Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said this week that there are deep flaws within government programs, saying his time in the Biden administration “radicalized” him to recognize the need for extensive reforms in the federal bureaucracy.
Buttigieg’s profile has risen as a likely 2028 Democratic presidential contender. In an interview with NOTUS published Monday, the onetime Cabinet member said he did not agree with the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate agencies such as the Education Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. However, Buttigieg said big changes are needed for such programs to operate effectively, warning that it is “the wrong answer to go back to what we had before.”
“I think it is substantively the right answer to ask ourselves when something has been wrecked through the current administration or just outlived its usefulness … ‘What can we put forward in its place?’” he said.
“The Department of Education, I’m sure, could go through some serious overhaul,” Buttigieg said. “It was wrong to destroy it. It doesn’t mean you should put it back just the way it was. International development aid — very important for the U.S., strategically, to be doing that. That doesn’t mean that you put back the old USAID just the way we do it. It could have stood a lot of big changes.”
Buttigieg has signaled that he is open to making a second presidential bid in two years, after a failed attempt in 2020. Before the country hits the general election, he has urged colleagues in the Democratic Party to reassess their focus and not get lost in positive signals for the party projected for November’s midterm elections.
“It would be a mistake to believe that a midterm election, fueled by people’s disappointment and disgust with this administration, is the same thing as a validation for a governing vision, for Democrats,” he said. “It is maybe possible to get through one midterm cycle without the strongest or clearest governing vision, but it’s not possible to do that repeatedly.”
Buttigieg also weighed in on some current events, as messaging battles over the Trump-era Department of Government Efficiency’s cuts to the bureaucracy play out in the public eye. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), among other Democrats, has expressed outrage over former DOGE leader Elon Musk’s actions to reform USAID, sparking accusations that they are telling “total lies.”
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Buttigieg said during the interview that the DOGE “created a lot of wreckage.” But he said the need for government reform is real and pushed the party to embrace certain changes.
“The concept of a drive for a more efficient government is one that we should welcome. … There are all kinds of things, from the way we spend money to the way we deliver services, that need to change,” he said. “I’m not saying I have all the answers cooked out. I’m saying we should be open to very different approaches.”