Pete Buttigieg TORCHES CNBC Host Over Trump Economy Spin

Hey, y'all, Tim Miller from the Bulwark here. I woke up on the West Coast to just, you love it when you take out your phone and there's something that brings you joy in the morning. That's so rare these days. That's so often that you're doom scrolling. And I like to joy scroll.

And that happened for me because Slayer Pete Buttigieg was on CNBC's Squawk Box. If you don't know that show, it's not like Fox and Friends in the sense of it's, uh, all right wingers. Um, there is a single person that kind of reflects the Ducey view on squawk box. His name is Joe Kernan.

He and Pete got into it on the state of the economy, the war in Iran, and it was delicious. I've already on social media offered to welcome both of them to the Bulwark YouTube page where hopefully they could do a longer version. Like I want to see, I want to see like a Joe Rogan podcast length engagement between Kernan and Buttigieg. Give me three hours, I can host it. I'll just kind of just fade into the background and let them go. Just kind of

direct the conversation. We'll see if they take me up on that. But if you have not had this joy yet, or even if you had already and just want a second helping, I figured we should go through some of the highlights of Pete showing how you do it when you know you're arguing with somebody that's trying their best to rationalize their support of Donald Trump and MAGA. Just really quick before we go into it, please subscribe to the feed, help us out here.

We're trying to get up to 2 million subscribers. And also like, part of the reason why I'm showing this is I've been on this, like the Democrats in this moment, Donald Trump is vulnerable. The arguments of people on his side are as weak as they've ever been. Democrats need to be going into more challenging spaces. It's something that I'm trying to do myself, but that I, like, that you need actual Democratic politicians doing.

And so I want to, you know, give out candy to the ones who are doing it right. And Pete is obviously like the prime example of this. So let's watch this together. We'll play some of the highlights from Pete and Joe Kernan.

I understand that.

And look, I'm saying this as somebody who knows what it's like to be sent to war by a US president. And when a president sends you to war, when you and your buddies are on that gray tail plane going into a war zone, You do it with some level of confidence, some level of assurance that your chain of command,

all the way up to the President of the United States, would not do this if they didn't have a choice. Now that we're there, do you hope this has a successful outcome? There were 40,000 Iranians that were slaughtered by the same regime. 47 years of killing Americans, stirring trouble all around the world. And how do you feel about that regime being left intact by this president? I don't know if that's going to be the case and I don't know what might happen.

All right, so like right before this clip, just to give you guys the context, like Pete is making a case against the war and why it's stupid and Kernan is trying to interject and do the thing that these guys do, which is like, oh, you're rooting against the country. Like you want us to like, our soldiers are so good. Why don't you respect the troops and the soldiers? And Pete's like, fuck you. I was a soldier. I was a trip. I, I know what it's like to go over there and I wouldn't have wanted to be sent

to a war zone for something where the leadership in charge didn't have a plan for success or didn't have a clear rationale for doing it or hadn't thought through some of the obvious contingencies like the closing of the straight and foremost, right? Like this is obvious. And so I think Pete, like having credibility there is very important.

I think it's pretty telling that Kiernan like falls back on this, like, don't you want us to succeed? Don't you want America to succeed? You know, like Pete's counter that is pretty good. It was just like, well, like we haven't succeeded. The regime is still intact. I would I kind of add on on top of that, like, yeah, America succeeding means not starting dumb ass wars that

make us weaker economically and geopolitically alienate our foes. Like, you know, that is, this is not the path to success. Like this is the path to fucking ruin. Like, yeah, I want America to succeed. Don't you want America to succeed?

If you want America to see, why are you on board with this stupid fucking war? Anyway, let's, uh,, conversation pivots then more to what you expect them to be talking about on a morning finance show, which is the state of the economy. So let's watch some of that.

Is that an argument?

So you don't want this to work and it was just a bad move, you want us to pull out now.

Look, there's no obvious way out now, but I want to make sure that this ends in a way that first of all our economy can recover that we're not paying so much for gas I mean right now oil is a hundred bucks jet fuels 200 bucks gas is over four bucks diesels like every 380 under Biden for four years yeah and and when we left inflation was lower than it is today you accounted for 21 and a half percent pricing. This president took inflation inflation rate up. It's 2.7 percent. It's more than three percent year on year. You saw the numbers just come out. It's more than three percent year on year. Okay.

