Officials. The starts tonight 7 30 p. M. Eastern, find more information on your program guide. Hi, everyone. The assistant director of religious institute. On behalf of our dive team, thank you for being with us tonight. A nonprofit in your helping the others during these challenging times. Historically crowded race for the 2020 democratic president ial nomination it was difficult enough to track campaign promises. Much less the details of their personal lives. A notable inspection was former mayor of pete buttigieg, first openly gay man to run for president and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg. He became a household name, he one hour hearts with empathy, connection and relatability. He called him the twitter celebrity and is living the 2020 climate. Throughout the campaign, the more we got to know kasten, he is someone with his own story to tell. He does that in his memoir, i have something to tell you. With honesty, warmth and courage, he recounts his journey to embracing his true self beginning with rural michigan where he knew he was different from his father and brothers. He go on and work as a starbucks arista to have healthcare. He overcame obstacles and went on to become the middle school, teacher. Recently, a 29 years old, is the first ever, Public Schools and prioritizing Arts Education and Mental Health care. Hes joined in conversation tonight jonathan. Surprised winning journalist and columnist, hes also an msnbc contributor and host of the podcast where he talks challenging, race, religion and culture identity dividing and reuniting america. Later, lucy some of your questions. You can submit questions throughout the program hitting the q a button at the bottom of your screen. We are including a link to purchase their books. Thank you for joining us. Please welcome Chasten Buttigieg into your home. All right, hey. It is great to see you after all these months. How have you been . Oh. Did we lose him already . There you are. My phone said i was in safe driving mode. [laughter] rate. He didnt miss anything i only ask, it is great to see you again. How have you been . I have nothing to complain about. I am counting my blessings. I have a roof over my head and i love my job and now the book is out in the world so i am excited for conversation, it is nice to see people. How are you doing . First of all, lets get this out of the way. I am sick of your background. [laughter] is perfect and welcome to my kitchen. You know. Your kitchen is about the size of our bedroom so im not taking it from you, ten for ten. Yourself. The last time you and i saw each other was columbia, south carolina. February 29. I was interviewing you for podcast and little did i know a little more than 20 hours later, pete would drop out of the president ial race. I keep going back to the interview i did with you then as i was reading through the book because two things came to mind. The first one, he knew at that time the race would end . The second thing after reading your came through, its likely a minute, this sounds very familiar. We were testing for your book during that interview, were you not . I think maybe things i said on the campaign trail when the book is with the conversational tone to it. In the third section of the, really get into politics and the president ial campaign, probably just heard a lot of things are saying over and over again like a broken record but its all me. I want to the book to feel conversational, i would people to feel we are sitting down having a cup of coffee, and wanted to help them know what i was feeling in the moment and i found it helped me successful in the campaign trail. I felt who i should be and i found success in this. When i am myself, i am very op open, times very loud and i tried my best to always tell the truth. You and i were talking, i always want people to know what they are talking to me. I want to put up a facade of political jason. During the interview, both of your parents were there and as you wrote in your book, your father is always out there willing to help anybody, drop everything to help someone else, including me when my Landscaping Team at the hotel where we were doing interviews, he went out and got them to stop but im bringing them up because the first half of your book is about them and your upbringing in michigan. Talk about your parents. Who are terry and sherry . I loved writing about them. I hope theyre watching tonight. Their story is a story in itself. High School Sweethearts that emancipated himself in high school, walking across town, hugo school and go to the diner, the burgers and go home at night. Mom was using her tips from waitressing to buy new clothes, their story is beautiful. They fought so hard to give us everything that we deserved even when it was really hard a small family business, mom was working parttime at the hospital and there so loving and the thing i am most appreciative about is how my story to return when iran from home, convinced i would be an embarrassment, they called home and i think they are an example of hope that families can work things out, they can have those conversations because my parents didnt have any answers, they were terrified for me, they just wanted what was best for me and thats all they could tell me at the time. I count myself as a lucky one to have parents like that, continue to show up and wants to get it right on that, you read about my dad in the book, he was always playing pranks on me, always trying to teach me the hard way. My mom was loud and loving, do anything just like my father. When cancer 12 years but she still bakes zucchini bread and drops it off on peoples doorsteps when they are going through a tough time. Shes always doing things for other people. Id like to think maybe thats where i got some of my determination from. You mentioned your dad was is a prankster. I want you to talk to us about one of his pranks but i have to get there by talking about the fact that growing up you fish camp, talk about fish camp because that gets to one of the pranks i think your father pulled on you. Some of the signs were there i guess signs of what . That i was totally gay. [laughter] my brother always wanted i dont know, sports stuff for birthdays and i wanted the new britton spears album and they were out chopping wood doing things and bad and i were performing