Inside Secretary Pete's quest to make the Transportation Department cool again
The former South Bend mayor has brought star power and loads of Twitter followers to the Transportation Department—what's next?
John McDonnell/The Washington Post via Getty Images
In his first weeks at the Transportation Department, Secretary Pete Buttigieg has sought to elevate what has long been viewed as a backwater Cabinet agency, bringing his unique brand to a job he never expected to land but that seems to be a good match for his Midwestern wonkishness.
“This was something that was part of my style on the campaign trail, and as mayor, although it was a smaller scale then,” Buttigieg told me in my first story for Insider today about his omnipresence on social and traditional media as a Cabinet secretary.
Ahead of his Oval Office meeting today with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and bipartisan House members to discuss infrastructure, here’s my look at Buttigieg’s early days in the office—as a well as :
Where he was when he got the call from Biden to be DOT Secretary
What the White House says about his high-profile media blitz
The voicemails he’s leaving DOT staffers
Inside his plans for official domestic and international travel once the pandemic subsides