about what we want our city to look like going forward. when he was running for mayor back in 2011, he was still i think coming out of his shell. i think he was becoming more comfortable with public life and campaigning and going up to strangers and saying, hey, i m pete. and i remember one instance, we locked into an older polish hall on the west side of south bendch we had just kicked off a mayoral campaign. he goes, what should i do? i said you are going to shake every hand in this room and you re going to come back and we re going to have dinner toke. that s what he did. an upstate candidate who never held elected office. buttigieg campaigned on the promise of remaking south bend. he managed to get support of the city s chamber of commerce. he won in a landslide. a young man with a funny name and no political experience managed to win the confidence of a community at a turning point. but what had he inherited?
some seven years. people want to know who said what at this point and i think tapes need to be released so that people can hear that and move on. how do you explain this incident in particular removing the city s first african-american police chief and in what was a very complicated situation so that people understand it from your perspective? have you the most thing is honesty. it was a challenge and drove a wedge between me and african-american residents in this city that took years to heal and repair. the firing of chief boykins i plev was devastating to the african-american community. it had created a strength in the relationship between mayor pete and the black community. it s a cloud now that s kind of hanging over. it doesn t look good. it doesn t look like leadership to me and to members of the community. when people of color look at the decision he made from the police chief firing to the developments in south bend, they will wonder, did he consider how
these decision could be disruptive? there is an element of unhappiness with buttigieg in south bend about these decisions. would you have removed the chief at that time had you known everything you know today in. knowing that the chief of police was the subject of an fbi session and chose not to tell me meant that i didn t have the kind of confidence that you need to have in your appointee at that level. reporter: the issues around policing and the black community in south bend would surface again and follow the mayor to the presidential campaign trail. the criticism that i would have of mayor pete is not that he s done a bad job with race relation, he hasn t done anything impressive. if you are trying to be the president of the united states and the future, i expect you to be more than the typical mayor of a mid-western city. coming up. it was difficult to think about that he is going into a combat zone. that he may not come back from. combat zone. that he may not come
pete buttigieg. buttigieg. edge. edge. pete buttigieg. did i do it? close enough. campaign signs broken councilable by syllable, the 37-year-old candidate won the attention of late night hosts and the media. the future is here, america. i m a little green, but i m fresh, instagramable and ultimately good for you. i m the avocado toast of the democratic party. my guest tonight is the mayor of south bend, indiana. what up, boys live from uptown. here here with the homey, mayor pete in the building. please welcome mayor beat buttigieg. when he didn t have campaign money. he used that time to go on tv, radio and podcast. that is why he caught fire. the young candidate has even caught an insult from president trump. who has compared him to mad magazine s cover boy.