to help make this a government that triuly is once again a government that works not just a thin slice at the top, a government that works for all its people. i come before you as a member of a new generation. ready to step into the highest levels of american leadership. >> a young candidate with a standout pedigree. >> american left-handed episcopalian gay war veteran -- >> in a crowd of presidential contenders trying to unseat donald trump. why you? i mean, why are you the guy to take him down? >> i think it wouldn't hurt to have somebody from a new generation. >> he's a polite midwesterner who isn't afraid to deliver a blow. >> you will not see me exchanging love letters on white house letterhead with a brutal dictator.

>> the small-town mayor with the unusual name has overtaken some better-known rivals. this spring raising nearly $25 million. feels good? >> yeah, but the important thing, of course, is what are you going to do with it? >> but does he have what it takes to go the distance? >> where's the national experience, where's the seasoning? >> the candidate with the compelling personal story -- >> there was no way to deny that i was very much in love. >> -- is also facing questions that could threaten his surging campaign. >> what matters about a black life to you, mayor pete? >> you have very angry people in this community. do you understand why? >> is he going to do better with black voters? i can't imagine he can do worse at this point. >> will the very things that make this young intellectual and openly gay candidate unique help or hinder his historic run for the white house?

>> i'm jacob soboroff here in south bend, indiana, the hometown, of course, of south bend mayor and presidential hopeful pete buttigieg. on this "headliners" mayor pete as he's become to be known on his home turf. can he break away from the pack of democrats to take on donald trump and make history? why you? why are you the guy to take him down? >> because we need a different kind of messenger. we need somebody who is thinking about the deep issues in our country that got us here. and i think it wouldn't hurt to have somebody from a new generation, but more than anything else, we need to put forward somebody who understands that back to normal isn't going to be a winning message. we got to be ready to propose something new because the world we're stepping into is new. >> buttigieg! buttigieg! >> in april, he entered a crowded democratic field as an unknown. with a last name that was hard to announce. >> pete buttigieg. >> buttigieg. >> butti-batta.

>> edge, edge. >> pete buttigieg, did i get it okay? how am i doing? >> close enough. >> but as campaign signs broke it down syllable by syllable -- >> buttigieg! buttigieg! >> -- the 37-year-old candidate won the attention of late-night hosts and the media. >> the future is here, america. i'm a little green, but i'm fresh, instagramable, and ultimately good for you. i'm the avocado toast of the democratic party. >> my guest tonight is the mayor of south bend, indiana. >> live from uptown, mayor, homie pete in the building. >> welcome mayor pete buttigieg. >> when he didn't have a lot of campaign money, he did have time, and he used that time to go on tv, radio, and podcasts to try to introduce himself. that is why he caught fire. >> the young candidate even caught an insult from president trump who compared him to "mad" magazine's cover boy. >> last night i watched alfred e. newman.

>> buttigieg shot back to a political reporter. >> i'll be honest, i had to google that. i guess it's a generational thing. >> ten weeks after his announcement, the candidate raised nearly $25 million, outpacing his opponents, drawing from grassroots donations and high-end hollywood fund-raisers. >> can you keep that up? >> what matters most is not the bragging rights. although of course i'm proud to have led the field. >> feels good? >> yeah, but the important thing, of course, is what are you going to do with it? how can we use the resources we gathered to put organizers on the ground? the whole point of the fund-raising is to make sure the ground game can deliver victories for us in the primaries. >> while buttigieg started out as a darling of the media, he's been dogged by a persistent problem. he hasn't yet been able to win the support of african-americans. is that your biggest challenge as a candidate, winning over african-american voters at this point? >> we've got all kinds of challenges because we're new on the scene and we've got to get our message out and not only consolidate our position in the top tier, but move into the lead by the time the voting happens.

