impeach? >> yeah, i would. >> okay, good. see how fast he is? thank you. thank you. let me go to angelique. angelique. >> hello. >> hi. >> hi. so you have a tremendous resume. one that speaks to your character and your capabilities, but you are running in a field of truly exceptional candidates, particularly in the case of the women who are running like senators kamala harris and elizabeth warren. so my question to you is, why should the women of america vote for you over our sisters who are kind of more qualified? >> wow. well, look, i admire so many of the people running. they're extraordinary.

and, by the way, we ought to have a woman in the oval office right now. i'm still disappointed that didn't happen. [ cheers and applause ] i do think, though, that my qualifications are a little bit different. that when you've led a city, especially exactly the kind of city that this president targeted with this rhetoric of nostalgia and resentment, but that can find a new future in a way i think disproves this whole idea that making america great again has to do with turning back the clock. when you have the experience of executive leadership on the ground on everything from economic development puzzles to officer-involved shootings, not just discussing them but having to actually handle them day in, day out and having to summon a community together when it comes under moments of intense strain. not to mention knowing personally what it means to be sent -- ordered into a war zone by the stroke of a pen of the american president.

and i think a different kind of focus on the future than any of my competitors in this process. i think that i represent something that's just different. now, the other thing that i want the women of america to know, because i've met a lot of women who say i like you, i like your message, i think you got an appealing candidacy, but i just will not vote for a man this time, is that i get it and whether you decide to be for me or not, i promise that i will be for you. >> thank you. [ cheers and applause ] mayor, the next one is haley. hailey? >> hey, mayor pete. my name is kalen and this fall i'll be embarking on graduate school so like others i'll have to take out large amounts of loans to pay for my education. so my question is what will you do about student debt? >> so this one is pretty personal for us. i don't know if you saw the rankings of the wealth of various candidates for president, but our household is pretty much bringing up the rear

on that one because -- because we have six-figure student debt. not because of any wrong choice. largely because chasten made the selfless choice to be a teacher and to go through some very expensive graduate school to get qualified in order to do that. we've got to make debt more affordable in terms of interest rates. if you can refinance a house, you ought to be able to do that on student debt. and i think more -- [ applause ] and i think more generous programs for public service loan forgiveness, so that you can get it forgiven. [ applause ] and then on the front end, i think we should massively expand pell grants and this time actually peg it to inflation so you don't have to go to congress every time you want to raise them. but i want to mention -- and a bunch of other steps to make college more affordable. but i want to mention something that i think is important that doesn't come up as often in the conversation about college affordability. college should absolutely be more affordable. it should also be more affordable to live and work in this country if you haven't been

to college. okay? we're talking about an american majority that may not ever have a university degree. and that shouldn't be a poverty sentence. so we also have to make sure that through, first of all, making sure that we've got a decent minimum wage, starting with 15. [ applause ] but also more broadly that we honor work and that we have adequate benefits and good pay and affordable health care, housing, education and the rest of it. that a working class lifestyle is a good one. it ought to be possible in this country to be able to afford to have your kids go to school and to put food on the table and even to be able to afford to be generous in some way to your little league, to your church. whether you have gone to college or not. and so in addition to making going to college affordable, we've got to make not going to college more affordable in this country. >> okay. [ applause ] how many -- how many in the

audience -- just raise your hand, how many in the audience, this issue of college debt is real. a kitchen table issue. yeah. look at that. real people. thank you. let me go to lydia right now. go ahead, lydia. >> well, thank you for coming to fresno. women's rights and equality are very important issues to me, especially in today's political climate. you've talked a lot about getting along and working together, but in a primary where we have multiple strong progressive candidates to choose from with detailed policies who are polling better than you right now, my question is, what detailed policies will you put in place to guarantee that abortion is kept safe, legal and accessible, but most importantly, to guarantee women the right to choose what's best for her life? >> thank you. [ applause ] so i think that every candidate for the democratic nomination ought to be able to demonstrate our commitment to women's

reproductive freedom, especially the candidates who are not themselves women. that's why i thought it was important for me to be on the steps of the supreme court with planned parenthood. it's why if you visit our website, you'll see our commitment to repealing the hyde amendment. our commitment to making sure that judicial appointments are those who share my view that freedom includes freedom to make decisions about your own body and making sure that we adequately fund the whole range, the whole spectrum of reproductive health services, which, of course, includes abortion care but is not limited to that. and i definitely invite folks to look at our website because our website contains more specific policy proposals than the majority of candidates for president on the democratic side right now. i promise. >> wow. >> thank you. mayor pete, you should see -- maybe you didn't see all the nodding heads from the women here as you were speaking. i watched all the heads. they're moving. they're nodding again. there is a lot of agreement about concern about choice. thank you so much. we'll be right back.