It is. The math is direct.

It's higher than when he got here, Joe.

It's not 9%.

So Pete begins by talking about the impact of the war on gas prices and the impact on people domestically. And that is significant. I mean, gas prices are getting expensive in Louisiana, but damn, I'm here in California and it's like, I don't even know how people who are on out, like, I don't know how working people afford this.

I don't know how you afford this. If you have a kind of hourly pay job or if you're on a fixed income as a senior, like how do you, how do you go places? The gas is already that expensive and it's only going to get worse. I call it Catherine rampel play that today that gas prices rose 20% in March from the higher product month. This is the single largest monthly increase in gas prices since we began

measuring it. The biggest gas price increase since we've been measuring it last month, March and it's getting worse. And you know, Kernan's response is what gas was also expensive under Biden. It's like, okay, bro. All right.

But like, what about now? What about what we're doing now? Um, you know, Pete and then go kind of back and forth and they have this kind of cross talk fight over the inflation numbers and, you know, at the end, Andrew Sorkin, if you don't know him, is totally, really down the middle, smart economics reporter, is just like, dude, this is just the math. Like, the math is the math.

Inflation is up.

This piece of it is basic. The president did say that he was, he wanted to be in office to bring inflation down, and he has not brought inflation down.

That's all. It's not just that Trump hasn't brought prices down. It's like the rate of increase now is up from where it was when Biden left. So I don't know. I mean, some of this stuff you get into dorky econ talk and it feels like they could have been on an AEI panel hashing this out. Like, I'm not sure this is the most resident thing with voters, most resident part of the exchange. But it gets pretty funny that that is, like the position of Kern and is so weak, the position of the Trump defenders in the economy is so weak now, like they really are forced to resort to,

but what about 2022? It's like, well, we'll see how that works. His central campaign promise was he was gonna take inflation

and drive it down, and instead he took inflation-

It's not 9%.

I thought the, and the Fed- and instead he took inflation and it's up. It was three when he got here and now it's more. It could not be simpler than that.

It's around three and we're involved in a war with the street.

He said on day one it would go down, he came in on day one and now it's up.

It's up to three percent. It was 21.5 percent. He promised it would go down in a year. Over four years it was 21.5 percent. He promised it would go down. Democrats own the affordability crisis.

Listen to me.

Period.

Why did the president fail to keep his promise? You're laughing?

You don't think Democrats own the affordability crisis?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that he was he wanted to be in office to bring inflation down and he has not brought inflation down.

That's all. He drove it up. He not only failed, he drove it up.

Mr. Secretary, let's talk.

Harris haven't had a minimal, a minimal.

You tell a family where I live that a thousand dollars per household is minimal from the

twenty one and a half percent increase that you're the Democrats.

We can we can argue all day about just how bad COVID was and how bad it got and what it took to come back from that. Okay, and all the-

You call a thousand-

Unnecessary. Where I live, a thousand bucks per household isn't minimal.

Now you found, now Democrats found religion on inflation. After presiding over the worst inflation in 40 years, now you found religion.

It's 2026.

I'm aware of that.

They're in charge. I'm aware. What are you gonna do differently? All right, I mean Pete does the job here, but like the funniest part is the funniest part is just like the desperate angry Kernan with like cake done makeup on his face be like Democrats own the affordability crisis Democrats own it. It's just like man Like a year ago. I would have been annoyed by that six months ago I'm I don't kind of mad about it. And fuck, we have to fight on this.

We got to argue. I was just like, nobody believes this. I who believes this anymore? Like only people that are full in the cult and have, and that the Democrats have no chance of ever winning over, right? Like there's some percentage of Americans that Democrats will never win over. And so those people might be able to soothe themselves and suck on their

thumb by being like the Democrats own this because of what happened after COVID four years ago. But, um, that just isn't how politics works. Like in order to, to win over people who aren't in your cult, you have to have a explanation for them or a message or a plan. And so just like the Democrats did this all in twenty twenty two.

It's like, sorry, bro, that's not that's not going to work.

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All right. And then we circle back to kind of the public opinion part of this and, and, and whether's arguments are working. Let's listen to that.