but one of our top priorities is making sure that we have connected not only to ask black voters to support me, but to invite them to help shape the campaign and make sure that i am speaking to their concerns. >> hi! this is the only chance you'll ever get to vote for a maltese american left-handed episcopalian war veteran mayor -- >> it's surreal, it's crazy. >> mike schmuhl has known pete buttigieg since they were boys. today he's his campaign manager. >> i tell the team we're not just building an airplane as we're taking off, that we're building a rocket ship as we're blasting off into space. the speed is that fast. it's that intense. every single day. >> but the rise of the candidate with the carefully cultivated resume and polished demeanor has raised inevitable questions. a sterling resume if you're looking at presidential politics, but he's only in his mid 30s. he's only served as mayor of a small city in the midwest. where is the national

experience, where is the seasoning? >> is he going to get to the kind of numbers that make him effective in iowa? there are black people in iowa. there are latinos in iowa. there are latinos and african-americans in new hampshire. how's he going to do in nevada? let alone by the time we get to south carolina. >> this isn't the first time buttigieg has auditioned for the national stage. in 2017 the then 34-year-old tried to raise his national profile by run for the chair of the democratic national committee. >> pete caught my eye when he was running for chairman of the dnc. i've long believed the democratic party needs to be taken over by 35-year-olds. >> former presidential contender howard dean was a mentor to buttigieg on his short-lived campaign for dnc chair. >> the dnc people loved him and he was the symbol of a new generation. the dnc didn't really want a new generation, but they know they have to have one. when it was evident that he wasn't going to win, he decided not to be on the ballot. that was very smart. he does have an instinct for when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

that you can't buy and you can't teach it, either. that's going to stand him in good stead as he goes through the primary process. >> the funny thing is there were people then who said, you know, i think you would make a great president. but i'm not going to vote for you for dnc chair and explain all the reasons why. >> two years later, pete buttigieg took their praise to heart. >> my name is pete buttigieg. they call me mayor pete. i am a proud son of south bend, indiana, and i am running for president of the united states. >> what is your political ideology? >> i view myself as a progressive, but i also am aware of living if a moment where a lot of the ideological frameworks i grew up with are becoming less and less useful. you've got a president who doesn't even have an ideology. >> a month and half into his run, many voters still didn't have a clear idea of the candidate's platform. people have knocked you for not coming out with very detailed,

specific policy proposals. a policy geek, way that you actually. but precisely for that reason. i'm going to make sure that before we get into the guts of our proposals which we've done more and more, we're trying to make sure people understand where all of this is coming from to begin with. the reason you put forward these policies is not just to signal what you're going to do but to signal what's important to you. >> buttigieg has recently begun to reveal some of his policies. he's been talking about scrapping the electoral college, enacting commonsense gun laws -- >> start with universal background checks. >> -- and expanding the number of judges on the supreme court as a way to make it less partisan. on health care, he advocates gradually moving toward a single-payer system, proposing medicare for all who want it. >> we make it available for people to buy into, optional, as something that is available through the exchanges. >> he's against president trump's policies at the border. and he wants a pathway to citizenship for undocumented

immigrants living in the u.s. in june, he gave his first major foreign policy speech. >> thank you. >> expressing views shaped by his experiences as a veteran and as a member of the 9/11 generation. >> we must put an end to endless war and refocus on future threats. we must treat climate change as the existential security challenge that it is. you will not see me exchanging love letters on white house letterhead with a brutal dictator. >> buttigieg notably has turned to foreign policy to try to signal to voters that he is ready for the presidency. on the stump, he's now referring to his presidency as what would president buttigieg do? >> like other young idealistic progressives, buttigieg sees national politics as being out of touch with his generation. >> i often speak of the need for our politics and policies to contemplate the year 2054. the year in which i hope to retire after reaching the current age of the current president.

[ laughter ] >> the candidate believes his own party has gone off track. >> i think our values have been the right ones all along, but we've got a little muddled in how we define them, how we explain them. and what i'm trying to do is say, okay, if the republican party didn't even exist, what would we be for? >> faith is one of the values that buttigieg embraces on the campaign trail. as a practicing episcopalian, he hopes to reclaim religion from the republicans. >> and this is the year we come together and assert that god does not belong to a political party. least of all the one in charge right now. coming up, where the candidate's interest in politics all began. >> congressman, why are you the only presidential candidate not attending tomorrow's youth-oriented rock the vote forum, and do you think young people's votes matter in your campaign?

