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U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Holds Press Conference; Democrats Celebrate Infrastructure Bill Passage; Tragedy in Houston. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired November 08, 2021 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:02]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Vice President Kamala Harris heads to France this week to boost U.S.-French relations. She will meet with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and speak at the Paris Peace Forum.

Her trip, of course, comes two months after France temporarily recalled its ambassador to the United States in anger over the U.S. nuclear-powered sub deal with Australia.

Thanks for joining us on INSIDE POLITICS. We will see you tomorrow.

Ana Cabrera picks up right now.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. Thanks for being with us.

We are following multiple fast-moving stories today.

A lawsuit filed and a criminal investigation is now under way in Houston after eight people died, with several others hospitalized, after a concert crowd surged at the Astroworld Festival. Survivors saying -- quote -- "I felt like I was going to die" and: "This was not a concert. This was a fight for survival."

Ahead, what the police chief reportedly told rapper Travis Scott before this concert even began.

Also, growing backlash against NFL star Aaron Rodgers after he revealed he is unvaccinated, despite previously saying he was immunized. Hall of Famers are now slamming the Green Bay Packers quarterback.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERRY BRADSHAW, FOX SPORTS: Unfortunately, we have got players that pretty much think only about themselves. And I'm extremely disappointed in the actions of Aaron Rodgers.

MICHAEL STRAHAN, FORMER NFL PLAYER: In the grand scheme of things, it's deceptive and it's wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CABRERA: But we began in Washington.

Any moment now, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is set to speak. Infrastructure Week is the real deal now, the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill officially passing both chambers of Congress with bipartisan support.

Joining us now is CNN chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju and CNN senior White House correspondent Phil Mattingly.

And, Phil, the Biden administration, they really needed this win. What does it mean for the American people? And what are we expecting to hear from Secretary Buttigieg?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think it's significant for the administration for any number of different reasons.

But I think what you're going to hear from Secretary Buttigieg is and really from White House officials over the course of the next several days and several weeks is a focus on what's actually inside the proposal, $1.2 trillion infrastructure proposal.

And it has real, tangible meaning for average American people, $110 billion for roads, bridges and major projects, $55 billion for water infrastructure. You kind of go up and down the list, whether it's tens of billions of dollars for public transit, $15 billion for electric vehicles and charging stations. These are the types of, I think, investments are spending that officials really in both parties have been looking to try and accomplish over the course of the last several administrations.

So much so that, in the last administration, it became a punchline, which you kind of went after in your opening there, Ana. And I think the point you're going to hear from administration officials are, they don't just want to move on to the next proposal. They understand there's a significant amount of work left to go on the president's domestic agenda, a $2 trillion bill that still needs to be negotiated.

And they still need to figure out a pathway forward between moderates and progressives. However, they don't want to just totally shift the focus away from a very real legislative victory, a very real policy win, and a bipartisan one on that, the president delivering on two critical campaign promises, bipartisanship, which a lot of people thought wasn't necessarily possible in Washington anymore, and on the policy side with infrastructure.

And that's where you're going to hear today. And that's what I'm told the administration is going to really highlight with the president's traveling on Wednesday, but also Cabinet secretaries, like Secretary Buttigieg, will be hitting the road for the next couple of weeks, really trying to focus on what's inside this proposal -- Ana.

CABRERA: It was Democrats who delayed the passage of this bipartisan infrastructure bill. And it only happened after House progressives were given a written commitment by moderates that they would also support the social safety net package, that broader Build Back Better bill.

And that's supposed to happen by the middle of this month.

So, Manu, where do things stand now?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the big question is, can they actually meet their timeline?

They have -- we have seen deadline blown after deadline blown, and their new deadline is on November 15. That's when the Democrats hope there will be an actual official cost estimate saying how much this bill, which has been estimated at about $1.9 trillion, if it actually meets that target, and if it's actually fully paid for by a range of tax increases in particular.

They want to make sure that that is actually the case. That's what the moderates had demanded in saying, if they were going to vote for this bill, they needed to see that estimate, which is one, the biggest reason why that Nancy Pelosi was forced to delay yet again a vote on that larger plan.

Now, assuming it all comes back, that's when it could come for a vote in the House. But there's a very real possibility that, even though they want to have a vote on this by November 15, that estimate could get delayed to later, potentially running up to Thanksgiving.

