Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg speaks to reporters after his town hall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
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00:00Folks can keep moving this way.
00:02All right, we have time for a few questions.
00:05Give me one second.
00:08I think I haven't done this before.
00:11All right, who has a question?
00:13Pete, did President Joe Biden experience cognitive decline while in office?
00:18Every time I needed something from him from the West Wing, I got it.
00:22And the time I worked closest with him in his last year was around the Baltimore Bridge collapse.
00:28And what I can tell you is that the same president that the world saw addressing that was the president that I was in the Oval with,
00:35insisting that we do a good job and do right by Baltimore.
00:38And that's characteristic of my experience with him.
00:40Would the party have been better off if he had just not run for reelection?
00:44Maybe.
00:45And right now, with the benefit of hindsight, I think most people would agree that that's the case.
00:50We're also not in a position to wallow in hindsight.
00:53We've got to get ready for some fundamental tests of the future of this country.
00:57And this party, some of which are going on this very year, many of which will come next year.
01:02What's your reaction to the Trump administration blaming you for new work?
01:06You know, when you're the secretary of transportation, you have a tough job.
01:09And your responsibility is to fix tough problems.
01:12You don't have time to indulge in trying to point fingers or blame other people.
01:17What I can tell you is, you know, we inherited a shrinking air traffic control workforce.
01:23We turned it into a growing air traffic control workforce.
01:26And my successor is not, of course, asking me for advice.
01:30But my advice would be to focus on making sure that it grows and actually delivering the technological change that's needed.
01:36We launched the contract to modernize the communications backbone of the FAA, knowing that it wasn't something that could be done in a year or two years.
01:44If he can achieve an acceleration of that, I will be the first one to be cheering for that.
01:49But that takes focus. It takes discipline. It takes integrity.
01:52And frankly, there's no time for politics on a mission critical job like that.
01:57I spoke to a lot of people tonight that said, hey, we voted for him in 2020.
02:01And yeah, if he runs again, we would vote for him again.
02:03Was tonight's town hall the beginning of an assessment period?
02:06Right now, I'm not running for anything.
02:08And part of what's exciting and compelling about an opportunity like this is to be campaigning for values and for ideas rather than a specific electoral campaign.
02:18So that's what I'm about.
02:20But of course, it means a lot to hear that people who supported me then continue to believe in what I have to say.
02:25Should Iowa be the first primary contest in Kentucky?
02:28So people like me are takers and not makers of the rules on that.
02:32What I will say is that Iowa showed me what can happen through a process where you have to be in backyards and do four town halls a day.
02:40It made it possible for somebody like me to emerge as a national figure.
02:44And it's certainly made me better, not just as a candidate, but I think ultimately as a public servant when I did have the opportunity to serve in the cabinet.
02:52Last question, Brianne.
02:53Should Democrats who want to be president have to campaign in a red state like Iowa?
02:57I think it's really important to be in communities like this, to be in red states, to be in rural areas.
03:04It's so important for Democrats to have a vocabulary that can reach everybody.
03:09And you can't fashion that vocabulary online or only talking to people who already agree with you or who are already kind of in your political style.
03:21Part of what growing up in Indiana, but also campaigning in Iowa, gave me was ways to talk about shared values.
03:29Things that I care about as a Democrat, but also things I just care about as an American in ways that I found could resonate even in red or purple territory.
03:37I also, though, believe that by no means must Iowa be a red state.
03:42And I'm excited to see some developments that can really test that in the coming cycle.
03:46OK, we have to run, folks. If you could take a step back.
03:49It's a little cramped thing.