Welcome back to the Ten Blogs podcast.

This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. Joining me on the show today

is an old friend, Mene Ucobarua. He's the editor, an editorial board member at the Wall Street Journal.

He's a former associate editor at City Journal, and we've published a number of his pieces over the years.

He writes about politics, economics, education, other issues.

And his work has appeared not only in the Wall Street Journal and NCJ, but National Review,

the New Republic, New Criterion, and Other Outlets.

Today, we're going to discuss the career of Pete Buttigieg, the outgoing Biden administration

transportation secretary.

I will talk about infrastructure a little bit.

Buttigieg is often touted as a rising star in the Democratic Party and a presidential

contender next time around in 2028.

So I think it's going to be interesting to take an assessment of what

his experience in the Biden administration has looked like and how that might affect his political

prospects going forward. So many, great to see you or talk with you as always.

That's great to see you, Brian. So Joe Biden, when he was elected, his mandate,

or at least one of his mandates, was to get America moving again after the, you know,

the experience of COVID and the shutdowns and also to try to restore normalcy. That was

often said at the time. As a transportation secretary, Buttigieg, was supposed

to be the builder-in-chief. But after the administration really poured trillions into the

infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act, there seems to have been very little

building to show for it. Just eight new

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