CNN "State Of The Union With Jake Tapper" - Transcript "Interview with Mayor Pete Buttigieg"

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

We're following breaking news out of El Paso, Texas, and out of Dayton, Ohio. Dozens have been killed in two separate mass shootings.

Joining me now to respond to this horrible news, 2020 presidential candidate South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Mayor Buttigieg, thank you for joining us on this rough day.

These two shootings, El Paso, Dayton, they're some of the deadliest mass shootings in our country's history. Between them, they have left at least 29 innocent people dead, 42 injured, in a 13-hour span.

Do you think this is actually going to spur lawmakers into action?

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, every time this happens, we say never again. We say we're going to do something. We say it's going to change. And it hasn't.

I have been thinking a lot about the fact that this same debate and this same cycle has been going on my entire adult life. And I'm wondering what it will take to get the sense of urgency, to get Washington to actually respond, especially when Americans, frankly, in both parties want to see changes, at least some basic, commonsense measures on gun safety, not to mention the need to stand up to white nationalist terrorism.

And we have got to call that what it is if we're going to fight it. I wonder what it will take to deliver the sense of urgency. After Sandy Hook, we said, surely, after this. And time and time again, this has happened.

At the end of the day, without political change, I don't know that we will get the solutions we need. But if it -- if this doesn't do it, I don't know what will.

TAPPER: You have a personal connection to the mall where the massacre in El Paso took place.

What was your emotional reaction when you first heard the news of that shooting? BUTTIGIEG: When I hear -- heard the word Cielo Vista, I thought about

being a teenager being excited that my grandma was going to take me to the mall, because we used to visit every summer.

And I just think of it as a -- as Americans should be able to think of shopping malls, as either a place to go grab something or a place that teenagers look forward to going to.

And, instead, it is a place where Americans were murdered in a terrorist attack. And it is happening all over.

To go from El Paso to Dayton in a matter of hours, and, meanwhile, to continue to deal with the fact that we lose so many lives, one at a time, to gun violence on a daily basis around the country, including in my home town, we cannot continue accepting the unacceptable, as if nothing could be done.

We are the only country in the developed world where this happens routinely. And we rub our hands as though there is some cosmic force. This is the consequence of policy failures. It is time to act.

TAPPER: There is still so much we don't know about both of these shootings.

Your gun safety plan calls for a variety of measures, from banning military-style semiautomatic rifles, to establishing a nationwide gun licensing system.

I know I don't have to list -- to list for you the mass casualty atrocities that have led Democrats to push time and time again for far -- legislation far less sweeping than what you're proposing, just closing the gun show loophole, for example, legislation that every time fails.

Is there a proposal you have to end these mass shootings or at least curtail them that you think could get through the U.S. Senate?

BUTTIGIEG: Here's the thing.

In America, things are impossible until they happen. And time and time again, to talk of something hopefully, we have seen policy breakthroughs around issue after issue in this country.

It is time for gun safety to be that issue where the impossible became possible. And, by the way, how can it be impossible at least to deliver something like universal background checks that 90 percent of Americans, most Republicans, most gun owners want to see happen?

[09:35:07]

Either this Senate needs to respond to the American people, or this Senate needs to be replaced, not to mention the need for a president who will actually do something about gun safety in this country and do something about standing up to white nationalist terror.

TAPPER: I can just tell you, as a journalist, I have literally -- pardon me -- I have been literally been covering the debate over the gun show loophole since you were in high school.

I mean, I remember covering it in 1999 and interviewing Senator John McCain when he said he was going to support closing the gun show loophole. And even that couldn't get through the U.S. Senate.

There is a tweet out there -- I forget who wrote it -- some -- it says something along the lines the moment this country decided that it was acceptable for 20 first and second graders to be massacred of Sandy Hook was the moment this country decided that it was not going to do gun control no matter what.

BUTTIGIEG: Look, at the beginning of this decade, it was considered preposterous that somebody like me could be married by the end of this decade, at least in the state of Indiana.

We have to believe in the possibility of political change. But we also have to hold our leaders accountable when they fail to deliver it. And this isn't just a policy issue. This is a cultural issue. This is a question of how we handle responsible gun ownership.

Here is something to think about this Sunday morning. Is a gun a tool or is it an idol?

Any time I have carried or handled a weapon, whether it was in Afghanistan for self-defense, or whether it was to go skeet shooting or hunting, I viewed it as a tool.