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wonderful part of california. thank you for all being here, everybody. [ cheers and applause ] okay, lightning round. yes or no answers would suffice, but you want to expand on it. right to work laws. the last time we had a town hall meeting, a guy said i hate the right to work laws. i'm an electrician because you have to join a union. work laws. where do you stand? >> bad idea. >> even though you have them in indiana you're against them? >> yeah, we do. it's a bad idea. it helps explain why income is so much lower in indiana than many other states. >> a national draft? >> no, but i do believe in national service and i think we should expand service opportunities. not just military. because the military is not for everybody. but things like americorps, the peace corps, you name it. until it becomes a norm that when you're 18, you spend a year in national service. whether you're headed to college or the workplace, the first question you get on your application is what did you do with that year? >> i think it's great. a cultural thing. >> i think it would knit so many americans together. i got to know so many radically

different people from me, different politics, different backgrounds when i was in the military. you shouldn't have to go to war to know that. >> did you ever have to use your weapon? >> took it off safety a couple of times. but i was not kicking down doors. >> you were threatened? >> we had a couple of hairy moments, but it's not like i killed bin laden. i was an intel guy. if it gets to where, you know, i'm taking my weapon off safety, it's pretty tough. >> voting in prison? >> as soon as someone is released, i believe without any red tape or any cost they should be able to vote. i'm not there yet when somebody's still incarcerated. >> what do you mean? you sound like kamala who says it should be part of the conversation. is it part of the conversation? >> it's not my position -- >> you're not haegsd -- heading toward that? >> no, but what they pointed out is even if you believe philosophically as i do that it's possible that in a fair system part of what happens when you're removed from society for a sentence and you're also removed from voting. we don't have a fair system and we have a systematic racial bias

in who is incarcerated in the first place. if we can't correct that, it does make my position harder to defend. >> okay. let me ask you on the same topic, cultural realities. capital punishment for or against it? >> against it. >> 21 states against it. you're against it. in any case? in any case. those were easy. now the tough ones. >> those were easy? >> just kidding. name some of your public figures -- republicans who you respect. living republicans. [ laughter ] >> oh, i had such a great answer if it wasn't living. >> i know. abraham lincoln. >> i got a better one for you. >> teddy roosevelt. >> even better. wendell willkie. >> why? >> he's from indiana. he put country before party. >> he united the countcountry b

world war ii. al franken, should he have been pushed to resign from the u.s. senate by the democratic caucus, his fellow caucus members? >> i think it was his decision to make, but it think the way we basically held him to a higher standard than the gop does their people has been used against us. >> do you think he should have been pushed to leave? >> again, it was his decision. i think that -- >> but i'm not asking you about his decision. should the other members of the democratic caucus in the senate starting at the top, chuck schumer down and the other people who pushed him to get out, they put a lot of pressure on him to leave, were they right or wrong? >> well, it's not a bad thing that we hold ourselves to a higher standard. >> i know, but were they right to do that, to push him out of the senate because they did? >> i would not have applied that amount of pressure at that time before we knew more. >> thank you. sally? >> welcome, mayor pete. i wanted to thank you for your service. >> thank you. >> and also on that sort of topic, ask you if you had been in the u.s. senate in 2002,

would you have voted along with senators biden and clinton to go into the iraq war and why? >> so i was against the iraq war then and i believe now it was a bad idea. i was obviously not in the senate, i was a student, but i actually thought -- you're supposed to pretend it never crossed your mind to run for office until you actually do. i actually did think in college that i might run for office one day, and i actually thought it would probably hurt any future political career that i might have when i stood up and spoke at an anti-war protest as a student. but i also believed so strongly that it was the wrong thing to do. and, you know, we didn't find weapons of mass destruction. if we did, i think it would have been an even worse mistake because they would have been used against us, and we've seen what a total policy disaster that was. and it gave democratic -- democracy promotion a bad name. i actually really believe in

