Mayor Pete calls out ‘so-called conservative Christian senators’ for taunting God

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg provided a Bible lesson for Republican senators during the second round of Democratic debates on CNN.

"Mayor Buttigieg, on Thursday of this week a GM plant in Michigan will stop production. The latest auto plant to cease operations in the midwest. As part of company's modernization plans, which will result in 6,000 hourly workers losing jobs or being reassigned to other plants. What is your plan for retraining workers whose jobs are at risk?" moderator Don Lemon asked.

"This happened in my community, 20 years before I was born and when I was growing up we were picking up the pieces. Empty factories and houses. Poverty," he said. "I know what happens to a community when the closures take place and there will be more."

It’s why we need to put the interest of workers first. Of course we need to do retraining. We’re doing it now in South Bend.

This is so much bigger than a trade fight, this is about a moment when the economy is changing before our eyes," he explained. "There are people in gig-economy who go through more jobs in a week than my parents went through in the lifetime. It’s where I proposed we allow gig workers to unionize, because a gig is a job and a worker is a worker."

"Some of it is low-tech too, like the minimum wage is too low. So-called conservative Christian senators right now in the Senate are blocking a bill to raise the minimum wage when scripture says that whoever oppresses the poor taunts their maker," Buttigieg reminded.

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