But if the gun corporation lobby, which is what the NRA is, now has people viewing guns as a thing to be loved, a thing to be protected, a thing that is a source of our freedom and power, and a thing to which we are willing to sacrifice human life, isn't that the definition of a false god?

We have got to change our thinking. We can absolutely honor Second Amendment rights for responsible gun owners without shooting down even the most basis, commonsense measures to save American lives, including our children.

Or we can fail yet again. The choice is right in front of us. The question is whether we're serious about this or not. We can't go on like this.

I was part of what I feel like was the first generation where school shootings were routine. Now we have seen a second. Are we going to allow there to be a third? Or are we going to be proud of what we have done by five, 10 years from now?

You know, on the current track we're on, we already have more guns than people in this country. But they're saying, by 2030, there will be 130 million more guns on the street.

We could tell our kids by 2030 that we finally have changed. Or we could let it be one of those issues that we just accept the unacceptable for as long as we live.

TAPPER: At the beginning of this interview, you talked about how there were two dimensions to this, the gun laws and the white supremacist ideology. Let's turn to the white supremacist ideology, if you could.

Police are investigating this document, this screed filled with white nationalist and racist hatred towards Latinos and immigrants. They believe it to be written by the alleged terrorist in El Paso, Texas.

Now, you said in response to the El Paso massacre -- quote -- "America is under attack from homegrown white nationalist terrorism." You also referenced 9/11 inspiring your generation into action. And you called for similar action once again.

Why do you think there is a reluctance in the Congress and in the FBI to label and investigate white supremacist terrorism, which is what we're seeing, in a way that there is no reluctance to condemn other forms of terrorism, Islamist or other kinds?

BUTTIGIEG: I think it is because our politicians are embarrassed. Certainly, our White House is embarrassed.

You know, there is a parallel between the failure to keep our elections safe from Russian interference, because acknowledging that that is a problem would be embarrassing to this president, who benefited from it, and the fact that confronting white nationalist terrorism would be embarrassing to a president who helped stoke many of these feelings in this country to begin with.

But it's time to turn the page. It's time to move on and actually do something.

You know, this administration actually cut funding for Homeland Security programs on countering violent extremism, and has, as far as I can tell, not produced any kind of national strategy on far-right terrorism.

After 9/11, we swore up and down we were going to be different. We said, this was going to change us. Being attacked by terrorists was going to make us better than we were.

What about this time? Is being attacked by terrorists now, homegrown white nationalist terrorists, going to make us better? Or are we going to allow those terrorists to make us worse and more divided?

The choice is ours. But it requires leadership. And we're emphatically not getting that leadership from this White House or from congressional Republicans.

Now, if the White House is beyond redemption, so be it. But congressional Republicans have a choice. Every member of Congress right now and the Senate in the Republican Party, I believe, knows better. At least some of them know better.

[09:40:10]

And one of the reasons I think so many of them are leaving is because they don't have the heart to stay, but they don't have the courage to stand up to the current reality. If there was ever a time for that to change, it is now.

TAPPER: What is the current reality?

Congressman Beto O'Rourke and Governor Jay Inslee have said they think President Trump is a white nationalist.

Do you?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes.

I mean, at best, he's condoning and encouraging white nationalism.

Look, when you have got people chanting "Jews will not replace us" in the streets of Charlottesville, and somebody gets killed in an act of terror, and the president sees very fine people there -- we have a president who made his career, politically, on demonizing Mexicans.

And now we're seeing reports that the shooter yesterday had his goal as killing as many Mexicans as possible. You don't have to use a lot of imagination to connect the dots here.

It is very clear that this kind of is being legitimized from on high. And if that were not true, the president would be acting and speaking very, very differently than what he's doing right now.

TAPPER: One last question.

The alleged shooter in El Paso could be facing the death penalty in Texas. And this seems like the kind of example of a case where you probably could get very strong support for somebody like this, a white nationalist, assuming he's found guilty in a court of law, a white nationalist, white supremacist murdering innocent people because of their race or the color of their skin.

But you don't support capital punishment. Would you oppose it in this case as well?

BUTTIGIEG: If you're against it, then you're against it.

And, of course, we can find cases of heinous situations, people perhaps who deserve to die.

I have just never met anybody who deserves to kill.

TAPPER: All right, fair enough.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg, thank you for joining us, a horrible day. Really appreciate your time.

BUTTIGIEG: Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source