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running for mayor of south bend had a dave matthews band poster hanging in his bedroom. >> the unlikely mayoral candidate with a thing for alternative rock, pete buttigieg grew up as an only child. his early musical abilities were encouraged by his parents. both notre dame professors. his father, joseph, who emigrated from malta, and his mother, jennifer anne, surrounded pete with ideas, culture, and liberal values. >> you know, my parents in hindsight gave me a pretty long leash to go out, do my thing, get in trouble a little bit, and kind of find my way. and made it clear that they loved me, trusted me, and had high expectations for me, too. >> as a little kid, you start playing piano, right? >> uh-huh. yeah. start taking lessons when i was 5. >> 5 years old. and you wanted to play with the symphony here. what else did you do for fun as a kid? >> you know, i was obsessed with baseball cards. i wasn't actually that interested in baseball but the

baseball cards, i had to have them, alphabetize them, count them. >> did you have them in the plastic -- >> absolutely. >> me, too. in high school, pete's hobbies took a more serious turn when he started organizing after-school programs for amnesty international. it seems to me you knew pretty early on you wanted to get into public service. >> yeah, i was always interested in it. i didn't always know it would be kind of a calling. most of my teenage years i wanted to be a pilot or astronaut. i think by the time i got to college, i knew in some way, shape or form i wanted to be part of public life. >> what's the first time you remember thinking about running for president of the united states? >> i remember it was kind of a class joke in high school when i was a senior because i was a senior class president, but i'm not sure i took it very seriously at the time. >> i think most folks in high school would have said if there's somebody who's going to go on and be maybe special and be involved in public service and maybe become president one day, i think a lot of people would have picked pete. i think in the yearbook, they may have said most likely to become president.

>> in his senior year, pete won a national essay contest sponsored by the john f. kennedy presidential library. he chose to write about a politician that he admired. a little-known congressman from vermont, bernie sanders. why did you write that essay? >> so the prompt for the essay contest was to describe somebody who lived up to the idea of political courage. and i was looking at the news and looking around me and felt like there wasn't a lot of political courage in either party. and then you see this guy, this obscure member of congress out of vermont, bernie sanders, who says exactly what he believes, even though it would be suicidal in many places, politically, to do it. says he's a socialist. it was fascinating to see somebody who was that clear about what he believed in. >> as valedictorian of st. joseph's of 2000, he earned a prize spot at harvard university. but took time to adjust to life in the ivy league. >> when i showed up at harvard, i wondered how i'd measure up.

i felt like i was on top of my game in south bend and you get there and everybody was top of their class. i felt like i'd been admitted to the academy of the x-men and i was the only one who didn't know what my special power was. >> buttigieg soon hit his stride, made a tight circle of friends, and discovered what would become a lifelong passion for languages. he speaks seven and uses them on the campaign trail with the press. [ speaking foreign language ] his love or politics led him to harvard's institute of politics. when "hardball" visited the campus in 2003 for a college tour, he challenged democratic congressman and presidential hopeful dick gephardt. >> congressman, why are you the only presidential candidate not attending tomorrow's youth-oriented rock the vote forum? do you think young people count in your campaign? >> they matter a lot, that's why i'm here tonight. >> buttigieg finally found his special power at harvard, politics. majoring in literature, he graduated magna cum laude. and achieved an even higher

honor, a rhodes scholarship to study at oxford. >> the story i wanted to ask you about is there's a story you went out to sea on a cargo ship, a solitary journey out to sea to prepare for a final exam. is that true? >> yeah. the oxford system, the exams are everything. they account for 100% of your grades. the essays don't count. lectures don't count. it's about the exams you take in a matter of days. as the exams were approaching, i thought, i got to hunker down and get ready for this. i knew if i was close to my friends, close to the pub, close to the internet, i might have trouble concentrating. so i threw the toughest books that i needed to master into a backpack and there's this way you could arrange with this german company that they put you in an unused cabin on a cargo container ship. it was pretty cheap. >> i guarantee you there will be feature stories on television news about people going to do that because you did it and you're running for president. study at sea worked. buttigieg earned oxford's highest grade that year in the university's philosophy, politics, and economics program.