democracy promotion, i just don't think we should do it at gunpoint. but at the end of the day that was something that cost hugely in lives, in treasure and in america's reputation. it was a mistake then and a lot of people back then -- it's not just something in hindsight. a lot of people back then knew it was a mistake, and i'm afraid there were some democrats who maybe believed deep down that it was a mistake but didn't think that it was safe to say so. [ applause ] >> mayor, if you're elected president of the united states, what would you say to vladimir putin the first time you met him? [ laughter ] because you will get to meet him. >> well, don't mess with our elections, for one. >> thank you. [ cheers and applause ] leah parks. >> hello, mayor pete. my name is nia parks, and my question to you is the topic of reparations has come up a lot in this election. i would like to know what your take is on that, and if elected, how would you go about that strategy of giving back for

slavery. >> thanks for your question. i think it's time for us to have this discussion. there is a proposal in congress called hr 40. it's named after the 40 acres and a mule promise that was made and not kept to former slaves. it proposes that we set up a commission to look at how we could establish a fair and reasonable way to go about reparations. i believe that we have to do this for this reason. you can't just have racist policies for one generation to another, all the way up to this present day, and replace them with maybe less racist policies or neutral policies and expect everything to just get better. the generational wealth gap for black americans has so many black families at a net worth of roughly zero. obviously that is a consequence of the fact that we live in a country where some people used to own other people, and none of us is free -- even -- look, a lot of people think, well, why should i have to contribute to

this in any way because i wasn't around in the civil war or something. but we are living in these racist systems today, and that's why in entrepreneurship, in home ownership, in health, in education, of course in criminal justice, not to mention in democracy itself where it is systematically harder for people of color, especially black neighborhoods to be able to access the vote in so many parts of this country. that we have to systematically reverse that. i think the time has come and real resources may have to go into that, if only because some of these disparities came about as a result of policy since slavery. i'm not just talking about far-off historic wrongs, i'm talking about the fact that some of our segregated neighborhoods and of course here in fresno there is an egregious pattern of segregation, but it's true in my hometown, too. that's not a knock on fresno. [ applause ] >> mayor -- >> some of that happened because of policy. because federal subsidies. and this goes, for example, in

the fdr administration, actually took neighborhoods that were less segregated and made them more segregated. the way housing subsidies were distributed. so we've got to be intentional about this because a lot of intention, unfortunately, brought us to the point we're at right now. >> mr. mayor, let me ask you about reparations back in the reconstruction era, thaddeus stephens, one of my heros, talked about 30 acres and a mule. is it a quantum of money or an opportunity to go to places like dartmouth where there are special educational opportunities? what would be the form? so an ongoing enduring value to african-americans in this country, not just money up front but a change in their opportunity. >> well, that's what this -- >> how do you do it? >> that's what the commission ought to work out. there is no way you can do it without putting dollar resources behind it. now, the right can't wait to caricature this as a check in the mail that they say would be unfair. >> but we did it with japanese americans. >> that's right. there can be ways of doing this that are fair or at least bring

us to a more just reality than the one we're living in right now. >> let me ask you about politics. i looked at the numbers. you must look at your poll numbers once in a while. african-americans are not coming forward as a community to your campaign. what is that about? >> so, a couple of things. i think the biggest is that we've got to reach out in communities that haven't had a chance to get to know me. if you are neither already famous with a long track record in national politics nor yourself from a community of color -- >> yeah. >> then of course it's going to take longer for people to come to know and trust you. we were able to do it in south bend. the minority voters who know me best -- by the way, not everybody, of course, but the voters who know me best contributed to that big re-election margin that i was talking about. i had years to build up that kind of trust. now, the most important thing is people need to hear the message. what i have to say about how we can make a difference on black home ownership, health at a time when a black mother is three times as likely to die in childbirth as a white mother,

issues in generational wealth building, concepts that don't get talked about much like the black tax, which is basically the name given to the fact that even for people who do well in professional life, black professionals are more likely to find themselves financially supporting members of their family or close social network, and that this in turn helps make it harder even for those who made it into that upper middle class to build wealth and create that kind of generational shift. >> sharing incomes with other family members. thank you. >> yep. >> we'll be right back with the mayor, mayor pete buttigieg. we'll be right back. [ cheers and applause ]