And then we will see if it actually comes back and meets the targets that the White House expects. So, assuming that it all does, if it would get out of the House and the moderates, if they vote yes -- and Nancy Pelosi can only afford to lose three votes -- then, at that point, it would go to the Senate.

[13:05:00]

And, Ana, there are major questions about what exactly this bill would look like, because Joe Manchin in particular has raised concerns about a number of the provisions, as well as suggesting that the price tag at $1.9 trillion in the House could be too high for him there, and also opposing paid leave, which Nancy Pelosi put in this bill for four weeks for families, is part of this proposal.

That will almost certainly fall by the wayside if Joe Manchin has his way. So there's a lot more negotiation to be had. And there's a cumbersome process to get it out of the Senate at the end of the day. So it is going to take some time. Joe Biden got a big victory with a bipartisan bill, but the bigger bill, it's going to take time.

Will it get to his desk? Still an open question.

CABRERA: And I think there are questions about, when will the American people feel the impact of this legislation that has passed, especially this bipartisan infrastructure bill that's officially on its way to the president's desk?

Again, we will take the comments live from Secretary Buttigieg as soon as he began speaking. Manu Raju, Phil Mattingly, thank you, gentlemen.

Let's talk about our other major developing story right now, shock and horror in Houston. Right now, a criminal investigation is under way as officials try to piece together what happened at the Astroworld music festival on Friday night.

At least eight people died and dozens were injured after a massive crowd surged forward as rapper Travis Scott performed on stage. The youngest victim was just 14 years old. Six people are still in the hospital, five of them in intensive care.

Concertgoers described the chaotic scene, saying they couldn't get any air as people crushed against each other. "The New York Times" is now reporting that the Houston police chief visited rapper Travis Scott hours before this show to discuss crowd control issues, a source telling "The Times" that the chief was already concerned about the energy in the crowd.

And now at least one lawsuit has been filed over this incident. More are expected.

Our Rosa Flores is live in Houston for us.

Rosa, where is the focus of investigators right now?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, the focus is criminal, as you said.

Over the weekend, this investigation escalated to include both the homicide and narcotics divisions, this after a security officer reported that, while he was on scene, he was pricked in the neck, he went unconscious, he was administered Narcan, and he was revived, and that he wasn't the only one that received Narcan that night.

Here's what we know about the timeline. At about 9:15 p.m. on Friday night, when there was about 50,000 people in this crowd, that's when the crowd started compressing towards the stage. By 9:38, this had turned into a mass casualty event, with one police officer describing the scene as multiple people on the ground in cardiac arrest needing medical attention, and, of course, medical personnel providing that attention.

That concert ended at about 10:10. Now, concertgoers, I have been talking to multiple of them. They tell me that, at some points, it was very, very difficult to breathe. They didn't even have control of their bodies, they say, because of the massive crowd.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA WHITE, CONCERTGOER: Oh, definitely, it was traumatizing. I have never been in such chaos, like, so unorganized and just so many people slamming into me. There was -- it was just -- it was really hell. It was really hell. SINCLAIRE HOYT, CONCERTGOER: You could feel everybody pushing up behind you. You couldn't move your arms. You couldn't breathe. You couldn't see anything. It was you were seeing the back of really tall people's heads.

So, when everybody was moving, there was 15, 20 minutes where we weren't in control of our bodies. We were literally moving with the wave of the people. And it was very claustrophobic.

JOYA MELVIN, CONCERTGOER: I was -- I got separated from my friends and I got pushed in the middle. And when literally each song was going on, I saw two people, and they were literally behind me. And everybody was moving out the way with a whistle. And they were like, it's a dead body. Move out the way. It's a dead body.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Live Nation, Astroworld Festival, Travis Scott, they have all issued statements saying that they are devastated -- Ana, back to you.

CABRERA: All right, Rosa, thank you.

Let's go live now to the White House and Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), FORMER MAYOR OF SOUTH BEND, INDIANA: When our communications team presents me with copy, I usually cross out the word excited because I think it's overused. And I often rub out the exclamation points, because it's not always my style. But we are excited with an exclamation point about what we're going to be able to deliver.

We are so thankful to everybody who's played a role in this. Thanks to members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. President Biden's historic bipartisan infrastructure deal will now become the law of the land, and it couldn't come at a more urgent time.

I can tell you, in the 10 months that I have been in this job, I have traveled the country and seen the state of our infrastructure firsthand. I saw mesh nets hung under bridges to catch pieces of concrete that fall off from time to time, century-old tunnels corroded by seawater that hundreds of thousands of people depend on every day, roads where community members are installing memorials to lives lost in preventable traffic crashes, highways that have cut communities in two.