with his options wide open, he accepted an offer from mckinsey, the global consulting giant with a roster of clients from 400500 companies to authoritarian governments. his first project there, a comprehensive study on grocery store pricing. it wasn't a conversation starter but taught him the field of data analytics, which would come in handy down the road. >> buttigieg's experience at mckinsey helped him understand how corporations worked and when he became mayor of south bend, he used that experience at mckinsey to understand, how can you bring jobs back, how can you convince through tax credits or innovation to bring major corporations to invest in a city like south bend? >> after three years of mckinsey, buttigieg moved back home to indiana where he made a bold career shift. at just 29, he decided that he had the right stuff to run for mayor of south bend. >> i just hope people really focus on the issues, you know. this is a chance to really talk

about what we want our city to look like going forward. >> when he was running for mayor back in 2011, he was still, i think, coming out of his shell, but i think he was becoming more comfortable with public life and campaigning and going up to strangers and saying, hey, i'm pete. i remember one instance, we walked into an older polish hall on the west side of south bend. and we had just kicked off the mayoral campaign and he goes, well, what should i do? and i said, you're going to shake every hand in this room then you're going to come back and then we're going to have dinner together. and that's what he did. >> an upstart candidate who'd never held elected office, buttigieg campaigned on the promise of remaking south bend. he even managed to get the support of the city's chamber of commerce. he won in a landslide. >> a young man with a funny name and no political experience managed to win the confidence of a community at a turning point. >> but what had he inherited? in 2011, "newsweek" was calling

south bend one of the nation's ten dying cities. the new mayor had a plan to change that. >> first he always said, the basics should be easy, that is, we should be picking up the trash. >> mark neal served as the new mayor's city controller. >> so you'll see pete even today, he loves riding around in a garbage truck with the sanitation folks looking at what the newest technology is, right? >> from trash collection to traffic and sewers, mayor pete was on a mission to bring people back downtown and to get south bend off of america's worst cities list. a critical part of revitalization, rediscovering the river the city was built on. so today this sort of is kind of the new heart of the city or at least a part of what the city is becoming again. >> yes. so the thing about the river, south bend was built in a very industrial period, 100, 120 years ago, when, you know, rivers were treated as something between a conveyor belt and a sewer.

what we've learned over the years, though, is how to turn and face the river. it's obviously one of the best assets we have. it's why the city's here to begin with. >> it's beautiful. >> it's beautiful and it's appealing and it draws people. >> under mayor buttigieg, household incomes in south bend grew significantly. though the poverty rate is near 25%. but despite the city's renaissance, which buttigieg has touted on the campaign trail, not all residents feel like they are a part of the comeback. >> it's a complicated pitch for buttigieg because south bend still has many issues. crime, economic development, racial tension. he has a story to sell because he has helped to bring in development to south bend. he's tried to revitalize the economy, but south bend, like so many towns in the midwest, is still struggling. and buttigieg has to explain that as well. coming up -- >> it doesn't look good. it doesn't look like leadership to me. and it doesn't look like leadership to members of the community.

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face. >> when pete buttigieg was growing up in south bend in the 1980s and '90s, the abandoned studebaker factory shuttered two decades earlier loomed as an empty reminder of the city's industrial golden age. another remnant of the bygone era was south bend's aging and abandoned housing stock which became a focal point for the young mayor. >> the simple mathematical truth is we have too many houses in our city. and many houses are in such disrepair that they will have to be demolished. but this is not only a demolition program. we should rehabilitate those houses that can be saved even as we tear down the ones that cannot. >> a year into the job, mayor pete launched an ambitious redevelopment initiative to raise or repair the city's vacant and blighted homes. he called the plan a thousand houses in a thousand days. >> so when i was running for office one of the biggest issues

that we heard about was people, especially in low-income and minority neighborhoods, living with collapsing houses or boarded-up houses all around them. i challenged the community and myself and our administration to deal with a thousand houses in a thousand days. fix every house that we could, tear down every one that we couldn't save, and make the neighborhood safer and more stable. >> was it gentrification under a different name? >> in a place where a house probably won't be built for another 10 or 20 years in a place where a good house is $30,000, gentrification is not the concern. >> buttigieg as a data-driven executive who was trying to get rid of blight. but to this day people in south bend in some areas are unhappy with his decisions, because they say leave our homes alone. if you want to bring in developments of hotels or businesses, that's great, but leave the homes alone. >> while the controversial housing program did reach the mayor's goal, many residents in minority neighborhoods were upset. in place of demolished homes,

