Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg says Americans should not be honoring Thomas Jefferson by naming some events after the founding father.

The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was on “The Hugh Hewitt Show” Friday and said he believes removing — not celebrating — Jefferson is “the right thing to do.”

The subject came up when Buttigieg was asked about the name of the annual Indiana Democratic dinner that used to commemorate the statues of Jefferson and Andrew Jackson within the party, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

“Well, let’s go to policy now—a very blunt question because you talk about going to every Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Indiana when you were running statewide. Should Jefferson-Jackson dinners be renamed everywhere because both were holders of slaves?” Hewitt asked. (RELATED: Pete Buttigieg Says America Was Never That Great)

“Yeah, we’re doing that in Indiana. I think it’s the right thing to do,” Buttigieg said. “Over time, you develop and evolve on the things you choose to honor … Jefferson is more problematic. There’s a lot of course to admire in his thinking and his philosophy, but then again if you plunge into his writings, especially the notes on the state of Virginia, you know that he knew slavery was wrong.”

Buttigieg acknowledged that “we are all morally conflicted human beings” and said he doesn’t think Jefferson should be airbrushed from history, but he believes commemorating the author of the Declaration of Independence is something else. (RELATED: Buttigieg Doubts That Trump Believes In God)

“The real reason I think there is a lot of this is the relationship between the past and present that we’re finding in a million different ways that racism isn’t some curiosity out of the past that we’re embarrassed about but moved on from,” Buttigieg said.

Activists have argued for the removal of Confederate monuments and cities like New Orleans.

One high school is considering removing a “traumatizing” mural that contains George Washington’s likeness.

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