Fox News host Ed Henry Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg grilled during an interview on Monday for making inaccurate claims and for making contradictory statements in interviews.
Henry ripped Buttigieg for his incendiary remarks suggesting that Trump supporters were racist while at the same time championing “bringing people together and reaching out to Trump voters.”
Henry also grilled Buttigieg’s racially-based criticisms of President Donald Trump given Buttigieg’s abysmal record serving the African American community in South Bend, Indiana.
WATCH:
TRANSCRIPT:
ED HENRY, AMERICA’S NEWSROOM CO-ANCHOR: Here with us now live is Democratic presidential hopeful, Pete Buttigieg. Thanks for coming in.
PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thanks for having me.
HENRY: Appreciate you being here. I don’t know if you want it, the endorsement from Karl Rove. It wasn’t a full endorsement, but he just said a moment ago that he thinks you might exceed expectations tonight.
BUTTIGIEG: Well, I’d hate to come on TV and set an expectation that I’m going to come in ahead of expectations but what I will say is that we feel a lot of strength on the ground. We had a fantastic pair of events yesterday in the Iowa City area, at Coralville, and here in Des Moines, but also we’ve been in a lot of the counties that famously switched from President Obama to Trump.
And we’re seeing folks come out of the woodwork. Not just diehard Democrats, but some more independent-minded folks, disaffected Republicans looking for a change, wanting to turn the page, and looking for a campaign, not only that welcomes them, but can demonstrate we have what it takes to defeat Donald Trump in the fall.
HENRY: In fact, your staff tells me that a lot of your precinct captains will be important tonight at the various caucus sites, in terms of rallying support for you. Are a lot of Trump voters that went Obama in 2012, went Trump in 2016, and maybe they’re looking for something new.
What is your appeal to Trump voters, particularly in rural areas?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, it’s that this is going to be a campaign that invites everybody in to be part of the solution. It’s not saying we’re going to agree on everything, but a time when farmers are getting killed as a result of the trade war, consumers are feeling the impacts of that, the policies—
HENRY: But are — pardon me — are farmers being killed by the trade war when the president just signed USMCA into law, and basically that’s going to mean jobs for—
BUTTIGIEG: That’s — it’s certainly helpful, the USMCA, especially after the Democrats insisted on some improvements. I think — I think it’s a good package, but the trade war never should have happened in the first place.
Anyway, my point is, when you see tax policies favoring corporations over the middle class, when you see refinery waivers at the expense of farmers here in the Midwest, there is an opportunity to talk to voters who maybe haven’t really connected with the Democratic message in a long time.
But it’s not just about what we’re against. It’s about what we’re for. The idea of making sure that we’re dealing with climate change, that we’re delivering an economy where one job can be enough.
HENRY: Sure.
BUTTIGIEG: That we’re supporting rural communities as well as parts of our cities that have been left behind. And—
HENRY: But you said a moment ago about bringing people together and reaching out to Trump voters. And yet you were on CNN yesterday sort of doubling down on this claim you’ve made that Trump supporters are, at best, you say, looking the other way on racism.
And then the president, at the Super Bowl, has an ad last night that quotes Alice Johnson, an African-American woman who got a second chance because of the president.
Let’s play that clip and you can react.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALICE JOHNSON, CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM ADVOCATE: I’m free to start over. This is the greatest day of my life. My heart is just bursting with gratitude. I want to thank President Donald John Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: How can you attack not just the president, but 63 million people in America who voted for him, when you have African-American women like Alice Johnson saying, this is a president who gave me a second chance?
BUTTIGIEG: You know, I think that President — President Trump’s decision to sign the First Step Act when it came to his desk, is one of the handful of things I could actually agree with him on.
It doesn’t change the incredibly cruel and divisive racial rhetoric that comes out of this White House that is one of the many reasons that I’m meeting not only Democrats, but Republicans, who tell me that they struggle to look their children in the eye and explain to them how this is the president—
HENRY: But, are you the right messenger to question the president on race, when as Mayor of South Bend, as you know, black leaders were quite critical of what you did, particularly in terms of police involved shootings and other matters you’ve litigated in this campaign. Why are you questioning the president?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, because the president is wrong. He is wrong to attack women of color, he is wrong to compare people to animals, he is wrong to assault entire cities in his tweets.
And again, you don’t have be a dyed in the wool Democrat to know that’s wrong, just as a lot of Republicans in Congress and Senate, even if they’re providing cover for the president, can’t actually bring themselves to say that he’s a good leader. And it’s revealing.
Look, this is — this is an opportunity to turn the page. To turn the page on this president, and frankly within my party, to turn the page on some of the internal fights that we had in 2016.
HENRY: OK, so are you the man to lead that effort? There was an op-ed that The Washington Post ran over the weekend about your leadership, the experience you bring to the table.
It’s a mayor from out in California, Christina Shea, who writes, “It takes a huge ego to think that mayoral experience alone would empower anyone to hit the West Wing running. Going from local politics to the Situation Room, from leading a town of a few hundred thousand to a country of 330 million, the chance of a rookie mistake is high and the stakes could not be higher.” That’s Mayor Christina Shea.
BUTTIGIEG: Well, I agree that the stakes could not be higher. I also think that Washington experience is maybe not the kind of establishment experience that we’re seeing out there, that’s traditionally what people expect in a presidential candidate, is not what Americans are looking for.
The experience of being on the ground, leading a city, and we have a little bit of a different system in Indiana where, for example, there’s no such thing as a city manager in my city. You are the executive and there is no one else to call.
But, it’s not just that, if we’re talking about the Situation Room, maybe it’s time to actually have somebody in that Situation Room who knows what it is to be sent into war on the orders of an American president.
So, not only in terms of the experience I bring to the table, and look, let’s be honest, this is a job that should be daunting for any human being, and yet every person who’s ever done it, the good presidents, the bad presidents and the in between presidents — one thing that they have in common is that they’re mere mortals and human beings.
HENRY: You should be saluted for your service to our country. You just mentioned your military experience. Gallop recently ran a poll in terms of the president handling of the economy way up in the 80s, in terms of handling terror, Soleimani, some of those issues that have come up, he’s up in the high 60s.
How do you run — if you get the nomination, how do you run against a president who has incredibly high approval numbers on issues like handling terror, handling, you know, his work in foreign policy in the Situation Room, and handling, most importantly, the economy?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, part of the president’s unpopularity, I think, has to do with his, let’s say, mixed relationship with the military and on security matters. But the fact that — I mean, for anybody who was in the post-9/11 conflicts, to hear the President of the United States say that traumatic brain injury is no big deal, when he took advantage of the fact that he was the son of a multi-millionaire to fake a disability to avoid serving when it was his term, somebody needs to challenge him on that, and I’m prepared to go toe-to-toe with him on that.
HENRY: Last question, usually there’s three tickets out of Iowa. Are you going to have one of those?
BUTTIGIEG: I believe so. Absolutely, and, you know, what we’re seeing on the ground is a tremendous amount of energy. Our organizers and the volunteers that they’ve recruited are out in every precinct in the state, and we think we’re going to have the organization to compete, to win, and to go onto New Hampshire and beyond.
HENRY: Pete Buttigieg, we wish you luck, and we appreciate you coming in today.
BUTTIGIEG: Thank you.
HENRY: Thank you, sir.