vacant lots and gaps in residential roerem the mayor was facing, the fallout and resentment from his decision months earlier to fire the city's first black chief of police. >> today, darryl boykins sure didn't look like someone who just lost his job in a scandal. >> in 2012, buttigieg learned that the fbi was investigating his police chief for allegedly making illegal recordings of phone calls of four white police officers. >> in january of 2012, a few weeks after taking office, i learned of a situation in which police officers were allegedly recorded in violation of the federal wiretap act. >> tapes of the phone calls, which have never been made public due to ongoing litigation, and that the mayor himself says he has never heard, are said to contain racist language which has only added to the tension. >> we want to hear the tapes. the anxiety has been there for some seven years.

people want to know who said what at this point. and i think the tapes need to be released so that people can hear that and move on. >> how do you explain this incident, in particular, removing the city's first african-american police chief in what was a very complicated situation so that people understand it from your perspective? >> i think the most important thing is honesty. it was a really ugly, really challenging situation. it drove a wedge between me and african-american residents in the city that it took years to heal and repair. >> the firing of chief boykins i believe was devastating to the african-american community. it has created a strain in the relationship between mayor pete and the black community. you know, it's a cloud now that's kind of hanging over. >> it doesn't look good. it doesn't look like leadership to me. and it doesn't look like leadership to members of the community. >> when people of color look at the decisions he made from the police chief firing, to the development in south bend, they will wonder, did he consider how these decisions could be

disruptive? there is an element of unhappiness with buttigieg in south bend about those decisions. >> would you have removed the chief at that time had you known everything that you know today? >> yeah, knowing that the chief of police was the subject of an fbi investigation and chose not to tell me meant that i didn't have the kind of confidence that you need to have in your appointee at that level. >> the issues around policing and the black community in south bend would surface again and follow the mayor to the presidential campaign trail. >> the criticism that i would have of mayor pete is not that he's done a bad job with race relations, he just hasn't done anything impressive. if you're trying to be president of the united states and you're saying you're the future, i expect more from you than to be the typical mayor of a midwestern city. coming up -- >> it was difficult to think about that he is going into a combat zone that he may not come back from. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance

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i'm dara brown with the hour's top stories. president trump says the u.s. is quote locked and loaded following a series of drone strikes on two facilities in saudi arabia. trump also authorized the release of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve to offset those attacks. the roughly 49,000 general motors employees are preparing for a nationwide strike at midnight. this comes after talks stalled between the united workers union and gm before yesterday's deadline. to you back to "headliners: pete buttigieg." two years before he was elected mayor of south bend, indiana, pete buttigieg had joined the navy reserve. his military service, including a seven-month tour of duty in afghanistan, has given him ammunition against the sitting president. about a month into his own campaign, buttigieg used it in a "washington post" candidate forum. >> you have a question, do you think he should have served in

vietnam? >> well, i have a pretty dim view of his decision to use his privileged status to fake a disability in order to avoid serving in vietnam. >> you believe he faked a disability. >> do you believe he has a disability? >> yeah. yeah. at least not that one. >> should the president have served in the military like you did? >> i think one way or another, it's fitting for a president to have demonstrated their ability to be part of something bigger than themselves. their willingness to serve others. maybe even their willingness to put something on the line in order to do it. serving in the military says something about who you are. and faking a disability in order to avoid serving in the military definitely says something about who you are. >> why did you want to serve and why are so many more people in our generation, like me, and don't serve, than they are like you? >> i'm not sure how we got to this point, but i know that it used to be the case that it was kind of universal for young

people or at least young men to serve in the military. by the time i came on to the scene, it almost felt like being in the military was a class marker. that if you were working or lower middle class, you were more likely to serve than not. even though i didn't grow up wealthy, i was conscious of the privilege that came with the scholarship i'd gotten at oxford and the harvard degree. and then the big thing was this nagging question of, why have you not worn your country's uniform? and realizing over time that i was out of excuses. >> halfway through his first mayoral term in 2013, buttigieg was summoned for deployment to afghanistan. stationed in kabul, lieutenant buttigieg spent most of his time on base doing the secretive work of an intelligence analyst. on many occasions, though, he left the protection of the blast walls to drive in convoys which could have exposed him to ieds that killed and maimed service members that he knew. mark neal served as deputy mayor in his absence.