celine dion songs while my mom was folding laundry. The signs were there but. [laughter] for the folks who have seen me do this before, if you have your book, if you have i something to tell you, on page six, he writes at home, my older brothers were dads voice while one of my favorite taps times was singing celine dion songs to my mom while she folded laundry. I interrupted you, keep going. No, thats me. Still, hindsight, all the signs were there but i was also so hyper focused on blending in. Going to fish camp, always sticking my neck out wanting to be the best we are shooting guns and wanted to catch the biggest fish trying to impress my parents. We were in 4h and i thought the best way to impress people and i want people to examine my sexuality think about who i am so if i am the best at everything i do, i will impress them and that would be the only thing we talk about so i will when and make the honorable. Which dog is that . Its funny because i usually just sleep all day, now they are playing and sniffing everything, its always good to be about buddy. I was so focused on blending and, i didnt want anyone to think about who i was so i thought if i wanted everything they were doing i would be safe. One of the things you write about is speaking of you being butch, you love fishing. One of your brothers didnt like to date the hooks. He would get in there and touch her once or whatever and do all that stuff. I didnt have a problem with that. I still love fishing and i think it is funny oh my gosh, i think its funny about that. To do it well, you dont want the warmth coming off the hook. [laughter] okay. You learned something tonight. We can all go home now. On that, he writes fishing is where i excelled. I was great time, one of my brothers hated putting worms on the hook but i never minded getting my hands dirty. Lets help me excel working and being a burisma. The other think you did, you raised years . What was going on there . This is all fascinating to me. Your beef comes from sears. We were in 4h at my young age and i think i started with the work my way up and it is a great program. Peter and i went in unlike a quarter of last year with my family so you can talk to present homegrown meat. We have to keep records of everything we spent on the animal, we had to walk the animal every weekend, show it and talk about the different cuts of meat, it definitely was a lot of hard work. My dad made us go to the barn every sunday there a lot of life lessons to be learned but i thought if i was the best, one the trophies and people would be impressed with me and i would be safe from scrutiny or examination. Safe but that is not how it actually worked. I felt like at the time, the homophobe players were something that was just tossed around between the boys in the locker room in the hallways but i was scared they actually knew something about, i was not ready to name herself. It was a toxic environment and i think every boy was trying to figure out who they were and where it was pretty tough he. You, and high school, did you have any you didnt have any kind of crushes or boyfriends foresighted. Sure but boyfriends, that didnt happen in high school. No. It was unsafe you could not be out. I have fans who came out after high school and we didnt even talk about even in the safety of playing video games in the basement while mom is upstairs making dinner. We never talk about our feelings are sexuality, never felt safe to open up about it. It was just a fact that you could not be gay. You right in the book, about your high school, your time in high school, but the people were like in high school. One of the things you said, one of the things you wrote in the book was you went to a george w. Bush rally because in michigan, that was a star coming to town and one of the things you did was he put on, the name you gave your car, your moms car, put a w sticker on it. Why did you do that . Is a helpful outline. I felt like i went along with all of the things that seemed to be the status quo, the things most of the jocks who were comfortable with or talked about putting a w sticker on my car symbol of safety, its like im just like you, you know . Leave me alone, i will go along with whatever you want and it seemed like another way i could get admission to whatever group i needed to belong to. One thing you also write about is writing about high school time, in retrospect, noticing the number of Confederate Flags and symbols, he writes i wish i could say from an early age he fervently objected to the presence of the symbols but truth be told, i have no idea they meant. This was a beautiful line. I was swimming and i didnt even know i was wet talk more about that. I just grew up in a moment, nobody asked us to examine because thats how the system is structured. 99. 9 white here, nor the heavily white and i talked about in the how i didnt have a larger understanding of race in america until i moved to milwaukee and started closer, the only thing i was worried about in high school that i was thinking what was myself what other people are going to do with me i was in the book how we talk about the Confederate Flag rebutting a racist symbol it was sanctified blanco michigan unit was never about symbol to his that is many at least the one i grew up, thats the way it is structured. Right, is growing up in the System Design to keep me from questioning him symbols in the first place. Lets talk about germany. I need you to pronounce yes. Talk about the German Student Exchange program heard about it, apply to it without even telling their parents. You told them you wanted to get snow applied for it. Why was it so important to you to be part of it . Exchange program, it is a fully funded scholarship between the american and German Government. Starting in the late 80s to foster understanding crosscultural connections between the american German Government and students and when my teacher said fully funded, all bells went off because my parents would never have been able to afford send me on an exchange here but i knew never turning meeting scribbled on a signature where your parents was supposed to sign, probably my first big act of rebellion. [laughter] i know. When i got the call, i sort of brushed it off they just want to talk, it is just a thing then i got it and let me go and it changed my life. Even though