[13:10:07]

Infrastructure is so elemental to our society that, when it's not there to serve us in the right way, all of us are impacted. But when it is, when it's strong, every community, large and small, rural and urban, privileged and marginalized, every community feels the benefits.

When combined with the Build Back Better act, the bipartisan infrastructure deal, which, collectively, I like to think of them as the big deal, an answer to the New Deal or the Square Deal before that. They are going to create a generation of good union jobs.

They are going to make historic investments in equity and in the fight against climate change. They're going to make sure that America can compete and win in the decades ahead. This is the largest investment in roads, bridges and highways since the creation of the Interstate Highway System, including the largest investment in our bridges ever, so that we can avoid devastating closures and disruptive collapses like we have seen, including what we saw in Tennessee and Florida and far too many other places.

It's also the largest investment in public transit ever, with funding that will expand service to communities of all sizes, including improvements for seniors and for people with disabilities.

It's going to replace thousands of outdated buses with clean zero- emission vehicles and aging rail cars was state-of-the-art new ones. It's the largest investment in passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak itself and transformative impacts in traffic safety will be achieved.

And it's going to strengthen our supply chain by improving our ports, our airports and our freight rail. It's going to dramatically increase funding for major projects. Every year, we have our discretionary programs, RAISE and INFRA, where we support projects that are vitally important for local economic development and the national supply chain.

We're going through the current round of applications for RAISE right now. And for every dollar that we have to give out, there are about 10 in impressive applications coming in. This allows us to grow those programs that we can use in very direct ways to address the issues of our time.

I will give you an example from the INFRA round of grants that happened earlier this year. We announced funding for a project in Georgia. It's an inland port to help goods move onward for the Port of Savannah. That is to create a new 300-plus-mile freight connection between the seaport and the inland port that makes it faster to get the goods out of the port, and then sort them so that they can get on the way to shelves.

But, like I said, for every good project like this, there are many more that are worthy, but that we can't support. This helps us to change that. Later today, I will be headed to Glasgow and there look forward to discussing how this legislation can help ensure that transportation, which is the biggest sector contributing to greenhouse gases in our economy, can be a big part of the solution.

We have seen so many impacts of climate change on American lives, on our transportation systems themselves. And that's part of why this plan includes funding to put people to work electrifying our power grid, make our infrastructure more resilient to extreme weather, and build out a national network of half-a-million electric vehicle chargers and expand public transit, as I mentioned earlier, which is also a huge part of the climate solution.

And, of course, there's a lot beyond our transportation elements of this lead pipes, cleaning up pollution, broadband and more. But what all of these investments have in common is that they will create jobs, pipe fitters to replace those pipes, electricians to install those E.V. charging stations, autoworkers to build the cars that plug into them.

We need mechanics maintaining transit vehicles, drivers operating them, construction workers rebuilding those roads and bridges. And most of those jobs will be available whether you have a college degree or not, which is why the president often talks about this as a blue- collar blueprint for American competitiveness.

And it's a generational investment in every sense of the word, something that means a lot more to me now as a new father, because this is how we do right by the next generation before it's too late.

So, thanks again, and eager to take some questions.

QUESTION: Secretary Buttigieg, thanks for being with us. Congrats on your -- the birth of your children.

BUTTIGIEG: Thank you.

QUESTION: A question about the bill.

The bill gives your department an unprecedented amount of discretionary funds, $100 billion in competitive grants. Can you spell out how you plan to prioritize that money and just give us a sense of what projects you see or we should expect to see getting money and started first?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes.

So, our department has been gearing up hoping that this bill would pass. And now that it has, we have taken it to the next level. I would break it into two parts. Part of it is handling increased funding for programs we already have, like discretionary programs such as RAISE, formerly known as TIGER, and INFRA.

There, what you're going to see within the framework, of course, that the law puts forward, is an emphasis on projects that, taken together, give us extra value in the priorities of this administration, economic strength, safety, climate, equity, preparing for the future.

[13:15:01]

And we see a lot of projects that overlap in that sense. Again, if you look to what we funded with the last round of INFRA, that will give you a sense. And you will see that when we announce the RAISE projects for this year, too. But we will have so much more to work with.

