The 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana speaks out about his $7 million fundraising haul and the obstacles ahead of him still in the presidential race, in an interview Thursday morning with ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "Good Morning America."



Stephanopoulos asked Buttigieg about an essay he wrote in high school praising Bernie Sanders for standing by his "socialist" convictions.





"What I was praising Sen. Sanders for was being honest about what he believed," Buttigieg explained. "And I think we need more of that. Talk about going into the past, the president is adopting a tactic that takes us baaing to the darkest days of the 1950s when you could use the word 'socialist' to kill somebody’s career or to kill an idea. But that trick has been tried so many times that I think it is losing all meaning."



"The Affordable Care Act was a conservative idea that Democrats borrowed and they called that socialist, so it’s like the boy who cried wolf," Buttigieg added. "It’s lost all power especially for my generation of voters. Folks just want to know whether an idea is a good idea or not, and slapping a label on it, especially in a careless way that doesn't really make sense -- I don't think it moves the debate."



"We're at a way to serious of a moment in the life of this country to be taken in by this attempt to basically, cast a spell, using a word to shut down debate. We need real solutions for profound change is society, politics, and our economy, and that's what I think 2020 is going to be about," he continued.