you talk about your life, especially as mayor.

What I loved is, there's an anecdote

about you sitting at the desk for the first time,

"Wow, it's day one-- what do I do, where do I begin?"

-Yeah. -What would your day one be as president?

You know, Obama said, "I'm gonna go for health care,

I'm gonna shut down Guantánamo."

Trump said, "I'm here to build a wall."

Everyone has their idea of day one.

-None of them seem to achieve it, but... -(laughter)

everyone has their idea of day one.

What is your day one as president?

I think day one you launch a package of Democratic reforms

to strengthen our democracy.

Some things that I think we could achieve in the first year,

the kinds of things that were in H.R.1 that the House passed

but that's gonna go to the Senate and die there.

Making voter registration easier,

making it easier to get to the polls,

but also launching things that are gonna take years to achieve.

Launching a reform to the electoral college

based on the idea that you might say is simplistic,

that... you ought to give the presidency

-to whoever gets the most votes. -Right.

Um, launching a commission to dep-- propose measures

that would de-politicize the Supreme Court.

I mean, big, deep structural reforms that,

-uh, need to happen, right? -(cheering and applause)

Um... Not because I'm under any illusion

that they can get done in the first few days

or even in the first few years, some of these things.

But really to remind everybody

that one of the most elegant features

of our constitutional system is that it's designed

to be capable of self-healing and reform.

There have been periods when we've not been afraid

to have a number of structural reforms.

In the '60s and '70s you saw change to the voting age,

you saw the 25th Amendment.

Even though the ERA, sadly, didn't make it,

having that fight led to things like Title IX.

And then we've been in a drought of structural reforms.

Not much has changed.

And so when we do have a change to structures,

it's usually in a very cynical way.

So, for example, a lot's been made

of this idea of Supreme Court reform,

as though our side of the aisle are the only ones

who are talking about changing the Court.

Republicans changed the number of justices

on the Supreme Court.

They changed it to eight until they took power again,

and then they changed it back to nine.

I would like these kinds of changes to happen not in

an opportunistic shattering of norms

for one part to get their way,

but through a systematic set of structural reforms

that will make our democracy stronger

for the balance of my lifetime.

Because every other issue that's so urgent, from--

I think climate tops the list, but climate, income inequality,

education, gun reform, immigration-- you name it--

is gonna be very hard to deal with

if we still have such, uh,

such warping of our democratic system itself.

It's interesting that you have these ideas

that connect with-- obviously, Democratic voters--

but you have the challenge of selling some of these ideas

and the idea of your presidency

to people who may be in the middle or have voted for Trump.

And you know some of the people

who voted for Obama went on to vote for Trump.

People have shown that they can switch their affiliations.

-Yeah. -How do you sell some of those ideas

to somebody in the heartland?

If somebody's a Trump supporter, and you say to them,

the electoral college is something

that needs to be changed, how do you sell

that type of idea to somebody who feels like,

-or has been indoctrinated to believe, -Yeah.

-that those are their ideas? -Yeah.

I mean, some of it's just plain English.

Just saying like, "In a democracy, don't you think

"the way we ought to pick our president

is to give it to the person who gets the most votes?"

Um, some of it-- I mean, that shouldn't be...

That seems very simple.

-Yeah. -(laughter)

It's so simple that I don't trust it.

-Something's weird. -(laughs)

And, you know, what I've found--

'cause we have a lot of people where I live who did that:

they voted for Obama and for Trump.

Many of them also voted for Mike Pence for governor

and me for mayor.

Uh, and one of the things that shows you

is that it's not all about ideology.

I think a lot of people want to know--

they may have values and ideas-- they also just want to know

what these ideas mean in their life.

And so part of that's when we're talking about our democracy,

that we're all better off in a better democracy, but also

when we're talking about something like health care.

Climate change is a great example where, I'm afraid still

that when we think about climate change

our mental imagery around it

is usually something from the Arctic, right?

It's a polar bear looking for a habitat,

it's a piece of ice falling off the ice sheet.

When I'm thinking about climate change,

I'm thinking about neighborhoods in South Bend,

in my Midwestern city,

devastated by two historic floods,

1,000-year flood and a 500-year flood,

that happened less than two years apart.

So saying, "Look, this is a safety issue for you and me."

