The Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg on Coming Out: “I Realized I Couldn’t Go On Like That Forever”

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2019

⏱️ 21 minutes

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Summary

During an exit interview with President Barack Obama in November, 2016, just weeks after the election, David Remnick asked who would be the leaders of the Democratic Party and the contenders to oppose Trump in 2020. Obama mentioned people like Kamala Harris, of California, and Tim Kaine, of Virginia, along with a very surprising figure: Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who was only thirty-five at the time. In recent weeks, Buttigieg has been raising his profile dramatically, and raising money at a surprising clip, considering that he lacks the national profile of a senator or a governor. In a huge field of candidates, the mayor stands out. He’s a Navy veteran, and was born and raised in South Bend, so he brings heartland credibility to his campaign. But he’s also the youngest candidate in the field, and the first openly gay person with a real shot at the nomination. Buttigieg had not yet come out when he took office and when he joined the Navy Reserves, but deployment in Afghanistan changed his perspective. “I realized I couldn’t go on like that forever. . . . Something about that really clarified my awareness of the extent to which you only get to live one life and be one person,” Buttigieg tells Remnick. “Part of it was the exposure to danger,” he notes, but there was more to it: “I began to feel a little bit humiliated about the idea that my life could come to an end and I could be a visible public official and a grown man and a homeowner and have no idea what it was like to be in love.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of the
0:06.0	New Yorker and WNYC Studios. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. In November of 2016,
0:15.2	just a few days after the election of Donald Trump, I went to the White House and interviewed President
0:20.2	Obama. The place was like
0:22.7	a funeral parlor. And among the big questions on my mind was the future of the Democratic Party
0:28.7	with Hillary Clinton clearly out of the picture who would go on to lead. Who would take on Trump in
0:34.3	2020? Obama threw out a few names we all knew pretty well, senators,
0:38.8	Kamala Harris, and Tim Kane. And then he mentioned someone I'd never heard of, the mayor of
0:44.4	South Bend, Indiana, town of about 100,000 people. But Obama couldn't quite remember his name either,
0:50.1	or maybe he didn't dare pronounce it. That may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy because now Pete Buttigieg is having a moment.
0:57.7	He's gaining the attention of voters and he's raising money hand over fist.
1:02.6	Ideologically, he's positioning himself just to the left of centrist like Joe Biden
1:06.5	and a few ticks to the right of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
1:10.7	And he's got a sterling resume, Harvard grad, Rhodes Scholar, Navy veteran.
1:15.4	He's also gay and a church-going Episcopalian.
1:18.8	But who exactly is Pete Buttigieg?
1:20.8	What does he believe?
1:22.3	What does he propose to do as the youngest president ever elected?
1:26.2	I talked with him at length earlier this week.
1:29.1	You said this very recently to the Washington Post, I believe it was. Donald Trump got elected
1:34.0	because in his twisted way, he pointed out the huge troubles in our economy and in our democracy.
1:41.8	At least he didn't go around saying that America was already great like Hillary did.
	...

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