it was, i had a lot of different host families, it was a weird process gave me the space i needed to understand who i was away from my family and my hometown i literally felt like iran to the opposite end of the world to become. He mentioned how you had a lot of host families in germany that first family introduction to them talk about that first introduction. Should we talk about it . [laughter] they pick you up and all of a sudden everybody is naked. Yeah. I had a language family for a little over a month and then they send you to your own family and they picked me up from the train station and took me home and they had a little cabin and said we are going to take you to the cabin, celebrate your arrival and before sitdown and have cake, lets go swimming. They all went swimming without clothes on. I realized i am a fish out of water right now. [laughter] trust me, you will love that part of the story. I dont want to give it away but germany changed her life. It was there you kissed a boy. Yes. I think i wrote in the book is probably that i had the confidence to kiss a boy but i have enough alcohol to have the confidence to kiss a boy. Then it was over and i did it and i realized i wanted to do it again and opened up a new world for me because i came from a place just told me whatever is happening inside of you is wrong, its broken. You are disgusting and i felt disgusting. Then i kissed a boy and i realized i didnt care that it was his custom because it made me feel alive and i found friends and i was able to talk my feelings within the confidence to go home and be myself. One of those friends, i think, not a host parent she was one of my closest friends in germany, sort of one of our ambassadors when he got there, she was a local student who showed up around town for liquid course and when i went through the camera with host families, she was my biggest supporter and she found another family willing to take me and for the remainder of the year and i read go to school with her and was finally able to have a friend i could open up to. She was also a great tutor because she would never let me speak english. So my german improved. How much longer after you returned from germany, back home to michigan did you come out to your parents . A couple of months. I could not i just felt like i was so afraid i was going back into my old ways, falling back into the community to belong to, i wanted to be myself and i felt like going home, i had to pretend again, it was right about the time College Classes were starting from august or so and i wrote the letter it was eating me alive. I just had to get out. So then whats the first . Did you confide in friends first or tell your parents first . I told some friends first until i worked up the courage to tell my family. Some friends told me they would be there for me and it didnt go well. You write about this and talk about this both in profile and other places, you didnt verbally tell your family, your parents, you wrote a letter that you and to your mother, do you remember what you wrote a letter . No. I remember handing it to her, crying, drawing some thanks, there was some back and forth i dont member and i dont know if i am ready to look at. Remember asking you in february, you said you didnt remember you have in the book you didnt remember. When you think you might be ready to look at that letter you wrote . I didnt know my mom saved it until a couple of months ago told me because she heard me tell the story a lot and she said you know, i think that letter. But i dont want to read it yet. One of the things you did after you handed her the letter, she read it and you said there was some back and forth, you left. Why did you leave . Its not like you and said get out, they never told you to leave but you left, why . I was convinced i heard so many people say things about people just the darkness that was hiding in my head just told me you will ruin everything, he will embarrass the family, your friends, people will not be associated with you. This was shortly after the time shepherd and i was scared some family operated in unsafe for me and there were so many things telling me to get out, just go away. Not just for my safety but the dignity of my own. You said you embarrass them. Yes. So home, said earlier you made arrangements so if things arrived, youd have a place to go. You didnt go to a friends home, how long did you stay with a friend . She was in graduate school and i felt like i was in the way sometimes i would stay and other friends houses. Sometimes it would get really dark. The dark and i had and i would just think an embarrassment to my family, a brother to my friends and i would find a place to park my car and get away from everybody. But it was a couple of months until mom called me and asked me to come home. Lives in your car, stretch for was every so often and sleep in your car, your card . It was every so often when it seemed like i was in a position, in the way of other people, try to find a place far away. I would disappear for a little bit. Your mom called and says come home. When we went home, how are things pretty wrong. I was assaulted, i was working fulltime at the hospital, going to class fulltime and i was so tired and felt to have your parents call you say come home, we love you, youre going to figure this out, the scary part was they didnt have any answers. They had no idea what it meant, they just knew it was going to get to sleep in my own the something and it meant when she called, i drove right home. Another time of money, a little when people read it, you might hearing a mens preacher from afar, on page 79 i have no idea why douglas and hard because you talk about them, through the men. I forget who it was with what they said you really believe all men are terrible . No, that is not what thats about. Day . The whole thing telling youre having a drink with your friends, the men. I am not anti man. [laughter] obviously. [laughter] okay, im laughing but i have to stop person you talk about is very serious, that is mark. Mark, as you write, seems to know everyone, mark was like shania twain song. I know shania twain is but for those watching, is there a particular song he was like . I say problem, it really impressed me very much. If you dont know who shania twain is, thats okay, that part is not for you. Keep readin