Former Transportation Secretary and potential 2028 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg appeared to distance himself from former President Joe Biden and rejected the idea of a "return to normal" during a Politico interview Tuesday."I'm trying to purge my vocabulary of anything with the prefix 're-' in it, anything with the word back in it," Buttigieg told columnist Jonathan Martin."I don't think now is the time to be talking about 'Build Back Better.' Build better, yes.
I don't even want to talk about back."Martin pointed out that "Build Back Better" was Biden's 2020 presidential campaign slogan and asked if that meant he believed the party has changed in the last six years.JAMES CARVILLE ARGUES ONE KEY MISTAKE FROM BIDEN HAS LEFT DEMOCRATS IN DISARRAYPete Buttigieg, left, served as Transportation Secretary under former President Joe Biden, right, during his administration.(Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)"Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, if that could have worked, it would have worked," Buttigieg said.Overall, Buttigieg rejected the idea of pushing a "return to normal" message that was the staple of Biden's original campaign."But to me, the most important thing is — are we demonstrating a readiness to be focused on building what’s next or are we basically preaching some version of 'return to normal'? 'Return to normal,' in my view, won’t work.""One way to say I’m not a 'return to normal' is to present the idea that looks furthest left, because that makes you, in a certain way, seem bold.
I don’t think it’s the only way to be bold.And so, I think it is really important to not let it lapse into a 'left versus center' thing, when the most important question to me is, are we going to try to sell some version of a previous status quo?" Buttigieg said.BUTTIGIEG REVEALS HOW HE'D ADVISE DEMOCRATS ON KEY ISSUES IF HE COULD TIME TRAVEL BACK TO 2020Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg criticized the "Build Back Better" mindset in a Politico interview....