New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who has less than two months left in office and has been touted as a potential presidential candidate in the next election, told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday that he doubts he will make such a run in 2020, but does not rule it out.
The show's co-host Willie Geist, after telling Landrieu that "You've heard from people at the national party that you'd be a pretty good-looking candidate to run for president someday," asked the Democrat if he has "plans beyond your time in office?"
Landrieu noted that he has been a public servant for 30 years — 16 as a legislator, six as a lieutenant governor, and eight as a mayor — and that he felt like it was time for him to "take a breath."
He conceded that he "can hear the noise about the presidential candidate, but they say the same thing to everybody they talk to, because everybody is so desperate to find a way out of the difficult situation that everybody knows that we're in. So, although you never say never in politics, it's really not something that I can foresee at the moment. The world can change dramatically, but I kind of doubt it."
Landrieu added that he contrasts the dysfunction of Washington D.C. with the relative cooperation that exists in cities throughout the nation.
"I recognize that we are divided on hot-button issues, but I see people coming together all the time," he said. "And this is what mayors of America have said, we don't get to govern ideologically. We have to fix problems and we have to resolve conflict," something that politicians in D.C. are not so good at.
Landrieu was on the show to promote his newly released book, "In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History."
One of the incidents that thrust Landrieu onto the national stage was when he gave a passionate speech last May about removing Confederate monuments in New Orleans.
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