On Tuesday afternoon, the USC Center for the Political Future hosted a virtual discussion with United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. CPF Director Bob Shrum moderated the event, and students from the USC Political Union and the Trojan Democrats took turns asking the Secretary questions about his time serving in the military, being a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, and his unconventional approach on connecting with Americans on both sides of the aisle. 

Buttigieg was a major contender for the Democratic presidential nomination the last time he visited campus in 2020. After he dropped out of the race and joined then soon-to-be President Joe Biden on the campaign trail, Buttigieg made history by becoming the country’s first openly gay cabinet secretary, as well as the youngest person in Biden’s cabinet.

Daily headlines, sent straight to your inbox.

Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with the latest at and around USC.

After welcoming Buttigieg back to USC, Shrum kicked off the discussion by asking him to reflect on his unlikely trajectory from serving as mayor of South Bend, Indiana to becoming one of the frontrunners for the 2020 Democratic nomination.

“As you can imagine, it [was] kind of like being shot out of a cannon,” Buttigieg said. “I did not run for reelection as Mayor of South Bend in 2015 expecting that I would turn around and seek the presidency. That’s not in the playbook for a mayor of a small to mid-sized city.”

Before Buttigieg launched his career as a politician, he served in the U.S. Navy Reserves for six years as an intelligence officer and was deployed to Afghanistan for six months. Buttigieg joined the military in 2009, two years before the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” — the law that prohibited openly gay, lesbian and bisexual citizens from joining the armed forces. 

“To be in an organization whose stated policy is to fire you based on who you are, who you love, obviously makes it harder to do your job. I thought it was worth it because I believed in the mission of the Navy and the mission of my unit,” Buttigieg said. “When I finally came out to a close friend … he patted me on the back and said, ‘You didn’t exactly make it easy for yourself with your life choices,’ because the two things that amounted to a career for me were being in the military and being an elected official in Indiana.” 

After the Obama administration repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell,” Buttigieg said he was happy to see that “none of” the fears that people had about allowing openly gay people into the military came true. 

“It turns out by eliminating the discrimination, you make some people better off and make nobody worse off,”Buttigieg said. ”It’s actually pretty hard to find things you can do in public policy anymore that have that quality.” 

Although his time in the Navy wasn’t always easy, Buttigieg said it was an invaluable experience because it was an opportunity to interact with diverse groups of people. 

“When you are in the military, you are compelled to spend time with people that you have nothing in common with — and not just spend time around them, but trust them, sometimes trust them with your life,” Buttigieg said. “People who I had nothing in common with besides the flag on our shoulder; people with different racial and economic and regional backgrounds; people with radically different political ideas than mine. We learned not just to live together but to work together and to trust each other. And never has that been more needed than now.” 

Buttigieg said he still enjoys having open dialogues with people who have opposing political views to his own. The secretary is well known for making regular appearances on traditionally conservative news outlets like Fox News. 

“The basic reason I [go on Fox News] is because I need to talk to people who don’t already agree with me,” he said. “You can reach folks [through general] media, but the greatest concentration of people who don’t already agree with us [are] going to be people who tune into conservative media.”

Although he doesn’t expect journalists from conservative outlets to see eye-to-eye with his political opinions, Buttigieg says he goes into every interview with a positive outlook. 

“I go in with the presumption that the [conservative host’s] question is coming in good faith, but if you think that’s naive, it’s also important to remember that regardless of whether or not the question is coming in good faith, a lot of people are watching the interview in good faith,” he said. “I owe it to them to make a good case for what I believe in, and I certainly can’t blame somebody for not responding to our message if they’ve literally never heard it.”

John Belton, a junior majoring in public policy, said he attended the event precisely because he found Buttigieg’s discussions with conservative figures refreshing. 

“I thought it was exciting that he crossed party lines and had an opportunity to talk to the other side,” Belton said. “I really liked his response about connecting with people who disagree with him because that’s how to actually build bridges within our society.”

Patrick Stiles, a junior majoring in computer science and philosophy, also spoke highly of Buttigieg after the event. 

“He always seemed to have clear responses to all the questions,” Stiles said. “He didn’t seem like he was just trying to find the most evasive answer to every question and be a politician who didn’t want to answer anything. It seems like his actual positions came through.”