>> i'm -- probably a more emotional person than most, and was concerned that he may not come back. and that was a very real possibility. >> buttigieg stayed in touch, delivering a fourth of july message to his constituents in south bend. >> i also wanted to take this opportunity just to thank south bend and everybody there for being so supportive not just of me, but of everybody who is in uniform serving around the world right now. >> before he shipped out, buttigieg confided in deputy mayor neal that he'd written a sealed letter to be opened just in case. >> you wrote this letter that you put into a desk drawer in your house before you left for afghanistan. what was in that letter? >> you know, i haven't opened it since, so, but the idea was to leave something for my family. i just wrote just in case. and knew they would find it if they needed to. i remember wanting to make sure people knew that i wouldn't feel like i'd been cheated, even if

my life was short, because it's been so full. although it's an odd thing to think about now because at that age, what was i, 32 maybe, also had no idea what it was like to be in love. so maybe my life wasn't as full as i thought. >> did you write about that in the letter? >> no. no, i think it was just getting that point across, a few ideas what to do with my stuff, some computer passwords. >> so coming out was not something that you think about when you were writing that letter, before you left? >> i had vaguely thought about it but i was dragging my feet. frankly, i never felt a burning need to have a personal life before i deployed because the mayor's office was keeping me so busy. you've got to move on some things in life. and there was no way i could start dating unless i was out. by the time i came home, i knew what i had to do. >> surviving the war in afghanistan, mayor pete came home with a new goal, this time, a personal one. he wanted a partner, a home

life, and maybe one day a family. but first he needed to go public with a revelation about his private life, one that could cost him re-election. for years you did not share that you were gay with your parents. how come? >> i'm not sure. it's odd to think about looking back because they were very supportive and i knew that they probably would be very supportive. so for some reason i don't fully understand it just took me a long time to be ready to take a deep breath and let mom and dad know that. but of course i knew that if i was getting ready to be public about it, i didn't want to surprise them and needed to let them know. >> his parents were readily accepting but how would his constituents feel? could a gay man really survive in public office in a red state governed by a conservative evangelical, mike pence? coming up -- >> mayor pete actually came out in an op-ed that he wrote for

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on renters insurance. freshly returned from afghanistan in the fall of 2014, pete buttigieg was confronting a new test on the home front. >> so mayor pete actually came out in an op-ed that he wrote for our newspaper and it was a shock, i think, to some people. >> the night before the paper hit the streets, the mayor barely slept. >> in an essay the 33-year-old democratic mayor said it took him years of struggle and growth to realize his sexuality was, quote, a fact of life. >> it was the right time to do it, and i said what i had to say. >> how would the residents of a red state led by a governor firmly opposed to gay rights respond? >> i think people admired his

honesty. they were praising his courage for coming out. >> the mayor's announcement didn't appear to change anything for the people of south bend. happy with the job he'd been doing, voters swept him back into office five months later. he got to work trying to bring new jobs to south bend and helping develop a new vision for the former studebaker factory as a tech hub for multiple startups. >> once studebaker closed there was always this hope that we'd find this new 500-person or 1,000-person business that would come in and would sort of save the day here in south bend. >> pete's message has been, we need to turn to something new and not try to bring back the 1950s. >> as the mayor was working to get south bend back on track, his personal life remained a challenge. making good on a promise he'd made to himself in afghanistan, buttigieg opened himself up to a romantic relationship, yet he had no experience dating.

>> so you met your husband on an app? >> yeah. >> tell me about that. >> i could tell when i saw the picture of chasten, he had this bright smile, and i thought, i want to chat with this guy. >> your profile, you had a picture of yourself on the beach, a picture of yourself in your military uniform, and picture of yourself giving a speech. >> yeah. >> is that right? >> yeah. because i was trying to figure out what to do. i knew online dating was probably going to be my best way forward because it's too complicated to try to work social networks in the city you're the mayor of when you're dating, at least for me. especially when you're gay, but really, no matter what. i cast a wider net and thought, okay, how do i introduce myself? i didn't want to conceal the fact that i was a sitting mayor because that would be a really weird surprise to throw at somebody on a first date. but i also didn't want it to look like i was leaning on it too much. i thought, all right, i'll have one picture that makes it obvious what my day job is and let people figure it out on their own. >> he came down for a date. >> yeah, it was supposed to be coffee but he got caught in