We've got to get through this war and you've heard people-

We've got to get through this war. We didn't have to be fighting this war.

What are we doing?

That's a matter of opinion. You can't say that.

It's a matter of opinion that I share with most Americans and a large number of Republicans He's got 75% Republican approval for the war. You don't start with the approval you have within your own party. But the point is, the MAGA coalition signed up for this.

Democrats aren't going to approve of anything.

I'm talking about Americans.

Americans disapprove of the president and their right to do so.

He's got the same approval rating other presidents have had at this point in the term, a little

bit above above 42%. This president right now is unpopular for very good reasons, one of which is that he's made life worse. He's no more unpopular than Obama was or Biden was at the same point of his presidency. That depends on which polls you're looking at, but by and large, no. I'm sorry, but I've been out on the trail. I was in Marjorie Taylor Greene's district.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, this is a Trump plus 38 district, or it was. I've seen, I know the number. We had 500 people.

You'll get a chance to prove that in November this year. We had a chance to prove it last week. The Senate might go, I understand.

Yeah, because people are presidents.

My favorite part about that clip is Pete just going back at him with, we didn't have to be fighting this war. And Joe's like, we to get through this war. He's like, we didn't have to be fighting it. You can't, you can't do that. I did like this. What does it work now?

Like this, this shit worked in the first Bush term with the Iraq war. I can stop working in the second Bush term. This idea that like, we've got to stand with our men and women in uniform and we got to get through the war. There was no nine 11. There was no imminent threat.

There was no case made by the president. It hasn't been a success and everybody's feeling pain now.

And your message is, well, we got to get through the war. You got to deal with the pain. You got to suck it up. I just, the, the body language between Pete and curtain and the section is just so telling, like Pete is like a little bit exacerbated, but also laughing and, and, and like always just very sharp on his points. And current is just huffing and puffing and, and, you know, getting redder and his body can feel it.

See him tensing. He's tensing. And, um, and it's just because they're, they don't have it. Like the points are weak. They got no case to make. So long story short, this isn't your moment to go pick a fight with your mega friend that's never going to come around.

Okay. I'm not saying that, but it is a point for Democrats, for commentators like myself and for you and your life. If you have people that you think are gettable, you think are reasonable, kindly, softly beginning to engage them in these conversations, maybe useful. It might be a transition period we're in.

You know, I went on a Barstool podcast earlier this week, and there's one Republican guy on there, and then one like really left guy, and then another guy. I don't know if, I don't know if he actually says those politics are, but it seems like, like pretty Democrat. Um, and, um, and the Republican guy, I was just kind of, I didn't go at him. I come on the Piers Morgan show, like screaming at these fucking

moron act like moron hack pundits. It's like, you know, he's a sports guy and he's just Republican. And so this was like softly like asking some questions. Like, what do you, what, what do you like about what's happening? Like, what do you think would have been worse from Kamala? Like, isn't the impact is an economic impact, like not worth what we're getting out of the actions of the middle East. Just that kind of stuff.

It's a good time to engage with people because they're running out of ammo and that's a delicious treat. All right, one more last one. Pete ends with a really strong message on affordability and corruption. That is something that I've been desperate

for Democrats to really pound.

So let's watch that.

Presidents make difficult decisions, obviously.

Yeah, but usually they make difficult decisions to try to make other people better off. This president's made decisions to make himself better off. That's definitely happened. If you're the kind of person who can pay a million bucks for the entry fee to Mar-a-Lago, then you're doing great.

But everybody else is hurting right now. And that's it. Like on top of the fact that people's lives are worse, you know, who's still making money. Trump, his family, you know, people that can pay the Mar-a-Lago dues, they're making bank. Well, everybody else is fucking paying $6 gas out Fresno.

All right. So, um, I, that is compelling. It's something that people understand. And as usual, Slayer Pete is nailing it. So I hope you enjoyed it. My colleagues are gonna be all around this weekend.

We got that big election in Hungary coming up on Sunday, which we will be covering. I'm on a brief vacation. I'll be back on the feed on Tuesday. So we'll see y'all then, like I said, subscribe.

Heck of a job, mayor Pete. Heck of a job, mayor Pete. See ya.