Pete Buttigieg returns to Iowa on Tuesday for an event focused on veterans, six years after he burst onto the national political stage with a strong run ahead of the state's leadoff presidential caucuses.
Buttigieg, a former intelligence officer in the Navy Reserves who served in Afghanistan, will headline a town hall in Cedar Rapids sponsored by the Democratic political organization VoteVets, which is focusing on President Donald Trump's cuts to federal agencies and how they affect veterans and military families.
While the 43-year-old former transportation secretary has not confirmed he will make a second White House run, he has tangled with Trump online and has spoken out about changes he wants to see in the Democratic Party.
Opposition to the Republican president "has to travel with a clearer picture of what we are actually for," Buttigieg said during a recent interview with former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki on MSNBC.
"That needs to be as clear a picture as our response to the authoritarian tendencies of this administration," he said. "We would not be in this situation if the government, the economy and the politics of our country were healthy. They've been unhealthy for a long time."