traffic, at least that's what he claimed. wound up being a beer. i thought if the date was going well, i'd invite him to a baseball game that was going on. it was. we did. we took a long walk around downtown. it was a perfect first date, almost old-fashioned now that i think about it. >> after a year of dating, chasten glezman left his teaching job in chicago and moved in with mayor pete around the corner from buttigieg's childhood home. i guess technically it was your first and only boyfriend? >> pretty much, yeah, that's right. i was asking myself a little bit, okay, i'm new at this, is this really what i think it is? but within a few months there was no way to deny that i was very much in love. then it was kind of a matter of time. >> the couple was married at the episcopal cathedral of st. james. >> will you have this man to be your spouse? >> i will. >> the mayor's pastor performed the ceremony which included a reading from the landmark supreme court decision that made their marriage possible.

in a nod to local history, the newlyweds drove away in a vintage studebaker. >> good to see you. >> there we go. >> less than one year later, as the couple settled in and became the first family of south bend, the mayor and his family suffered a deeply personal blow. right before you decided to run for president, your dad passed away. >> yeah. it was tough. i mean, i was already going through, obviously, the most kind of intense thing that could happen in my professional life as i was preparing to launch a committee to run for president. and meanwhile, in my personal and family life, it became clear that my father's health was failing. we knew in the fall that he'd been diagnosed with cancer. he was going through a sequence of treatments. >> did you talk with your dad a lot before he died about the fact that you were going to run for president? >> yeah, some. he followed it just like he followed all the blow-by-blow of what was going on here in the city as i was doing my work as mayor.

he cared about it. he's somebody who really cared about this country. he believed that human rights mattered, that democracy mattered, and he believed in me. coming up -- >> we have to see if he can stand up to the heat he's going to get. the closer he gets to the top, the more he's going to lose the darling of the press status which has been very helpful to him. banjo? (man) hey. go home. (woman) banjo! sorry, it won't happen again. come on, let's go home. after 10 years, we've covered a lot of miles. good thing i got a subaru. (man) looks like you got out again, huh, banjo.

(avo) love is out there. find it in a subaru crosstrek. this is jamie. you're going to be seeing a lot more of him now. -i'm not calling him "dad." -oh, n-no. -look, [sighs] i get it. some new guy comes in

helping your mom bundle and save with progressive, but hey, we're all in this together. right, champ? -i'm getting more nuggets. -how about some carrots? you don't want to ruin your dinner. -you're not my dad! -that's fair. overstepped.

on the campaign trail, pete buttigieg has been joined by his spouse to who took the mayor's last name. it was embraced by a new generation of voters. >> he helped boout junior college come down a notch. it makes him nor natural as a candidate and seems more accessible. >> why is is it so hard for you

to load the dishwasher? >> we have a lot of time. >> and load the dishwasher and yet unload the dishwasher. >> with gay marriage and buttigieg's sexual identity under attack, the candidate has struck back. >> the good news is, the condition of my soul is in the hands of god, but the iowa caught kulcaucuses are up to yo. >> while he had a working relationship with mike pence the governor, on cnn he's taken aim at pence the evangelical vice president. >> how could he become the cheerleader of the porn star presidency. >> my marriage has made me a better man and moved me closer

to god. >> the vice president suggested the candidate's current criticism of him was for political gain. >> i worked very closely with mayor pete when i was governor of the state of indiana. we had a great working relationship. and he said some things that are critical of my christian faith and about me personally and he knows better. >> you have called out mike pence for many things including a stance on same-sex marriage, but you worked closely with him when he was governor and mayor. would you work closely again with him? >> when you're in public office, you are responsible for doing whatever benefits the people that you serve with. it took some intense compartment theization to partner with him on moves that were good for the city while standing up to him for criticizing lgbt.