Then there is where we have to stand up whole new programs, Safe Streets For All. We have never had a multibillion dollar safety initiative like that. Reconnecting Communities, which we have been talking about all year, responding to where sometimes it was federal dollars that divided a community, often along racial lines.

I think the intent of those programs is clear. But the mechanics of those, we have got to work very hard to make sure that we get it right, that the criteria are transparent, that it is easy to understand how to apply, whether you are a big city with full-time staff here in Washington, D.C., or a small rural community trying to navigate that federal process, and, of course, that all those dollars are spent accountably, because we're talking about a lot of taxpayer money.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Sorry, just a quick follow-up.

Do you have something in place to prevent mismanagement of that money and fraud?

BUTTIGIEG: Absolutely, yes.

And that's something that I know is also happening at the administration level. There will be very -- and the president made this very clear to us in the Cabinet when the Rescue Plan dollars came through. We know that we're going to be held to a very high standard by the president, as well as the public.

So, we have an executive council with the deputy secretary and undersecretary, as well as myself, paying close attention to how we can make sure we have all of the right controls, the right rigor to make sure these dollars are spent well.

QUESTION: Secretary, Mayor Pete, could you give us the breakdown of the implementation of Justice40 with the infrastructure package that has now passed and signed into law?

And, also, can you give us the construct of how you will deconstruct the racism that was built into the roadways, as you talked to (INAUDIBLE) earlier when you broke that information to us? Can you talk to us about how that could be deconstructed?

BUTTIGIEG: For sure, yes.

So, the principle of Justice40 is that at least 40 percent of the clean investments in this bill will go to benefit the communities that are overburdened and underserved. So part one of that is defining those investments that are eligible, and that's a lot of it. And we're working to map out kind of program by program, mode by mode what would qualify.

For example, if we're buying clean buses, right, how do we make sure in terms of where those buses go, but also looking at the business opportunity, the jobs that are going to be created, the businesses that will have a chance to compete for the business opportunities that creates. That, too, I think is a very important element of equity here that's in the spirit of Justice40.

And, again, we have a lot of guidance and oversight from the White House, since that's an administration-wide initiative. But we know that we have got to build our own internal kind of ways of aligning and defining that inside the administration.

As to where we target those dollars. I'm still surprised that some people were surprised when I pointed to the fact that, if a highway was built for the purpose of dividing a white and a black neighborhood, or if an underpass was constructed such that a bus carrying mostly black and Puerto Rican kids to a beach or would have been in New York was designed too low for it to pass by, that that obviously reflects racism that went into those design choices.

I don't think we have anything to lose by confronting that simple reality. And I think we have everything to gain by acknowledging it and then dealing with it, which is why the Reconnecting Communities, that billion dollars, is something we want to get to work right away putting to work.

QUESTION: But that's such a heavy lift. I mean, you have to reconstruct communities that this happened to.

As you said, some of these beltways and interstates and roadways were built before the Civil Rights Act, before the Voting Rights Act and were made meant to be racist. But how do you go about redefining and replanning these roadways and communities that are already settled in...

BUTTIGIEG: Yes.

QUESTION: ... since then?

BUTTIGIEG: So, what's interesting is, it's going to vary by community, and we have to listen to the community.

Sometimes, it really is the case that an overpass went in a certain way that is so harmful that it's got to come down or maybe be put underground. Other times, maybe it's not that way. Maybe the really important thing is to connect across it, to add, rather than subtract.

And that's where we don't want to impose a one-size-fits-all answer from here. But when we were out in Syracuse, for example, looking at I-81, we saw the local vision for how they want to get past those divisions. And those local ideas are going to be taken very seriously as we try to meet the spirit of this law.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Thank you, Secretary Buttigieg.

You just said this bill and the passage of it could not come at a more urgent time. So do you know when President Biden plans to sign this bill?

BUTTIGIEG: I'd have to refer you to my White House colleagues on that. But I will tell you that I will be there with bells on.

COLLINS: But he has not signed the bill yet, right? And can you talk about what the campaign to sell this bill is going to

look like, given it will take time for some of these projects to actually go into effect and to be completed? And the White House is one year out from the midterms, of course, which they have tied this bill to.

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I expect that that will be led by the president traveling to show where the need is and where the action is.

But I'm certainly eager to be part of that effort. I mean, look, a lot of this sells itself, because communities never needed to be persuaded that their bridge needed to be fixed or that their airport needed an upgrade or that their ports needed investment.