Not something that's just happening out there

in the atmosphere or out there in the Arctic,

but in our homes and our neighborhoods,

where Nebraska's under water, California's catching fire,

South Bend's at risk of greater floods.

And the more we can make it concrete like that,

the more it's not only politically effective,

but I also think philosophically better.

Because if we can't explain or validate a policy,

in terms of how it's gonna make

-our everyday personal lives actually better, -Right.

then why are we even out here?

Let me-Let me ask you about the Mike Pence

versus Pete Buttigieg.

Um, it seems like it started out of nowhere for many people.

You know, it seemed Mayor Pete came out--

that's you, by the way-- came out and, um, and said,

"Um, you know, if Mike Pence has a problem with me,

he should take it up with my creator."

And this has turned into a conversation

in and around religion in America.

You have an interesting idea,

and that is that for a long time,

-people on the right have claimed religion. -Right.

But you believe that there's a religious left

and religion as a whole

is something that people can be interpreting differently.

-Right. -How-how do you sell that message,

and do you believe that on the left,

religion is as strong as it is on the right?

I think it absolutely can be.

I think there's a great tradition of the religious left

that's not getting enough attention.

I mean, you look at the civil rights movement,

which is certainly a product

of the religious left in some senses.

You look at the work that's going on right now,

uh, in order to help lift up the conditions

from immigrants at the border

to poor people across this country.

Um, and what I think it signals to us

is we've got to do away with this idea

that the only way you can think about the implications

of religion and politics is from a right-wing perspective.

I'm careful when I talk about this,

because anybody in the political space,

I think, has an obligation to be there

-for people of any religion and of no religion. -Mm-hmm.

But I also can't miss the fact that when I'm in church

and I'm hearing about scripture

about, uh, taking care of the least among us

and humbling yourself and visiting the prisoner

-and taking care of the stranger... -Right.

...uh, and-and lifting up the poor,

that has some political implications.

And they are radically different

from the behavior of-of, uh, conservatives

who present themselves as religious.

That's just one of the-the conversations

that has followed you on the trail recently.

It's been you and, uh, and Mike Pence.

Um, more recently, you've been thrust into the news

in and around issues regarding voters who are black.

-Mmm. -You know, people have said,

"Mayor Pete, it feels like you have a blind spot

when it comes to black voters in America."

You know, uh, whether it be the fact that in South Bend

when South Bend's economy rose up,

black people didn't rise up as much.

You know, they stayed in poverty.

Um, you know, you've had issues in and around conversations

around the black police chief.

What do you think you're gonna do,

or how are you going to appeal to black voters

and-and connect with them?

Because, I mean, everyone has an area where they're strongest

-when they're running for president. -Yeah.

Um, today you met with Reverend Al Sharpton.

Did you garner any knowledge,

or-or is there any idea that you will change

in how you communicate with black voters specifically?

Well, I think a lot of it's the importance of outreach.

So, there are people who will find their way to you,

and those are your core supporters.

And then there are the people who will never hear from you

unless you reach out to them.

And it's one of the reasons why we're in South Carolina,

for example, in a couple of days,

and we'll really be proactively making sure we're engaging,

uh, whether through the faith community or in other ways

-with black voters and black neighborhoods. -Mm-hmm.

This was important for me back home, too.

Not everybody knows that South Bend

is a racially diverse city.

We're about 40, 45% nonwhite.

And I prided myself on-on winning reelection

-in minority districts as well as whiter districts. -Right.

But that happened through a lot of lessons learned the hard way.

As you mentioned, we had some very painful issues,

especially in my first days and months as mayor,

around race and policing, uh, around neighborhoods.

We have a lot of racial inequality in our city.

Not because we want to,

uh, but it's shown me that good intentions are not enough.

You have to have intention around your policies,

and we're working on everything back in South Bend

from black entrepreneurship

to investing in historically disinvested neighborhoods.

I think the same thing has to happen at the national level.

Look, these racial inequities didn't just happen.

They're not an accident. They're, in many cases,

the consequence of racist policies,

which means we have to have not just nonracist policies

but anti-racist policies if we're ever going to see

these things equalize in our lifetime.

Uh, and I may not be able to convince

every voter out there to be for me,

but at the very least, I need to make sure

that every voter out there knows that I'm for them.

(cheering and applause)

It's...

it's interesting that you say that

and you-you've commented so much on policies and ideas

that you would have for the nation,