I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday,

December 16th. One of the nominees announced for the Biden cabinet yesterday made me scratch my head at first, like, why does that person

line up with that job? By now I'm starting to get it, but my next guest will help explain it

to me as well as to you. It's the nomination of Pete Buttigieg to be Transportation

Secretary. If we in the big cities think of transportation as running

gigantic mass transit systems like the MTA or NJ Transit or the BART system in the San

Francisco Bay Area, why pick the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, population barely 100,000,

with the closest subway stop 100 miles away in Chicago.

I think the answer in a word is climate. But here to tell us more is Jeanette Sadek Khan,

who some of you will remember as the visionary New York City Transportation Commissioner

under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. She now works with his company, Bloomberg Associates, where she works

with mayors around the world to reimagine and redesign their cities. She's also the chair of the

National Association of City Transportation Officials. She is author of the book, Street Fight,

Handbook for an Urban Revolution, and yes, it is about transportation,

and she used to be deputy administrator of the federal transit administration, the FTA,

so she knows that branch, her federal transportation policymaking from the inside.

Frankly, I wondered if Jeanette Sadi Khan might become Biden's Transportation Secretary,

so I guess not, but she's here to talk about the nomination of Pete Buttigieg.

Hi, Jeanette, and of course I remember when you used to come on as the New York City Transportation Commissioner.

So welcome back to WNYC.

Brian, it's great to be back with you today.

So do you get this nomination?

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