[13:20:10]

They have been trying to get Washington to catch up to them. But I do think it's important for us to go out there, especially in communities where a member of Congress or the Senate played an important role. And, as you know, members from both sides of the aisle played important roles in delivering this bipartisan win.

And I can't wait to be out there celebrating good news.

QUESTION: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Karine.

As you pointed out, this was a bipartisan bill. Was there any discussion of the president not letting Democrats oppose some of the Republicans who are running or giving them a pass in the next election?

BUTTIGIEG: Not that I have been part of, but what I will say is that we're really proud of the bipartisan character of this bill.

And the conversations that we had, it wasn't transactional like that. It didn't have to be because these investments were already so good for the communities that these members represented. There are times when you ask somebody to take a tough vote. To me, these provisions were rightly so popular that the only thing that was tough was for some Republicans to stand up to those who wanted them to choose party over what was right for their community.

QUESTION: So there was no discussion from your side about the partisanship of it?

BUTTIGIEG: I don't ever remember talking about -- when I was talking to any member of either chamber of either party, talking about campaigns and elections in that way. What we talked about was how it would be good.

Now, of course, but believe strongly that good policy is good politics. And I think it's going to reflect well on anybody who voted to deliver these big wins and these jobs for their communities. But I think that's just clear on its face from it being such good legislation.

QUESTION: I wanted to ask about the money for ports in the bill.

BUTTIGIEG: For what? Sorry.

QUESTION: The money for ports in the bill.

BUTTIGIEG: For ports, yes.

QUESTION: How will that help the supply chain issues that the U.S. is facing right now?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes.

QUESTION: I know that's something that you have said often when you're talking about the chain supply is helped.

BUTTIGIEG: Yes, let me offer a couple examples.

I mean, one is that we need to make sure our ports are as efficient as possible, right? And there are cases where more technology, sometimes physical technology around the berths, but, sometimes, it's more to do with the systems that help the different players talk to each other.

Remember, a port is not a single entity, right? You have got the port itself, which is kind of like a landlord. Then you got the terminal operators. Then you got the truckers, and all of them are interacting with competing shipping companies, right, to try to efficiently move these containers. They need to be able to exchange and share data. We will definitely want to support ways to do that.

So that's an example. Some of its multimodal. If you see a backup of ships at a port, it might actually be because it's something that's not so much on board the ships, but inland. That's why I was pointing that to example in Savannah, serving Savannah, where we have an inland port, so you can rush those containers out of that precious port space, and then sort them out, and then it'll be more efficient and more speedy.

So those are a couple examples. Let me point to one third thing, the idea of the Healthy Ports Initiative. So there are a lot of emissions around ports from the ships themselves, from the trucks, from the equipment. And right now one thing that is tough is the neighborhoods that are close to them feel that impact, including in increased asthma rates in what are, by the way, disproportionately black and Latino neighborhoods.

The Healthy Ports Initiative helps electrify them, so that you don't have to worry about the emissions. And to me that goes hand in hand with those efficiency gains that we're trying to drive.

QUESTION: I wanted to follow up also. You mentioned truckers.

BUTTIGIEG: Yes.

QUESTION: Have you thought at all about relaxing motor carrier regulations further to allow people 18 to 20 to participate and to be truck drivers? BUTTIGIEG: So I believe there's a provision in this legislation, yes,

exactly. But we have got to be very careful about safety.

And so the way that provision works is, it's a mentorship-type, apprenticeship-type of initiative that tries to manage the potential for there to be a safety tradeoff. We want as many people to be qualified drivers as possible, but never at the expense of safety. And we will always look at other steps we can take.

But let me mention, we have got to just make truck driving a better job. Truck drivers, there's reason the turnover is so high, and the way they're compensated, they're often not compensated for their time, which means that their time is wasted freely, sometimes when they're waiting for a load at a port, for example.

Truckers have not had the option to work from home on Zoom. They are the absolute backbone of a big part of our supply chain. We need to respect and, in my view, compensate them better than we have.

QUESTION: Thank you.

QUESTION: Thank you, Secretary Buttigieg.

President Biden said Americans will start seeing the effects of infrastructure build within two to three months. Is that also your assessment?

And just to follow-up on Jeff's question, can you provide a more detailed timeline of when specific programs will go into effect?

BUTTIGIEG: So, again, I would break it into the existing programs that we're just going to be able to plus up and then the new ones that we're going to have to stand up.