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live event. in fact, many years ago you asked a question of a presidential candidate who visited your college, harvard. here you were back in 2003 asking dick gephardt about young voters. >> congressman, why are you the only presidential candidate not attending tomorrow's youth oriented rock the vote campaign and do you think young votes matter? >> they matter a lot. that's why i'm here tonight. i've got to be in iowa. i've got a preset meeting in iowa, so i'm going to be in iowa tomorrow night. but i talk to young people everywhere i am. i've got lots of young people on my campaign. maybe i ought to say this now, when i was in college, jack kennedy was president and i was moved when he said to young people like me, get involved in politics, give part of your life to politics, so i just want to say to all of you here, get involved in public life, give back to your country, don't just take from it and get involved in

this campaign. if it's not for me, get behind somebody and get out there and work to make this country a better place. you can do this. [ applause ] >> you haven't aged a year. look at this guy. was that the stimulation you needed to make a move for public life? >> first of all, i'm a lot more sympathetic to scheduling. i feel bad about that now. >> i have one more question from the audience. sir, do you have a question for the mayor? >> hey, mayer pete, you really

took me seriously, didn't you? >> how's he doing? >> he's doing great. so here's my question, mayor pete. so i get asked all the time by people all over the country what about the future our democracy of america, and my answer is very simple. i've always been optimistic about america because the people are good, and they're good citizens. you're out there now meeting thousands of them. am i still right? >> yeah. that's my experience. >> california voters because a resident and voting resident of santa rosa. >> no, that's my experience is that people just want to know they're going to be okay. but people can have good and bad

things clawed out from within us. we're all capable of good and bad things. just ask somebody you love. and, you know, people individually and also collectively, i think we become worse when we're not secure. and part of what's happening right now in a world where we've got everything from the rise of china, the artificial intelligence and automation and the economy is changing is people have been made less secure. and it makes it possible for a cynical leader to draw out the worst of us. but i also believe one of the best reasons to get involved in politics as i felt called to do when i was a student is that you can also use the tools, the skills you learn as an elected leader to draw out the best in people. and i think that even more than policy and administration and management, that is the thing we're most missing in the white house right now and the thing i most want to restore.

>> you would have been a great president. i think you know i believe that. do you have any advice to this young fella here, 37 years old, running against 27 plus other rivals. how does he get ahead of all those men and women? >> keep doing what you're doing. work hard every day. it's a big job, but you're doing a great job of being out there talking to people and listening to people, which is the most important thing you can do. you're doing great. just keep ongoing. i'm proud of you and all the other candidates. we're going to win this thing. >> thank you, from santa rosa california. i think democrat safe to say in california. we'll be back here at -- no, why

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so recently my son's band was signed by a record label. a record deal? unbelievable. whenever we're about to get on a stage for a huge audience, i always give my dad like a facetime kinda moment before we do our thing. you see the crowd, you see the emotion. you know, he has that experience for the first time with me, and that's really important to me. i created a rockstar. (both laughing) (vo) the network more people rely on, gives you more like unlimited with apple music included, and iphone xr on us when you buy the latest iphone. that's verizon. that's it. i'm calling kohler about their walk-in bath. nah. not gonna happen. my name is ken. how may i help you? hi, i'm calling about kohler's walk-in bath. excellent! happy to help. huh? hold one moment please... [ finger snaps ] hmm. the kohler walk-in bath features an extra-wide opening and a low step-in at three inches, which is 25 to 60%

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>> thank you for coming today. i'm an aikt grader and my question is since climate change will have a big effect on my future what measures do you expect to stop this crisis? >> thanks for your question. that's for not being as tough on me as i was when i was a young person and asking a presidential candidate a question. look, this is an existential issue and i think we be to treat it as a security issue. it's also an issue of intergenerational justice because each generation in the future is being made worse off if we don't deal with it. what can we do? we definitely have to have a carbon price and dividend and carbon tax and dividend. we've got to at least quadruple federal rnd in renewable energy and energy storage and create a lot ofs in addition to making us more energy efficient and put climate at the center of our

diplomacy so other countries can be held account as part of the solution. one other thing not being talked about so much, which is how rural america could be a huge part of the solution. soil could capture a level of carbon equivalent to the entire global transportation industry. and if we let rural america know they could be one of the most important parts of the solution instead of just feeling like they're being told they're part of the problem, we might be able to break down some of the reitance especially in a moment rural america is beginning to realize because of this extreme weather where i live is making it hard to see whether soy is worth planting this year because some of the fields are so waterlogged because of the extreme weather. they have so much to lose. but the point is all of us need to be part of the national climate. through private, public, academic and social sector can bring to bear on the issue.

>> thank you. and thank you, mayor pete and a special thanks by the way to fresno state. what a great place. all in with chris hayes starts right now. >> thank you. good evening. i'm donny deutsch, and there are exactly 514 days until the 2020 presidential election. and tonight we break down the top stories. the battle for the 2020 white house tonight. >> he made such a fool out of himself. nancy pelosi is a disaster. >> a tale of two trumps. two hours of normandy showcased two donald trumps, one presidential one despicable. who will show up in