>> what is it like to work with him as a benefit as a human being? >> i feel disturbed by the kinds of policies he advanced as governor and by what he's doing as vice president. signing on to a presidency that violates not only my value, but his own. at least the values he claims to have for how a christian ought to behave. >> as buttigieg was making history for gay americans, he was call ed back to south band-aid to deal with an issue that plagued him throughout his time as you mar your. >> breaking news, a south bend police officer is put on paid min stragtsive leave following a deadly shooting this morning. >> the publicized incident of a white officer fatally shooting a black man inflamed a strained relationship. >> did you ask me if black lives

matter? of course, they do. >> news that the body camera wasn't activated ignited outrage. >> what matters about a black life to you? >> here's the truth and it won't satisfy you. under the laws of this state, a mayor does not decide whether an officer is is fired. >> when i look at how he spoke to some of these people, i wasn't thinking ab the people of south bend. i'm thinking about how will he do as president or if there's a ferguson event in the united states. can he shows empathy and passion and demonstrate success to calm down the community? i us haven't seen a lot of that. >> days later, the issue followed him on to the national debate stage. >> your community of south bend has been in uproar over an officer-involved shooting. the police force in south bend is now 6% black in a city that is 26% black.

why has that not improved over your two terms of mayor? >> because i couldn't get it done. my community is in anguish. >> while he got credit for admitting his failure, the issue hasn't been fully resolved. the issue was on display three days after the shooting. when the mayor greased a new class of officers all white. >> you are choosing this line of work at a moment when our nation is facing the long shadow of a complex history. >> the police officer responsible for the south bend shooting has since resigned, but the investigation ongoing. >> you have very angry people. do you understand why? >> of course, first of all a man lost his life. but even aside whatever we're going to learn from the outside investigations on that, this is tapping into a much deeper current of anguish. remember the difference between the black experience of dealing with law enforcement. across my entire lifetime and the white experience, these have

brought people to a boiling point. if you can't feel safe around a police officer, you can't feel safe anymowhere. >> is it fair for the residents of south bend or any residents for that matter to be angry with you over the killing? >> i'm in charge. i'm responsible for everything that happens on my watch. part of what you sign up for when you say that you're going to lead a community or for that matter a country is that the weight of that anguish when something goes wrong is directed at you. and that's fair game. >> i asked the mayor about a july cnn poll that on the issue of race relations had him at almost zero percent with non-white voters. >> when who you see that wharks do you think? >> i think i have a lot of work to do. we know my name recognition is lower with african-american voters and there's a trugs

factor. when you're new on the scene and from a community that's had a complex challenges around race, and when you're not yourself from a community of color, you have a lot of work to do to lay out your vision and explain why you would be the right candidate for black voters or any voters. >> but will african-american voters buy it? >> how does he sell himself to the african-american community? i don't think he can. you can't sell yourself to black people. you have to prove yourself to black people. mayor pete needs to prove, not sell. the selling job isn't going to work when these are life and death issues. >> buttigieg is trying to tackle the problem head on. he unveiled a sweeping plan to address issues facing the black community. >> let's turn to your new initiative. it's called the douglas plan. is the idea here this specific plan will help you with voters? >> it speaks to issues around racial inequality and health and need for real access to justice

in the criminal justice system. and a number of other areas of american life. if we don't tack thl in my lifetime, this could unravel the whole american project in my lifetime. >> it's refreshing to see plans specifically targeting black america, this is a create first step. it's a great moment to say here are the ideas. >> will the early media exposure and an influx of campaign money be enough to keep buttigieg at the top of the pack? can he win his party's nomination and beat an incumbent president with a devoted base. >> we have to see if he can stand up to the heat. the closer he gets to the top, the more he's going to lose the press status, which has been helpful to him. at this stage of the the game, we have a long, long, long way to go. >> now he's in this trial period. is he drid to be president? is he ready to take control of the democratic party from young people to people of color to age

ing baby boomers, can he bring them altogether or not? it's going to take the summer and fall for him to prove himself. >> i will see you on the trail. i will be at your side. we will work and celebrate all to the white house. thank you for everything you do and we'll see you as we go. when they tell you your life passes before your eye, you think of everything and you wonlder am i ready to die? >> he was a hollywood stunt man, but this was no hollywood stunt. >> this was a hit. >> shot four times and left dying on the floor. >> somebody wanted him dead. >> but who and why? you'll meet lots of possible