[13:25:02]

So, with something like INFRA, RAISE, I think that sees more than a twofold increase in the authorized funding. So, here you have -- and, by the way, they're not waiting on us in Washington to invent these construction projects, right? The communities are applying with them. And then we're just able to find that many more.

And we're already -- even though I'm going through the applications for this year's RAISE program now, we will in very short order be working on next year's. And you will see that notice go out.

But, again, some things, we need to stand up a whole new program, Safe Streets for All, Reconnecting Communities, Healthy Ports. And so that will take a little bit longer. Remember, this isn't 2009. This is an era where it's about making sure we hit every shovel-ready program to provide that immediate short-term boost for the economy. It's short- term, but it's long-term.

That's why the president talks about looking back on this moment from the 2050s.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Just to follow up on that, we were down in Mississippi talking to farmers who have had bridges closed down in their area two or three years. So when exactly can Americans expect to see a difference in their lives? Will it be two to three months or will it be sometime sooner?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, that's the beginning, right? I mean the short answer is as fast as many of these agencies and work forces can absorb those dollars when the formula increases or when a new grant is available.

So, some things soon, but again, this is about many, many years ahead, starting now.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: You can go first.

QUESTION: A quick follow-up on Jeff's question on, when you're reviewing the applications, do you have adequate staff at DOT to review all the applications? (OFF-MIKE) Then I have one more question.

BUTTIGIEG: Great question. Yes, but we're going to have to grow as well. And that's one of the things we have been working on is how to make sure we're staffed up properly and how to make sure we're organized properly.

And we're talking about, I believe, $660 billion over that stretch of years that we need to manage responsibly. Of course, there's an admin dimension of that to make sure that we have the right -- the right staffing, human power.

QUESTION: And in terms of the highway money that will go directly to states, is there something that you can do to encourage or to make sure that that money isn't used to just widen roads, encourage more people to drive?

Because I know that's been a concern of some of the progressives in the transportation community.

BUTTIGIEG: Right.

I mean, this is not just about adding. This is about being smarter in terms of how people move around. Now, the best way to allow people to move in ways that are better for congestion and better for climate is to give them alternatives.

So I know our transit funding doesn't sound like a highway policy, but, actually, part of what takes the pressure off the highways is this unprecedented historic funding for transit. Right.

Having said that, we're certainly -- when there's any discretion involved, so especially on the discretionary programs, we're going to think about what's really going to help solve the problem. Sometimes, you add lanes to a road, you just get that many more cars and you're no better off in terms of congestion or pollution. We're also interested in some of the performance measures that are

being contemplated as part of the second round. But with this legislation, we definitely have the tools to make a positive difference on that front.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, just getting forward to the next bit of legislation, the larger social safety net bill, the House version of that legislation includes family leave, paid family leave. The Senate has indicated it will be stripped out. It didn't make the president's framework a couple of weeks ago.

You just came off some family leave. I was hoping you could talk to you about the benefits of that, number one. And, then, number two, given your experience, do you think that should be a red line for the president keep that in there, so that all Americans have access to that (OFF-MIKE)

BUTTIGIEG: Well, the president put forward a framework that he's confident can pass the House and the Senate.

I think it's also no secret how I feel about family leave and how the president does, which is why he proposed it, I think campaigned on it, and will continue to fight for it.

And the importance of it is that it's not -- it's talked about as time off. It's time to do work, good work, joyful work, meaningful work, but at this time to do important work.

But let me also say, as a new parent, thinking about the difference that will be made by what's in the framework, the universal access to 3- and 4-year-old preschool, making child care affordable for families across the spectrum, that child tax credit, I mean, that's going to be huge, and it's going to make such a big difference for new parents.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Last question, John (ph).

QUESTION: Thank you.

Can we circle back to your other hat as supply chain czar?

On the trucker issue, the Teamsters have said these truckers should be treated like other stakeholders. Do you agree with that? Should they be able to unionize?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, as you know, we're very pro-union.

One of the things we're proud of is how this legislation will create more good-paying union jobs. And I think truckers who are unionized have more of those protections in terms of their health, in terms of their compensation. And that has a lot of benefits in terms of their effectiveness.

Look, but you have an industry with 90 percent turnover, 90 percent per-year turnover at the larger employers of truckers. There's clearly an issue with the quality of the job. And one tool for improving the quality that job is union representation.

QUESTION: But the administration has been silent on the Teamsters' specific call for this.

Do you -- so you're endorsing these -- the short-haul truck.